Course Content

Learner Agency and Voice: Moving Beyond Compliance

True inclusion goes beyond meeting requirements. It empowers students to participate meaningfully in their own learning. This course explores how to foster learner agency across a range of abilities and communication modes. Participants will examine strategies to support autonomy, choice, self-expression, and voice in classroom routines, planning, and assessment. Grounded in dignity and trust, this course reimagines what it means for students to lead their learning, even in the context of significant support needs.

This course blends storytelling with practical learning. As you move through the course, you will alternate between reading your chosen story and engaging in Learning Interludes that deepen your understanding of inclusive education.

To view the course content, click on each section header below. This will reveal the readings and materials for that part of the course.

How the Course Flows

The course follows a consistent sequence:
Prologue → Learning Interlude 1 → Chapter 1 → Learning Interlude 2 → Chapter 2 → Learning Interlude 3 → Chapter 3 → Learning Interlude 4 → Chapter 4 → Learning Interlude 5 → Epilogue → Learning Interlude 6

Each chapter of your story highlights key ideas in action. After each chapter, you will complete a Learning Interlude that unpacks those ideas through guided content, tools, and activities.

What’s in a Learning Interlude?

Each Learning Interlude contains three Learning Links. A Learning Link is a short, focused learning unit that includes:

A short video explaining an essential concept.
A follow-up activity to help you apply what you have learned.

After each Learning Link, you will find both individual and group activities. Choose the activities that are most meaningful and relevant to your role, goals, and context. There is no requirement to complete them all.

If you are facilitating this course for a group, Facilitator Notes are included at the beginning of each Learning Interlude. These provide guidance, timing suggestions, and tips for leading group discussions and activities.

You will also find:

Printable tools and templates to support your planning.
Reflection prompts to help connect new ideas to your own practice.

These interludes help you make sense of what you have read and offer practical strategies you can use right away, whether you are learning individually or with a group.

▶ Inside the Story: Prologue

Inside the Story: Prologue

As you move through this course, we encourage you to return to the story you selected during the “Inside the Story” sections. Each chapter aligns with the learning interludes and offers a vivid, contextualized look at inclusive design in action. Feel free to explore additional stories if you're curious how the same principles play out in different contexts. Short overviews of the chapter are included here to help you discern if you want to explore other stories.

A Voice Through Touch

Prologue: The Silent Contributor ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Marisol enters her Grade 2 classroom with a robust AAC system and a curious, capable mind. But within the busy flow of classroom routines, her communication is often sidelined. Staff and students are kind, but unsure how to engage beyond simple greetings. Her presence is acknowledged, but her ideas are rarely included in the shared shaping of classroom life. Her educational assistant helps with tasks, but much of the work happens around her, not with her. Though she is learning, she remains on the margins of classroom voice and decision making.

Project-Based Pathways

Prologue: Learning on the Edges ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Harmony Outreach School is a small alternative high school that serves students who have often been labeled “at risk.” Many have had negative past experiences in school settings and carry deep skepticism toward traditional instruction. Some are parenting, others are working full time, and many are navigating trauma or mental health challenges. Despite this, staff at Harmony believe in these students’ capacity for growth and in the power of agency as a re-engagement strategy. Rather than prescribing learning paths, they begin by listening.

From Compliance to Contribution

Prologue: Quiet Resistance ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Kai blends in. He is the kind of student who does not disrupt but also does not engage. He submits minimal work, often late. Group projects make him nervous, and written tasks overwhelm him. Diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety, Kai has internalized the belief that school is not built for how he learns. Teachers sense he is capable, but have not found a way to reach him. He is courteous but distant, a model of quiet resistance in a system that never really asked what he needed.

From Points to Partnership

Prologue: The Behavior Binder ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Mrs. Graham has honed her classroom systems over years of practice: color coded behavior charts, token boards, and a binder full of daily logs. It works. Her students stay on task, transitions are smooth, and disruptions are minimal. But lately, something has been gnawing at her. Students follow instructions but rarely initiate. They are polite but passive. Voice is limited to permission slips and pleases and thank yous. Control is intact, but what about connection?

