Learning Forward and the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) recently released a white paper on the role that teacher agency plays in creating successful professional learning opportunities. The white paper, Moving from Compliance to Agency: What Teachers Need to Make Professional Learning Work, defines teacher agency as “the capacity of teachers to act purposefully and constructively to direct their professional growth and contribute to the growth of their colleagues.”
The degree to which a teacher acts with agency in professional learning depends on a number of factors including both a teacher’s internal traits as well as a school’s structural conditions for professional learning. The research conducted surfaced the conditions that must be in place to encourage teacher agency.
They are:
- Systems that tap into teachers’ intrinsic motivations – Instead of sitting in generalized professional development sessions, teachers long for opportunities to choose strategies that they can adapt for their own growth and to help their students learn.
- Districts that abandon structures and traditions that don’t serve learning – Major changes at the school system level are required. These include hiring principals who believe in professional learning and teacher agency; sharing decision making about professional learning; and ending programs and job descriptions that don’t meet teachers’ learning needs.
- Education leaders who attend to the forest and the trees through system-teacher alignment – Utilizing strategies that balance system needs with individual needs.
- Schools and systems that treat teachers as allies – Principals and system leaders have to engage with teachers differently. When system leaders treat teachers as allies and respect their expertise and opinions in education decision making, then school systems will be more likely to achieve their common goals.
Seven Strategies to Incorporate Teacher Agency
Teacher agency is not a one-size-fits-all program, the report notes, but there are seven key strategies that are broad enough to be customized for local learning needs. District and school leaders can adapt the following strategies within the context of their schools and communities to improve teacher agency in their professional learning systems.
1. Make all professional learning decisions only in serious consultation with teachers and principals. Ensure at least 50% teacher representation on school and district teams that are responsible for every stage of decision making from planning and data analysis to design, implementation, and evaluation.
2. Rethink organization of the school day so that educators have time to meet regularly to collaborate with colleagues to improve teaching and learning.
3. Involve and support teachers in analyzing data and identifying teaching and learning challenges.
4. Establish learning communities where educators solve problems of practice and share responsibility for colleague and student success.
5. Give teachers choices regarding their professional learning, including who they work with and where they focus their learning.
6. Ensure that professional learning is for the purpose of continuous growth, not evaluation.
7. Resist the temptation to “scale up” or mandate a particular form of professional learning without thoroughly examining the context in which it will be implemented. Understand that learners must want to improve their practice and see how the learning opportunity will help them do so.
The white paper features districts that changed their professional development after teachers were given a voice to share what type of learning they needed.
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