Exploring Teacher Agency
What we need to know about teacher agency and its relation to curriculum
Priestley, Biesta, Philippou, and Robinson’s (2016) article describes teacher agency as something that the teacher does not possess, but instead as something that is achieved.
The article also shows that a teacher is central to the learning process and the teacher’s presence plays an important role in the school.
However, sometimes policy and curriculum limit teacher agency by imposing rigid implementations, causing teachers to lose their capacity to innovate within the classroom.
Learning from the curriculum reform that happened in the Netherlands, the curriculum should provide room for all teachers to develop and adapt the learning materials in accordance with their own teaching context. It means a curriculum should be flexible and only provide guidelines, while teachers focus on how to execute them specifically.
The adaptation conducted by the teacher in teaching and assessing student’s performance is crucial to ensure that the learning objectives could still be achieved without posing any disadvantageous to the learners. For example, the teacher shall consider selecting learning material or activity that can be accessed by all the students from any economic or social background to address the socio-economic gap that might occur (Priestley et al., 2016, p.12).
On the other hand, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment should be designed to provide room for teachers to embed their personal knowledge and experiences into the learning process. However, it is certainly a huge responsibility for every teacher and the drawback is that some teachers may not have such expected competence.
In some countries, a curriculum provides teachers with guidelines of how to deliver the learning materials, allowing teachers to implement learning activity under the teacher’s discretion as long as the learning activity could achieve the learning objectives as set out in the curriculum.
Nevertheless, some teachers refuse the recommended teaching guidelines and keep practicing the old teaching style which is not listed in the guidelines. This kind of action prevents the students from getting a better learning experience and hinders the class to achieve the actual learning objectives.
Ewing’s (2013) article describes that curriculum adaptation into the classroom entirely depends on how teachers perceive what learning is and how it should be. This idea connects with Brady’s (2011) definition of teaching as a values-laden notion, meaning the teacher’s choice of one particular learning model is heavily influenced by the teacher’s state of mind that favors one model over another.
Thus, the curriculum developer and teacher shall work hand in hand to ensure the students’ needs are accommodated through a planned teaching and learning process.
What do teachers and curriculum developers need to consider?
Trust, a supportive classroom, and a quality learning environment will lead to the high engagement of the students. Student engagement is crucial because it shows whether the student learns on the surface or deep level.
Weimer (2002) suggests that to increase students’ engagement, a teacher may reduce control by establishing parameters within which students may choose how they will achieve the parameters.
This idea can be manifested through providing explicit quality performance criteria, sharing responsibilities and intellectual control with students, and fostering student’s self-regulation. In reality, teachers can implement this model by establishing vivid learning parameters and allow the students to be creative in accomplishing the learning goals.
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