Our Learning Community
Anna V. Blake
Greenock Elementary and Mt. Vernon Elementary School, Elizabeth Forward School District
In my Computational Thinking and Computer Science classroom, I look for ways to insight and progress agency in my students. Teaching grade levels from Kindergarten to Fifth grade, I want to influence my students to use their voice and choice to make every project and activity their own. Allowing students to personalize their learning experience is a cherished aspect of teaching that I see leads to exciting projects, ideas and maker moments as students progress in each grade level. Laying the foundation in Kindergarten and seeing the results years later in 5th grade is what I aim for to instill agency that carries over to every subject not just CTCS. An example of agency occurred during my Maker Academy in the summer where students learned how to use many different making machines from a Carvey to a Glowforge. With a sampling, students then had the ability to choose one device they wanted to learn more about. I was able to give students a one on one experience to learn about what they wanted to learn. In just two weeks, students got to showcase for their parents what projects they choose to make and design.
Jody Kokladas
Shady Side Academy
I collaborate daily with our PreK-12 faculty, students, and administration as we grow opportunities for critical thinking, empathy, creativity, innovation, and leadership. Many of these opportunities are highlighted through programs and opportunities such as passion period, STE2M classes, redesigning and expanding our 1:1 iPad program, creating tech and design spaces, and providing personalized professional development opportunities molded by a design thinking pathway.
Tad Campagna
Slippery Rock Area School District
Creating agency in the classroom is a way for me to develop a community of learners. Learners that understand the specific content is important, but the journey we take to get to that knowledge is paramount. That journey allows the students to understand their abilities to learn and examine their worlds critically and thoughtfully.
Colleen Hinrichsen
Mars Area School District
I create agency by showing my students the relevancy of what they are learning. For initial engagement, I structure learning activities that center around individual student interests or life experiences. To provide an overall sense of purpose and inspire students to continue learning beyond the class, I show examples to amaze them. When students are in awe, I show them how the current “superpower knowledge” will allow them to do those exact projects sooner than they realize. By allowing students to choose, practice, make, analyze, and take pride in their individual growth, I hope to create agency for my students, not just in my classroom, but for the rest of their lives.
Greg Schutz
Elizabeth Forward High School
My goal is to make real world connections with everything taught in class. By connecting what is being taught with skills and abilities the students need outside of school is how I strive to create agency everyday.
Ashli Detweiler
Duquesne Elementary School/Duquesne City School District
Students in my classroom know they have options. I set the bar high for success by teaching them they are active participants in their own learning opportunities. Students have voice and choice and the content is presented in meaningful ways to them as learners. Relationships with students is a key component to build those bridges of trust and leadership. I build in time to allow myself to step aside from teacher to facilitator and that's when creativity and engagement soar!
Catherine Zerega
Northgate Middle & High School
In my 7th Grade ELA classes I create agency for my students by giving them opportunities to think critically and creatively as they make meaning from texts and media. I strive to give them opportunities to choose and engage with texts and projects that interest them personally and allow them to collaborate, ask questions, revise, and create.
Dr. Melissa Rogers
Millvale Community Library
In my work, I empower learners to exercise agency by co-creating after school programs with youth, allowing their interests to guide our projects. I learn new skills to better facilitate programs based on what youth say they want to explore, rather than assuming I already know what is best to teach them. Together we read, investigate, and try new out new craft processes without the expectation of master or perfection.
Melissa Unger
South Fayette Township School District
I foster agency in my classroom by giving students the opportunity to explore topics of interest to them and then connecting Making and creative projects to the curriculum. I help my students develop problem-solving skills by providing open-ended tasks that allow them to experiment with multiple solutions and possibilities. I also give students the chance to share their knowledge with others and reflect on their learning.
Taylor Dozier
Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh
At Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, I get to work primarily with adult educators through professional development (pd). Our pd is intentionally designed to foster open ended, learner led, inquiry based exploration where educators ultimately become students. Our focus on processes rather than products gives educators the agency to explore hands-on tinkering and making freely and creatively. We aspire to create agency by encouraging educators to fully embrace the experience of being learners and to integrate agency in their own learning environments.
Kevin Goodwin
Falk Laboratory School
I try to allow for agency in a variety of ways. By allowing all students to have a voice in lessons and projects. By asking lots of questions and listening to the students. By observing their play and then using that to inform and inspire lessons and projects. Agency has to be taught and modeled as well. It comes and goes like a wave in the classroom. Allowing too much freedom can often lead to chaos but the other end of the spectrum can contain too many rules and eliminate all agency. Its is an ever evolving and changing thing within the classroom. Providing a sense of agency for all students helps create an engaging, exciting, lovely, involved and joyous classroom.
Jason Horst
Sto-Rox School District
I create agency for my students by having them solve puzzles and problems to real world issues and discuss how they could fix or change them. We look at examples that are happening in the community or the world-at-large and bring discussion back to the classroom on what we as a classroom can do to facilitate change, in a realistic or hypothetical sense that bridges the curriculum and community. As a science teacher, I try to do a hands-on approach to learning and bring in technology and instructional design to allow student creativity and agency in their learning.
Rachael Ragen
Keystone Oaks School District
My students explore the world around them to find agency in their own lives, both in and out of educational settings. We participate in inquiry-based learning to question the surrounding world and find solutions for the future. I hope to inspire our youth to dream of the many possibilities that they can create for their future world.