Learner agency develops over time through the use of explicit and intentional instructional moves that support students’ use of evidence. Just as in any other learning, the instructional practices used to teach students to develop self-regulation skills will need to be targeted to appropriately support students at each stage of learning. These resources offer reflections from teachers in WestEd’s Student Agency in Learning and Video Study courses, based on their descriptions of what they noticed about the shifts in how they and their students engaged as they developed skills of agency in formative assessment.
Noticing Student Actions: From Compliance to Agency
This table, developed through analysis of teacher reflections, captures students’ shift in behaviors as they engaged with evidence-usage through daily routines, including peer feedback, self-assessment and discourse.
Targeting Instructional Moves to Support Student Agency
This table outlines teacher strategies of intentional instructional routines used to support students at each stage of learning, from compliant learners, to engaged learners, to demonstrating agency during learning.
Formative Assessment Arc of Student Learning
Students develop new strategies and approaches to learning through daily formative assessment routines. This table captures teacher reflections describing this shift, used to support teachers new to formative assessment.
Arc of Learning: Student and Teacher Quotes
This resource shows student and teacher quotes on a continuum from beginner to advanced practice, and the model is a tool to deepen teachers’ fluency for noticing emerging skills of agency in their classrooms.
Teacher Reflections on Shifts in Practice and Mindsets
This post originally appeared on the Getting Smart website, it captures the reflections of three teachers in their first year of learning and applying formative assessment.
Hilary Johannes’ Formative Assessment Learning Journey
An article by a teacher in her 4th year of learning formative assessment. She explores changes in her own role, shifts in the classroom learning culture, and how students deepened their academic identity and agency.
Formative Assessment Shifts: Teacher Quotes
Teacher quotes that document important changes in teachers’ instructional routines, mindsets, and beliefs about student learning. Share this sample, and create your own set of quotes to document teacher learning.