Agency Begins in Play

Prologue: Tiny Voices, Big Ideas ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

The early learning classroom at Riverstone is full of imagination, but behind the joyful chaos, educators begin to notice a pattern: they are doing most of the talking, planning, and deciding. A reflective conversation during a professional learning circle raises a powerful question: Are we listening enough? Inspired to explore student led learning more deeply, the team begins a small experiment—letting children shape the day.

▶ Learning Interlude 1: What is Learner Agency?

What is Learner Agency?

Occurs After Prologue → Before Chapter 1

Module Name: Foundations of Voice and Choice

📎 Facilitator Notes (📄PDF)

🌟 Success Criteria

I can define learner agency and explain why it matters in inclusive education.
I can identify where learner agency is currently supported, or limited, in my context.

🎬 Learning Link 1: From Compliance to Contribution

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Agency Reflection Map (📄PDF): Reflect on moments when students have moved beyond compliance and contributed meaningfully to their learning.
My Own Learning Journey Journal (📄PDF): Reflect on a personal learning experience where your agency was either affirmed or restricted.
Student Autonomy Snapshot (📄PDF): Choose one student and assess where they currently have voice, choice, or ownership—and where they don’t.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Compliance vs. Contribution Sorting Activity (📄PDF): Sort classroom scenarios into categories of compliance, participation, and contribution.
Shifting the Culture Conversation (📄PDF): Discuss how school systems or routines may unintentionally prioritize control over agency.
Team Story Swap (📄PDF): Share stories of when learner agency was powerfully supported or stifled, and what the impact was.

🎬 Learning Link 2: The Core Elements of Agency

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

Agency Barriers & Enablers Scan (📄PDF): Use this scan to identify school or classroom practices that limit or support learner agency.
Choice Audit Sheet (📄PDF): Reflect on where students currently have real choices in your learning environment—and how meaningful those choices are.
Voice, Choice, Ownership Self-Assessment (📄PDF): Assess your current practices across these three key elements of learner agency.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

Agency Elements Framework Gallery Walk (📄PDF): Review visual examples of the three core elements of agency and discuss where your context excels or struggles.
Design Jam: Increasing Choice (📄PDF): Collaboratively redesign a lesson or task to offer more opportunities for student decision-making.
Barriers Brainstorm Wall (📄PDF): Identify and post structural or cultural barriers to agency, then workshop solutions together.

🎬 Learning Link 3: Student Voice Across Communication Modes

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Multimodal Voice Reflection Sheet (📄PDF): Reflect on how students who communicate differently (e.g., AAC, behavior, visuals) are heard and supported.
“Whose Voice Is Missing?” Journal (📄PDF): Identify whose perspectives are currently underrepresented in your class, planning, or meetings.
Inclusive Choice Board Design (📄PDF): Begin designing a visual, accessible choice board that can support voice across multiple learners.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Inclusive Voice Protocol (📄PDF): Practice a structured dialogue about how your team currently supports diverse forms of student voice.
Designing Across Communication Modes (📄PDF): Collaboratively adapt common student activities to be accessible to those using alternative communication.
Story Behind the Voice Circle (📄PDF): Share examples of how students have communicated in unexpected ways—and what was learned by listening differently.

🧰 Tools & Templates:

Agency Reflection Map (📄PDF): A guided template to help identify patterns of agency and compliance across students, subjects, and structures.
Agency Barriers & Enablers Scan (📄PDF): A checklist and reflection tool for identifying what supports or hinders student agency in your current setting.
Voice-Choice-Ownership Planning Grid (📄PDF): A planning tool to intentionally embed agency into instructional decisions.

📚 Reference List (📄PDF)

Includes research on learner agency, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), inclusive communication practices, student-centered learning, and authentic participation.

