Fostering learner agency – effective approaches for literacy and numeracy education

Learner agency is what happens when learners move from being passengers in education to becoming drivers of their own growth, choices and success.

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Improving literacy and numeracy for adults

With the rapidly changing global economic, technological and health environments, it’s more important than ever that adults have the tools they need to become lifelong learners. Whether they’re gaining an education, retraining for a new job or career, or getting up to date with online learning, strong literacy and numeracy skills are crucial.

There is an urgent need in Aotearoa New Zealand to address literacy and numeracy capabilities, indicated by recent results from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) survey.

Skills in New Zealand: Survey of Adult Skills 2023 – Education Counts

So, how do educators support learners to manage change, overcome challenges and thrive in an educational environment? One of the most practical solutions is to help them understand and develop learner agency.

What is learner agency?

Learner agency is about encouraging learners to take control of their learning, have their voices heard and manage their resistance to adversity along the way. Learners don’t learn by simply being told what to do, but by being shown how to learn and establishing their own processes. This ideology underpins the concept of learner agency and promotes an attitude toward education based on self-sufficiency.

For learners to discover and exercise their agency, educators must recognise that not all learners are alike. The key to empowering learners to develop agency is to create educational environments that cater to everyone.

In 2015, Aotearoa New Zealand signed up to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. These goals address global challenges including education. Goal 4, in particular, is about providing inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning for all.

Goal 4: Quality Education – United Nations

A common approach to achieving this goal is Universal Design for Learning (UDL). It’s a framework for educators to anticipate barriers to learning, address them head-on, and comprehensively cater to all learners. Find out more at Universal Design for Learning.

You can find a full course for educators and learners on integrating learner agency into practice on Pathways Awarua.

Why is learner agency important for literacy and numeracy education?

Learner agency acknowledges literacy and numeracy's essential and transformative role in lifelong learning. By integrating learner agency into literacy and numeracy education, we give learners the skills they need to build resilience to social, economic and technological changes and participate fully in the knowledge-based economy.

Knowledge economy key to increasing productivity – BERL

Fostering learner agency in literacy could involve allowing learners to choose their own books based on their interests, while in numeracy, it could include asking them to apply problem-solving skills to real-life scenarios. When learners feel empowered through their agency, they develop a stronger sense of ownership, motivation and engagement, leading to positive educational outcomes.

Developing learner agency

Developing learner agency is progressing:

From: Focusing on completing activities, rather than learning from them.
To: Being able to identify clear learning goals.
From: Waiting for the educator to assign work.
To: Creating and initiating learning plans independently.
From: Relying on one single resource and avoiding challenging resources.
To: Identifying and using a wide range of resources.
From: Relying on memorisation and rehearsal strategies.
To: Selecting and using effective learning strategies.
From: Becoming overwhelmed with negative emotions that lead to avoidance and despondency.
To: Managing motivation levels and feeling empowered.

Strategies to develop learner agency

Below are some practical ways educators can put learner agency into action.

Give learners control over their learning

Educators can promote learner agency by encouraging learners to make decisions about the topics, content, activities and learning schedule. When learners are still developing capability around this, educators can offer defined choices before allowing more creative freedom as the learner grows in confidence.

Encourage learners to:

select their own projects
choose who to work with and where
negotiate the outcomes of various projects
select what topics to work on over specific periods.

Help learners find their voice

“Finding your voice” has been described as growing confidence and courage to express your own opinions, values and beliefs.

Environments that foster this process are those in which learners are encouraged to share their ideas and have their ideas valued and used by the group. The ideas do not always have to be agreed with, but they must be valued and taken seriously.

Ways to do this include:

projects and activities that involve learners expressing and articulating their ideas
brainstorms, persuasive paragraph writing and critical thinking exercises
presentations, show-what-you-know sessions, information-finding and feedback activities.

Emphasise the importance of trial and error

Learners become more agentic as they reflect on their learning process and become aware of what works for them and what doesn't.

For example, they might begin to set their own goals about what they want to learn, engage in a series of activities to meet the goal, and then reflect on which activities they prefer and which were most effective.

As they reflect on what worked well, they can develop their unique approach. A good educator will encourage learners to reflect on their learning process and support the learners' identification of their learning preferences.

Ways to do this include:

Ask learners to use two comprehension strategies (see below for details) and then evaluate the pros and cons.
Provide time in class for learners to identify two learning techniques they like, and share these with the class.
Use various learning strategies, ask learners to rank each out of five, and then share with the class.

Support learners to come up with their own strategies

Within the reflection process, learners will begin to develop a preference for their learning strategies.

For example, a learner might discover that their best way to learn is to draw a mind map of the information and read out the results. Another learner might find that identifying the most important sentence in each paragraph and summarising it in their own words is more beneficial.

Learners will also develop a preference for various resources and become better at selecting effective ones. In time, they will develop expertise in finding resources for different learning objectives.

Teach learners how to:

use different activities and strategies to learn by using them in class
evaluate which activities and strategies are the most effective for them.

Foster development of a positive set of beliefs

Learner agency grows as learners develop a positive set of beliefs about themselves. These are sometimes called “availing beliefs” because they teach learners to adopt positive learning behaviours, even when they are struggling.

Educators can foster these beliefs by reinforcing that learning is the result of effort, time and good strategies, rather than “being smart”. As a learner realises they can learn complicated things, their confidence grows, leading them to try to understand other hard material.

For example:

Ask learners to share something they know a lot about (typically interests or hobbies, such as cars, music, sports, etc.).
Ask them how they learned so much information about the topic.
Identify that they can learn, and have learned, and that they can apply the same strategies they used to learn about their interests to other topics.

Create supportive learning environments

Society is constantly changing, which is why learner agency is such an essential skill for educators to teach. When learners have the correct tools and know-how to exercise their agency, they can succeed – in an educational environment as well as throughout their lives.

Educators have the power to create an environment that shows learners they can make choices, have their voices heard, reflect on their learning, come up with strategies, and reinforce their own positive belief systems. By encouraging and developing learner agency through literacy and numeracy education, learners can participate in life-long learning and contribute to a more inclusive, productive society.

More information

We would like to thank Dr Damon Whitten for his extensive contributions to the concepts covered in this article. Check out his Ako Talks video on supporting lifelong learning through learner agency in literacy and numeracy education.

You can also view other learner agency videos:

Dr Whitten’s full report:

Learner agency in adult foundation level education (PDF 1.5 MB) – Exploring adults’ lifelong-learning capacity through the integration of learner agency, language, literacy and numeracy.