Girls as agents of their learning: Creating a culture of empowerment and engagement
GARC 2024-2025 Research Topic
As a community of girls’ schools, one of our key strengths is collaborating in support of our students who are facing increasingly challenging adolescent journeys. Students spend much of their lives at school, and as such teachers play a profoundly important role in their growth and development – not only as students but also as individuals. Action research is a valuable tool for teachers to evaluate new ways of navigating the tension between academic growth and student wellbeing and this year’s GARC topic explores how best to foster healthy girls by highlighting a key indicator of wellbeing – that of student agency.
Engaged and empowered, students with agency believe in themselves, their value, and the important role they themselves play in their own learning. Agential students engage joyfully in inquiry and innovation. They embrace their innate curiosity while participating, collaborating, and reflecting with confidence on their journey. Having recently come through a time where so much was out of our control, how do we go about ensuring that girls today are building and believing in their own agency? The overwhelming challenges girls face today – from eco-anxiety to university admissions – can stifle agency and yield responsibility in the learning process. From engaging in discussions with authority to questioning and challenging stereotypes, or learning how to balance preparation with improvisation, how are girls developing student agency in your classroom? What learning concepts and teaching methods would you like to explore for building adaptability and autonomy, and encouraging healthy decision making and reflection?