▶ Inside the Story: Chapter 1

Inside the Story: Chapter 1

A Voice Through Touch

Chapter 1: Rethinking Participation ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

A turning point comes when the school offers a professional development session on communication diversity and multimodal expression. Marisol’s teacher, Ms. Holtz, realizes how often participation is equated with verbal expression and how many decisions are made without waiting for input from non speaking students. The team begins embedding simple, routine based choices such as snack options, transition songs, and classroom jobs into the daily schedule, all accessible through Marisol’s device. These choices are not treated as extras. They are treated as legitimate, expected contributions to shared classroom life.

Project-Based Pathways

Chapter 1: Invitation to Design ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Instead of handing out unit plans, teachers ask students what they want to explore. They use visual frameworks and guided conversation prompts to help students articulate goals. Project ideas emerge such as a spoken word poetry portfolio about Indigenous identity, a documentary on youth housing insecurity, and a business plan for a bike repair service. Students select their timelines and preferred formats. At first, some are hesitant. But slowly, with support, they step in. Planning with students becomes more than a strategy. It becomes the norm.

From Compliance to Contribution

Chapter 1: More Than One Way ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Ms. Lem, Kai’s English Language Arts teacher, launches a novel response unit with a twist. Students can choose how they demonstrate understanding through an essay, a podcast, or a comic strip. Kai chooses podcasting. Given the flexibility to work in audio format, he leans into the task. He researches tone, writes a script, and edits in sound clips. The result is an insightful, polished episode that captivates his peers. For the first time, he feels seen not just as a student but as a creator with something to say.

From Points to Partnership

Chapter 1: The Question That Lingered ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

After a professional development session on student dignity and agency, one idea stays with Mrs. Graham. If students are not part of the system’s design, how can they feel ownership? She begins noticing how often she speaks for her students by redirecting, planning, and solving. Curious, she creates an anonymous survey and asks students what makes them feel respected in class. The responses surprise her. When we help set the rules. When we are not always being watched. When we get a say. Her classroom is efficient, but whose voice is shaping it?

Agency Begins in Play

Chapter 1: Listening Differently ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Educators begin intentionally documenting children's questions and play themes throughout the day. They notice how small comments hold big ideas, like a conversation about puddles turning into a science inquiry. Morning meetings shift from announcements to shared planning, with children drawing symbols or placing picture cards to shape the daily flow. Planning begins to feel mutual, not one sided.

▶ Learning Interlude 2: Planning with Students

Learning Interlude 2: Planning with Students

Occurs After Chapter 1 → Before Chapter 2

Module Name: Co-Designing the Learning Journey

📎 Facilitator Notes (📄PDF)

🌟 Success Criteria

I can identify one area of planning where student input can be integrated.
I can use a tool to invite student voice into classroom routines or goals.

🎬 Learning Link 1: What is Co-Planning?

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Planning Conversation Prompts (📄PDF): Choose 2–3 prompts and use them with a student to initiate a co-planning conversation.
Student Planning Reflection Journal (📄PDF): Reflect on a recent learning activity. How could students have contributed to its design?
My Role in Co-Planning (📄PDF): Identify your comfort level and challenges in sharing planning power with students.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Co-Planning Scenarios Discussion (📄PDF): Analyze fictional examples of co-planning and discuss how teacher-student partnerships could be deepened.
From Planning for to Planning With Protocol (📄PDF): Work through a sample lesson and adjust it to include student voice at key points.
Planning Opportunities Brainstorm (📄PDF): As a team, identify where in your routines or units student input could be meaningfully integrated.

🎬 Learning Link 2: From Input to Influence

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

Influence Mapping Sheet (📄 PDF): Reflect on where student ideas are currently heard, acted on, or ignored and what could shift.
Shared Goal Setting Template (📄 PDF): Use this template to co-create a classroom or learning goal with an individual student or group.
Reflection Prompt: Voice or Tokenism? (📄 PDF): Write about a time you asked for student input. Was it honored? Why or why not?

