C34 (Application): Agency and Action

by Lu Gerlach

Welcome to the third and final episode of our application series.  If you haven't had a chance to apply your learning of the learner profile and international mindedness, I'd suggest you do so before moving forward.  It's a great chance for you to synthesize and apply your understanding of the big ideas to your school/ unit context.  This is our ultimate goal with any professional development to make meaningful application to what we are already doing. 

As we know, agency and action take up a lot of space in our practice within the PYP.  They shape everything we do, so we need to take time to apply their role into our practice.  

Take a look at the table below to remind yourself of their role. 

Choices, Choices, Choices

Let's use this strategy to help us take a deeper look at how to use agency and action more readily in our practice. 

• Look at the choices I have presented to demonstrate agency and action.  Which ones do you think you can implement right away?  Which ones for the remainder of the school year or beginning of the next one, depending on where you live? 

 

• Look again at your choices.  Which ones do you not have listed that you would like to explore, but you don't quite know where to start?  These are the ones that will yield the biggest fruit. 

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• Take a moment to brainstorm ways that you can break down these unexplored choices into bite-size chunks.  

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• ​Now, take these ideas back to your team and share your honest feedback.  As a team, decide which pieces will be the next step in your action plan and annotate them in your PYP unit planner. Our goal is tangible application.

​Let’s take look at an example for those who might need a bit more inspiration

Step 1: 

• Implement right away:  Types of Actions (Level 2).  I just need to introduce each of them to my students and provide concrete examples and images to guide their thinking.  This needs to be present daily in my physical or virtual learning setting.

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• Implement the second half of the school year (northern hemisphere):  Collaboration (Agency Overall).  This will take some time to figure out within a hybrid/ virtual learning situation, because I’m still learning how to navigate meeting rooms and small group projects online. 

Step 2: 

• Harder, but better choice:  A Variety of Ways to Express Voice (art, video, blog, etc.).  Allowing students to express their ideas and findings through a wider range of platforms taps into personal learning styles and will transfer skills to future situations. 

Step 3: 

• Brainstorm with my students different ways they would like to express their understanding of big ideas​

• Have students work in small groups to research and apply a strategy and teach it to the class.  (For example:  have a group learn how to create a Powtoon and share the process with the class)

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• At milestones within the unit, allow students to choose from the pool of strategies, which one they think best fits the task and situation

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• Ask students to reflect on the process and identify what worked and needs to be modified in the future. 

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• Repeat this process throughout the unit and regularly reflect which tools work better than others; add more strategies to the toolkit to keep students engaged

Step 4: 

​It’s only a great idea on paper until I share it with my team.  This will put it into action.

Final Thoughts
Something that came to my mind after our agency and action series.  We live in a world of endless choices: what career we will choose, what colleges we want to attend, which cities we want to live in, and so forth.  If we don’t get students to practice with making choices at a young age, they will struggle greatly to make informed choices when it truly matters.  

The last three episodes have been focused on applying our knowledge and understanding into our practice.  This is so important if we want to make lasting change and grow in our practice.  Reflection and application are never easy, because they often require us to change.  As we know, change can be scary and daunting at times.  My goal has been to get the dialogue started, so it’s easier for you to approach your team with tangible suggestions for improvement. 

See you in the next episode and hold on to that passion!