Practicing the Rhythms of an International Doctoral Student’s Life through Compassion, Connection, Commitment and Creativity: Enactment of Learner Agency

International doctoral students live with more uncertainty than most academic populations. In this essay, I attempt to provide a framework for living an international doctoral life by reflecting on my academic studies and personal living practices, drawing on van Lier’s (2008) notion of learner agency. Living a rhythm of life through compassion, connection, commitment, and creativity could holistically benefit the academic studies and wellbeing of international doctoral students.

Reflections on the 7th RILAE LAb Session

This paper reports on the 7th LAb Session hosted online by the Research Institute for Learner Autonomy Education (RILAE) on December 3rd, 2021. This LAb session featured 19 presenters, including three invited speakers, from 8 different countries to explore the concepts of autonomy and learner agency. The presenters shared short summaries of research, theoretical conceptualisations and descriptions of practice centered around the theme. Pre-recorded sessions were made available to attendees the day prior, while the live sessions were broken into a morning and afternoon session. This article provides a broad summary of the presentations and my reflections as a first-time co-organiser

“The SALC is mine!”: Supporting the Development of Learner Agency and Reconfiguration of Language Learning Environments Beyond the Classroom

This study explores the process of how a learner recognises the value of a Self-Access Learning Center (SALC) and takes charge of her own learning through self-reflection of her language learning environments beyond the classroom as well as her ideal future self-image as a motivational factor. A university student who majors in English drew a mind map as a tool to reflect on her learning activities beyond the classroom before and after engaging in various reflective activities. Employing a qualitative narrative case study approach, multiple data sources, which included two mind maps, written descriptions of them, and a follow-up semi-structured interview, were analysed from an ecological perspective. The findings show that the learner’s self-reflection on her learning environments beyond the classroom, as well as her stronger image of ideal future-self, guided her to step forward to take action to engage with the SALC to create a meaningful space to achieve her goals. The learner’s self-reflection on her engagement with the environments, strategic advice from her friends, and a clearer image of her ideal future self are seen as key factors for the development of her learner agency. The benefits of teachers including self-reflection during class time on learning beyond the classroom as an aid to develop learner agency are also outlined.

We All Ascend Together: A teacher-oriented exploration into the affordances and limitations to developing learner agency in years 4-8 Aotearoa/New Zealand classrooms.

<p>Educators and researchers agree that developing learner agency is necessary to ensure learners are prepared for a changing future. However, learner agency is not widely embedded across schools. This qualitative study identifies the key affordances and challenges of embedding learner agency from the perspective of six Aotearoa/New Zealand primary school teachers. Through semi-structured interviews and thematising of data, teachers identified what impacted their development of learner agency within their schools. Results revealed that learner agency is both afforded and challenged when stakeholders’ (leaders, teachers, learners and whānau) beliefs in learner agency are established and when there is a shared understanding of the practices required to ensure learner agency development. From there, active, powerful and reciprocal partnerships must be established between all stakeholders. Finally, all stakeholders’ roles must be positioned where power is shared. The role of leadership was especially highlighted as a key affordance and challenge to developing learner agency. It is through leadership focus and prioritising of time, resources and professional learning that practices supporting learner agency are advanced.</p>

We All Ascend Together: A teacher-oriented exploration into the affordances and limitations to developing learner agency in years 4-8 Aotearoa/New Zealand classrooms.

<p>Educators and researchers agree that developing learner agency is necessary to ensure learners are prepared for a changing future. However, learner agency is not widely embedded across schools. This qualitative study identifies the key affordances and challenges of embedding learner agency from the perspective of six Aotearoa/New Zealand primary school teachers. Through semi-structured interviews and thematising of data, teachers identified what impacted their development of learner agency within their schools. Results revealed that learner agency is both afforded and challenged when stakeholders’ (leaders, teachers, learners and whānau) beliefs in learner agency are established and when there is a shared understanding of the practices required to ensure learner agency development. From there, active, powerful and reciprocal partnerships must be established between all stakeholders. Finally, all stakeholders’ roles must be positioned where power is shared. The role of leadership was especially highlighted as a key affordance and challenge to developing learner agency. It is through leadership focus and prioritising of time, resources and professional learning that practices supporting learner agency are advanced.</p>

Building Teacherly Roles Together

Given that learner agency in making meaning from subjective learning experiences is central to constructivism, how can teachers provide structure without diminishing that agency? This paper comprises an a/r/tographic analysis of a practice-based research project situated outside formal education, which shares the teacher’s role across a community learning group. This group collectively chose and researched a new topic for each session, sharing this research in session and discussing the lesson this made. This model not only provides the basis for a consensual education, but also offers opportunity for empowerment through collectively taking ownership of learning, demonstrating that as engaged learners we can shape the structures through which we build learning agency. As education and culture shape each other, so learners emerge as critical citizens able to re/form community and culture for mutual benefit, open in turn to being re/formed by them. Understanding learning as a creative process, this paper juxtaposes Gert Biesta’s concept of creative practice as a dialogue with the world against the re-emergent concept of cultural democracy. Education re/produces cultural values; by not assuming control of learners’ education for them – by not inhabiting the role of teacher – we do not diminish the space for new, emergent structures to be realised. This paper seeks to show that by performing the teacher’s functions between us, we increase our intrinsic motivation for learning, also allowing for possibilities of new knowledge emerging. As will be shown, constructivism needs no singular teachers, only people to learn alongside and share the practice of learning with.

Learner Agency in China’s Program for Interdisciplinary English Talents: A Sociocultural Perspective

Aiming to develop a sociocultural understanding of learner agency as defined by Ahearn (2001), this study asks the questions: How do English majors under the Program for Interdisciplinary English Talents in Chinese universities with international or regional orientations experience their English learning and exert learner agency differently? Which factors influence learners&rsquo; agentive activities and what differences exist in the influencing strength of those factors? Interview data were collected from 14 student participants from two representative universities in the eastern part of China. Analyzing the data using the framework proposed by Dang and Marginson (2013) revealed that learners&rsquo; agentive activities are mediated by the sociocultural context, in which the global, national and local factors exert great influences and their influencing strength varies. Among all the factors, the influence of the microgenetic domain, to be specific, the institutional context is the greatest. Implications and suggestions are provided based on the results.