🤝 Group Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

Voice-to-Influence Case Study Review (📄 PDF): Explore case studies where student ideas led to real change and analyze the factors that made it possible.
Student Feedback Loop Planning (📄 PDF): Design a process for collecting, using, and responding to student feedback on class activities.
Levels of Influence Continuum Activity (📄 PDF): Place different classroom activities along a continuum from no influence to full co-design and reflect as a team.

🎬 Learning Link 3: Supporting Diverse Learners in Planning

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Accessing Student Voice Reflection (📄PDF): Identify how a student who uses alternative communication or has a disability might engage in co-planning.
Visual or AAC Planning Board (📄PDF): Draft a visual or accessible tool that allows students of all abilities to share input on a learning task.
One Student, One Strategy Journal (📄PDF): Select one student and write a plan to include them in an upcoming decision-making process.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Inclusive Planning Protocol (📄PDF): Use a structured approach to ensure co-planning strategies are accessible to all learners.
Barrier Mapping Activity (📄PDF): Identify what prevents some students from participating in planning, and brainstorm ways to remove or reduce those barriers.
Tools for All Exchange (📄PDF): Share templates, visuals, or strategies your team uses to support inclusive student planning.

🧰 Tools & Templates:

Planning Conversation Prompts (📄PDF): A set of developmentally appropriate questions to initiate co-planning with students.
Shared Goal Setting Template (📄PDF): A flexible tool for collaboratively establishing classroom, group, or individual learning goals.
Levels of Student Influence Continuum (📄PDF): A reflection tool to evaluate and increase student agency in decision-making.

📚 Reference List (📄PDF)

Includes research on student engagement, participatory learning, inclusive co-planning practices, student voice, and educational decision-making frameworks.

▶ Inside the Story: Chapter 2

Inside the Story: Chapter 2

A Voice Through Touch

Chapter 2: Designing for Input ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

The team redesigns key classroom activities to be inclusive of Marisol’s input. Circle time questions are posted visually the day before, giving her time to prepare responses. Class voting includes visual supports that align with her AAC pages. Journal prompts come with sentence starters that are pre programmed into her device. Slowly, Marisol begins contributing more regularly. Her choices spark new discussions and guide class direction such as choosing the topic for a science investigation or deciding the end to a story during shared writing. Her input becomes part of the collective learning voice.

Project-Based Pathways

Chapter 2: Rethinking Rubrics ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

When it is time to assess the work, staff abandon one size fits all rubrics. Instead, students co create success criteria based on their goals and audience. Reflection journals and self assessments are introduced. A student developing a video game outlines criteria like emotional storytelling and intuitive user flow. Another, designing a parenting resource booklet, prioritizes relatability and practical advice. Students begin to articulate how they want their work to feel, not just what it should include. Voice expands beyond planning and shapes the definition of success.

From Compliance to Contribution

Chapter 2: A Reason to Show Up ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Encouraged by Kai’s growth, Ms. Lem introduces weekly check ins and lets students propose their own timelines. She uses planning prompts to scaffold goal setting and invites students to co design their learning routines. Kai responds with curiosity. He begins attending more regularly, bringing ideas to class, and even suggesting new planning tools like a visual tracker for deadlines and a shared feedback doc. Flexibility and trust shift his relationship with school from avoidance to participation.

From Points to Partnership

Chapter 2: Making Space for Voice ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Determined to respond, Mrs. Graham removes the reward charts. She invites students into a discussion about values and expectations, co creating a set of classroom agreements posted not as rules but as shared commitments. Instead of assigning behavior consequences, she introduces reflection sheets students complete together during debriefs. Planning sessions now include student ideas, and classroom systems begin to evolve quieter, less top down, more relational. Students begin to see themselves as responsible with her, not just to her.

