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Week 14 - Digital: Agency and engagement

Student Agency
Martin (2004, p. 135) characterises agency as "the capability of individual human beings to make choices and act on these choices in a way that makes a difference in their lives”. However, although we might believe that the most transformative learning comes from the learner’s own agency, Lindgren and McDaniel (2012, p.346) underline that “giving students the sense that they have control and the power to affect their own learning is one of the great challenges of contemporary education”.
Tim's To-Do List
In Tim Gander's video (in this week's in-class media), he talks about his to-do list for creating student agency based on his experience working with his own school students prior to joining The Mind Lab.
  • Creating an online learning community and shared meaning for agency
  • Defining the barriers
  • Problem solving how to work around those
  • 20%-25% time for personal projects (from Google)
  • Hacking the internal NCEA assessment standards
  • Using collaborative digital tools
  • Creating a flow chart for the (4) modules
  • Constraints and scaffolding
  • Iterate...
Classroom Focused Agency
A classroom focused interpretation of agency “emphasizes students’ active engagement within richly furnished curricular settings with the support of teachers who encourage student risk-taking and active, self-directed experimentation with the alternative possibilities available in such settings” (p. 144). (Martin, J: 2004) - put in my essay!
Whānau Agency
The concept of whānau provides the school with a synergy, enabling students, teachers, family and community members to assume a degree of agency over education, to articulate their aspirations, and to develop their capabilities together (Smith, 1995).
Teacher Agency
Re-emphasising the teacher role as central to creating the learning environment - through designing rich tasks capable of facilitating higher order thinking and learning - could help recover the teacher’s sense of agency. (Kimber, Pillay & Richards, 2002). 
In class, we'll ideate how what new opportunities do digital and collaborative tools present for student, whānau and teacher agency.
Kahoot! Pedagogy
In this week's session we included a Kahoot! quiz. Tools such as Kahoot! and Quizizz are designed to be gamified and engaging. According to Icard (2014), students should be enticed by the competitive nature of the game if it is going to be a valuable learning experience for the students. They benefit from using digital games in the classroom by learning how to handle success and failure as well as how to use critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
After the Kahppt! we'll reflect were you engaged when playing it? If so, how do you know? And what is engagement? 
Engagement
Fredericks, Blumenfeld and Paris (2004) proposed a framework for considering engagement that distinguishes between cognitive, behavioural and emotional engagement. It is important to clarify the scope of the term ‘engagement’. Policy discussion has long focused on the negative consequences of disengagement, such as school dropout, and clear behavioural indicators, such as absenteeism and disruptive classroom behaviour. This often overlooks the complexity of engagement, especially the cognitive engagement of students who may be otherwise attending class and behaving well. A short paper form the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (2016) gives an interesting viewpoint and summary about those three types of engagement in schools - what does engagement mean and how can you measure it?
Shernoff (2013) states that engagement always connotes a relationship, one of involvement to something, and defines it as a heightened, simultaneous experience of concentration, interest, and enjoyment in the task at hand. His definition does not mention school, but refers to engagement in general.
Research indicates that meaningful engagement is composed of academic intensity and a positive emotional response. These can be fostered through clear goals and high expectations for performance, with complex tasks found to be relevant to students’ lives and the community at large.
Engagement and Flow
Definitions of engagement seem to resonate with the concept of flow experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) that we looked at in the context of games. Although the nature of schoolwork can vary, the ideal state of engagement could perhaps be attained in active learning tasks that can support flow. Creating meaningful engagement requires attention to a variety of contextual, instructional, developmental, and interpersonal factors beyond the preoccupation with narrowly defined educational outcomes.
Flow and engagement can be contagious, having the potential to cross over from teacher to student, student to teacher, and permeate an entire group participating in a shared activity. New technologies may also help us to engage students.
References
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2016). Engagement in Australian schools. Retrieved from http://www.acleadersresource.sa.edu.au/features/engagement-in-learning/workshop-1/Handout_4_Engagement_in_Australian_Schools.pdf
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: Harper & Row. 
Fredericks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C. & Paris, A. H. (2004). School Engagement: Potential of the Concept, State of the Evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74(1), 59-109.
Icard, S. B. (2014). Educational technology best practices. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning. 11(3), 37-41. Retrieved from http://itdl.org/Journal/Mar_14/Mar14.pdf#page=41
Kimber, K., Pillay, H., & Richards, C. (2002). Reclaiming teacher agency in a student-centred digital world. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 30(2), 155-167.
Lindgren, R., & McDaniel, R. (2012). Transforming Online Learning through Narrative and Student Agency. Educational Technology & Society, 15(4), 344–355.
Martin, J. (2004). Self-Regulated Learning, Social Cognitive Theory, and Agency. Educational Psychologist, 39(2), 135-145.
Shernoff, D. (Ed. 2013). Optimal Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement (Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development). Dordrecht: Springer.
Smith, G. (1995). Whakaoho Whānau: New Formations of Whānau as an Innovative Intervention into Māori Cultural and Educational Crises. He Pukenga Korero, 1(1), 18–36.

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