If we want to keep talking about student agency, we should stop talking about pedagogy and start talking about andragogy.
andragogy:
“Andragogy was developed into a theory of adult education by the American educator Malcolm Knowles.
Knowles’ theory can be stated with six assumptions related to motivation of adult learning:
1. Adults need to know the reason for learning something (Need to Know).
2. Experience (including error) provides the basis for learning activities (Foundation).
3. Adults need to be responsible for their decisions on education; involvement in the planning and evaluation of their instruction (Self-concept).
4. Adults are most interested in learning subjects having immediate relevance to their work and/or personal lives (Readiness).
5. Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented (Orientation).
6. Adults respond better to internal versus external motivators (Motivation).
The term has been used by some to allow discussion of contrast between self-directed and ‘taught’ education.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andragogy)
here’s a link to a clarification:
http://www-distance.syr.edu/andraggy.html
here’s what I think:
There has been much talk in academia (where so far I am still employed) about “student agency.” We are not, I assume, talking about the travel agency for students, but rather about a way of bringing the paradigm of globally connected learning in the ‘information age’ into the academy as part of a method of enabling students to design their own learning environment.
We see them on their smart phones, with little encyclopedias in their hands. We know that is just a matter of time before they have information kiosks implanted in their brains. All they (and we) have to do is point and click and the facts are at our fingertips. (We – and they – envision a time, even long for a time when the pointing and clicking will be as virtual as the ether that delivers the net. We’ve all seen The Matrix.)
But sometimes the information is just wrong.
We need to give them the tools of critical thinking so that they can test their own realities. And we must remember to do this testing ourselves.
Here’s one wrong thing: that a student in a college is in any real way “a child.” Make all the jokes about ‘sophomoric’ you want, but these are young adults. The youth factor is enviable. The mind is flexible and expandable. The habits of thought are not yet formed, not yet trodden into ruts of perception, not yet ideologues on a leash of dogma. We have made them ‘sophomoric’ by throwing them into arcana over their heads. They try things out and, to the degree that they respect us, they ape us. We call them ‘sophomoric’ because they have not yet fully digested (or – we might say – owned) the material. They’re just seeing what it feels like to say, trying it out on their bodies, getting it out into the open and taking it out for a spin. And we are flattered. Because if they don’t ape us, they don’t respect us.
We should let go of seeking out this respect. Because that is what it means to give them agency. There andragogic imperatives that must be expressed in lieu of being sages on stages, the keepers of the flame (which we may or may not be). Start by expressing the vital importance of the knowledge. It may not even need to be said. Live it and share it with every breath. Expose the folly and glory of one’s own experience. Also expose the folly and glory of exposing it. Let them involve themselves in the path they take. (This is ‘student agency’ as a menu, but make no assumptions about the necessity of a ‘balanced diet.) Is the topic relevant to them (or to anyone)? Is the knowledge they seek, and we still seek, of vital, national, human, global interest? If not, let us discover together why not. Serious problems have arisen and will continue to arise. Solving them not only leads to knowing, it is knowing. We do this because we must. We all do it, as adults, all the time.
I’m just saying we should talk about it. Skip the nattering. Admit that the outcomes are not measurable. Not now, not yet, maybe never.