Agency Begins in Play

Chapter 2: Thematic Planning Together ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

The classroom transforms as children co create centers based on their emerging interests such as a dinosaur museum, a family bakery, and a forest lab. Instead of choosing from pre made centers, children help design the spaces and decide on the materials. Educators bring in real world provocations like old menus, magnifying glasses, and fossils, and support students in leading center preparation and setup.

▶ Learning Interlude 3: Voice, Communication, and Expression

Voice, Communication, and Expression

Occurs After Chapter 2 → Before Chapter 3

Module Name: Expanding How Students Are Heard

📎 Facilitator Notes (📄PDF)

🌟 Success Criteria

I can describe how my classroom honors different forms of communication.
I can integrate one additional form of expression to increase student voice.

🎬 Learning Link 1: Multiple Modes of Communication

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Communication Supports Scan (📄PDF): Review your current classroom practices and environment. What forms of communication are supported, and what might be missing?
Expression Reflection Journal (📄PDF): Reflect on a student who communicates in a non-traditional way. How is their voice currently acknowledged and valued?
Modes of Communication Log (📄PDF): Observe and record all the ways students communicate in a given day including verbal, visual, physical, digital, or behavioral.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Classroom Audit: Who Gets Heard? (📄PDF): Collaboratively review your classroom or school through the lens of communication equity.
Brainstorm Wall: Expression Beyond Words (📄PDF): Create a group list of all the ways students might communicate, and explore how these are currently honored or not.
Inclusive Communication Strategy Share (📄PDF): Team members each share one strategy that has successfully supported student communication in their practice.

🎬 Learning Link 2: AAC and Inclusive Expression

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

AAC Awareness Reflection (📄PDF): Reflect on your understanding and use of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) tools. What’s familiar, and what’s new?
Inclusive Expression Case Study (📄PDF): Analyze a fictional or real student who uses AAC and brainstorm ways to support their participation in learning.
Expression Options Builder (📄PDF): Use this planning tool to identify and integrate multiple ways for students to show what they know or share their ideas.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

Expression Choice Menu Design Jam (📄PDF): Collaboratively design a flexible menu of expression options for a shared upcoming unit or project.
AAC Toolkit Walkthrough (📄PDF): Explore a range of AAC tools and collaboratively discuss their potential classroom applications.
Rewriting the Task Protocol (📄PDF): Take a typical student task (e.g., written response) and rework it to allow for multimodal expression.

🎬 Learning Link 3: Creating an Environment Where Voice Matters

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Voice and Visibility Reflection Sheet (📄PDF): Reflect on how students see themselves, and their peers, represented in classroom displays, roles, and routines.
“What Message Are We Sending?” Journal (📄PDF): Write about how classroom expectations, feedback, and interactions shape whose voices are welcomed.
Next Step Commitment Card (📄PDF): Identify one new expression mode or practice you will commit to implementing in your setting.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Environment Walkthrough: Voice Lens (📄PDF): Tour your classroom or school with a focus on how student voice and expression are invited and elevated.
Classroom Charter for Voice (📄PDF): Co-create a visual set of shared commitments that uphold diverse student communication.
Team Challenge: One New Mode (📄PDF): As a team, choose one new communication or expression practice to try schoolwide or across multiple classrooms.

🧰 Tools & Templates:

Communication Supports Scan (📄PDF): A checklist and reflection tool to evaluate which communication forms are supported in your classroom and where gaps remain.
Expression Options Builder (📄PDF): A flexible planning tool for expanding the range of student expression options across tasks and assessments.
Voice and Visibility Self-Audit (📄PDF): A tool to assess how the learning environment affirms and reflects student identities and communication styles.

📚 Reference List (📄PDF)

Includes research on multimodal expression, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), AAC, inclusive communication strategies, and equity in classroom voice and participation.

