How a Simple Acronym Can Help Motivate Students to Learn on Their Own

• This hummingbird-obsessed first grader who asks you to set up a hummingbird feeder and spends all morning creating an informational pamphlet about them.
• The third grader who blurts out in the middle of class, "Can we find out what baby koalas are called?"
• Fifth grader is so busy building a model rocket that you have to pat her on the back to tell her it's time for lunch.

These are all examples of student agencies. You'll know it when you see it, but what can you do to make the student agency show up more often? You can WIRE the classroom for this. Here's how:

The acronym WIRE can help you remember how to encourage student self-reliance

There are many teacher actions that encourage agency; These four will give you a starting point. Consider. Intend. Rworks. Enage. Agency is a belief system that your actions will have an effect. Students with agency feel valued by their teachers; They act with a sense of choice and a sense of freedom to pursue their passions. They have personal power because their teacher embraces their identity, history and differences.

Teachers build student councils Clock your students

Knowing each student well allows us to nurture their curiosity and passion. And we can see exactly where they stand as learners. In this way we observe how they understand. We could:

ask this	Do that
What do you like? What do you know?	Spend a few minutes each day observing a student with a simple note-taking tool.
What are they about to know?	Develop a culture of curiosity. Use language like, I see...I wonder...You said...I can tell...
How do they use the learning environment?	During your class, build in spaces where you can observe. For example, children turn around and talk, discuss, take notes, play or show what they have learned.

Teacher to intend support student council

As teachers, we plan and set goals for our lessons. Our plans are based on learning standards, curriculum, developmental readiness and student interests. Being intentional in this way helps us show up at the right time with the right direction. However, to achieve agency, we must actively connect our expertise with the students' interests and intentions week after week. Student intentions are the personal, specific goals that they set for themselves.

By asking ourselves the following questions, we can help students find the answers to building their own agency:

• What do I have to teach the students?
• How can I use the observed? What are the personal goals, interests and motivations of the students – so that I can continue to focus the lessons?
• How can I find common ground between the two to make a bigger impact?
• How can I change my role to make discovery easier instead of rushing myself with answers and resources?

Here's how it worked in this classroom: Santosh, a third grader, decided he wanted to teach others about sharks by building a model out of a box and then labeling its parts. The teacher found time in her schedule for Santosh to show his classmates his shark model. About half the class produced written informational reports, but the teacher respected Santosh's intent to create a model. If the choice hadn't been respected, Santosh probably wouldn't have possessed the knowledge.

Push yourself to it reflect about what learning meant for your students to further support the student council

As a teacher, reflection is as natural as breathing. We reflect on how the lesson went. We reflect on what our students could do. In order to encourage agency, we need to move towards reflection in a different way. Think about what learning seemed to mean to your students. How can you help them transfer what they have learned? In applying the Lesson, agency comes to life. Reflecting in this new way helps us focus our next steps in the classroom in a way that supports the next step in their student agency journey. What's next for her?

Encourage student independence by paying attention deploy you

It may be child's play, but when students want to learn something (or have agency), they want to keep doing it. That's the prize in the Cracker Jacks box. Think about it when you're doing something you love. The world slips away; You are in the zone. When third year Vinny exclaimed, "I'm dying to learn!" But we know you have more than 25 students, and it's almost impossible to get them all in this place. At least not every day. So our best advice is to recognize that if you observe, intend, and think, you will go a long way in creating the conditions for engagement.

Observe, intend, reflect, engage - four instructions for student action! For many more practical ideas, check out our book Wire for Agency: Four Moves That Transfer Learning.

By: How a Simple Acronym Can Help Motivate Students to Learn on Their Own