Recently, I’ve been trying my hand at leading workshops to help educators along their journey to respect and support student agency. One element of my workshop is providing educators with self reflection tools to help them identify parts of their practice that are already agency-supportive and also to illuminate areas in their practice where there is space for more student agency.
Here is a questionnaire I created with that purpose in mind:
(Click here for a printable copy)
Agency Self-Reflection Tool
Without judgement, honestly and critically reflect on the following questions.
Beginning of the Year
1. How involved were your students in setting up their learning space? (desks, shelves, bulletin boards, classroom libraries, manipulatives, resources etc.)
- Not at all
- Slightly involved
- Very involved
- Students had full ownership
2.How involved were your students in establishing class systems and routines at the beginning of the year? (attention getters, tidy-up routines, etc.)
- Not at all
- Slightly involved
- Very involved
- Students had full ownership
3. How involved were your students in establishing their rights and responsibilities (or essential agreements?)
- Not at all
- Slightly involved
- Very involved
- Students had full ownership
Day to Day Voice and Choice
4. How much voice and choice do your students have in where they learn? (desk, floor, cushion, hallway, library etc.)
- None
- Some
- A lot
- Full control
5. How much voice and choice do your students have in who they learn with? (partners, groups, etc.)
- None
- Some
- A lot
- Full control
6. How much voice and choice do your students have in how they learn? (lesson, video, reading, listening, experimenting, peer-to-peer, play etc.)
- None
- Some
- A lot
- Full control
7. How much voice and choice do your students have in when they learn? (Which day, which period, for how long, how often etc.)
- None
- Some
- A lot
- Full control
8. How much voice and choice do your students have in what they learn? (content, skills, concepts, topics, etc.)
- None
- Some
- A lot
- Full control
Planning, Assessing and Reporting Their Learning
9. How involved are your students in planning their units?
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- Very
- Complete ownership of this process
10. How involved are your students in choosing, gathering and sharing the resources they use to learn? (videos, books, podcasts, manipulatives, experts etc.)
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- Very
- Complete ownership of this process
11. How involved are your students in choosing how they organize their learning? (notebooks, Google Docs, Evernote ,Google Slides, notes, diagrams, sketches etc.)
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- Very
- Complete ownership of this process
12. How involved are your students in choosing how they share their learning? (presentation, story, podcast, blog, video, vlog, etc.)
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- Very
- Complete ownership of this process
13. How involved are your students in assessing their own learning? (pre-assessment, diagnostic, formative, summative etc.)
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- Very
- Complete ownership of this process
14. How involved are your students in the process of feedback (when, from whom, about what, how often etc.)
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- Very
- Complete ownership of this process
15. How involved are your students in evaluating their learning? (grades, spectrums, letters, numbers, etc.)
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- Very
- Complete ownership of this process
16. How involved are your students in formally reporting their learning? (report cards, evaluations of learning, progress reports etc.)
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- Very
- Complete ownership of this process
17. How involved are your students in conferences involving parents
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- Very
- Complete ownership of this process
Other:
18. How comfortable would your students be to disagree with you?
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- Very
- Completely comfortable
19. How comfortable would your students be to make changes to the physical learning space?
- They would not think they could make changes
- They would ask permission to make a change
- They would notify me they were going to make a change
- They would just make the change
20. When your students need to take care of physical needs (going to the bathroom, eating, drinking, visiting the clinic etc.) they are most likely to:
- Not do anything, the know they are not allowed during my class
- Ask permission (May I please go to…)
- Notify you (I am going to…)
- Just do it
21. How often do you ask your students for their feedback (about you, your teaching, how they feel in your class, suggestions for improvement etc.)
- Never
- Once year
- A few times a year
- Regularly
Obviously, this questionnaire reflects my thoughts, opinions and beliefs about student agency – but with that also comes my biases, blind spots and misconceptions too. And posts like this demonstrate how much stronger we are when we share ideas, challenge each other and push one another’s thinking forward.
So, I’d like to know what you think…
What would you add, change or remove?
What’s missing, that’s essential to empowering students to be in the driver’s seat?
What’s included that’s redundant, misleading or unnecessary?
How could I make it more inclusive for all educators, regardless of the age or subject they teach and the system they work in?
How could I adapt it for leaders to reflect on how they respect and support the agency of the teachers they work with?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts…
Making Good Humans 
I think it is a great start for us to reflect on our beliefs, but even more important to survey the students on their thoughts on this, as the perspectives may be different. Thanks for this great start!
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Thanks for sharing Taryn, you are so generous with your time and resources! I love many of the questions and can see how systematic you have been in your thinking. I would probably tease out the assessment questions and start using the words monitoring, documenting, measuring and reporting. So: How involved are your students in monitoring and documenting their learning? In what ways are students involved in co-constructing success criteria? In what ways are students aware of learning goals? In what ways are students involved in reporting practices?
I also wonder if we need a question that digs a little deeper into our image of the child….. something along the lines of ‘to what extend did you as a child have a degree of influence in your life, in your learning etc….
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I’m worried about what teachers “leave out” or assume students are able to do when introducing student agency – the skills that students need to be able to understand and do all of the items above effectively. What is lost when a teacher hands it all over to the students? What is the give and take there? What skills need to be learned in order to know what they “need”?
Just some wonderings I’ve been having as a “newbie” to student agency.
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