▶ Inside the Story: Chapter 3

Inside the Story: Chapter 3

A Voice Through Touch

Chapter 3: Elevating Expression ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Marisol is invited to co create a class journal entry after her drawing of a picnic scene sparks interest. Using her AAC, she describes the picture with rich, descriptive phrases. A peer acts as a scribe while another narrates. Together, they create a story that the class reads aloud. Her contributions begin to shape group projects and influence how others plan. She takes on collaborative roles, leading brainstorms through symbol selection, choosing graphic elements, and sharing reflection check ins using her device. She is no longer a passive presence. She is helping to lead learning.

Project-Based Pathways

Chapter 3: Audience and Impact ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Students choose how and to whom they will present their work. One records a podcast on youth depression and shares it on Spotify. Another hosts a drop in event for single teen parents at a local library. Some choose classmates as their audience, while others reach out to the broader community. The authenticity of the audience becomes a motivator. These projects are no longer assignments. They are acts of agency, expression, and identity. Teachers provide support, but students take the lead in how their voice is shared.

From Compliance to Contribution

Chapter 3: Seeing the System ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

During a small group reflection, Kai shares that earlier school experiences like rigid deadlines and one size fits all tasks made him feel constantly behind. He is invited to join a class wide discussion about school structures and contributes ideas for change. His suggestion to form a peer support circle gains traction. Teachers begin incorporating more collaborative planning across subjects. Kai's role is changing from someone who avoids the system to someone who is helping redesign it.

From Points to Partnership

Chapter 3: Repair and Restore ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

With voice growing, Mrs. Graham introduces restorative check ins each Friday. At first, students are hesitant. But soon, talking circles become a safe space to share challenges, emotions, and even classroom conflict. They practice role plays, use feeling charts, and co develop a Repair Guide to help navigate peer issues. Students begin resolving small conflicts without adult intervention. Mrs. Graham’s role shifts from rule enforcer to community guide, and the emotional climate of the room softens.

Agency Begins in Play

Chapter 3: Expression Without Limits ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

As centers come to life, the team begins to notice the diverse ways children share their learning. Some act out stories in dramatic play. Others narrate while drawing. One child builds a model of the solar system with recycled materials. Educators shift from directing to narrating and co constructing, giving language to the children’s choices and scaffolding deeper learning through their preferred modes of expression.

▶ Learning Interlude 4: Shifting Control and Ownership

Learning Interlude 4: Shifting Control and Ownership

Occurs After Chapter 3 → Before Chapter 4

Module Name: Letting Go to Let Students Lead

📎 Facilitator Notes (📄PDF)

🌟 Success Criteria

I can describe one area where I can shift control toward student ownership.
I can plan for at least one routine that promotes autonomy and leadership.

🎬 Learning Link 1: Control vs. Ownership

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Power Mapping Reflection Sheet (📄PDF): Reflect on where control is held in your classroom and where it could be shared.
Ownership Journal Prompt (📄PDF): Think about a time when you handed over control to students. What worked? What challenged you?
Agency Gradual Release Map (📄PDF): Complete the map to chart one learning area or task and how you could gradually shift ownership.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Control-to-Ownership Continuum Activity (📄PDF): In teams, place different classroom routines along a continuum from teacher-controlled to student-led.
Power Dynamics Case Studies (📄PDF): Discuss sample scenarios of teacher-student dynamics and explore how to shift them toward partnership.
Shared Norms Brainstorm (📄PDF): Collaboratively define what respectful student ownership looks and feels like in your setting.

🎬 Learning Link 2: Scaffolding for Independence

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

Scaffold Reflection Journal (📄PDF): Reflect on one support you currently offer. How might you fade it or redesign it to build autonomy?
Agency Gradual Release Map (📄PDF): Return to your earlier mapping tool and add scaffolding steps to support increasing independence.
Independence Design Log (📄PDF): Identify a routine where students depend on adult direction and plan a redesign for student-led execution.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

Routine Redesign Studio (📄PDF): Work in teams to reimagine classroom routines (e.g., entry, transitions, clean-up) for greater student leadership.
Scaffold Strategy Exchange (📄PDF): Share specific ways you support students in taking more ownership, and compile into a team resource.
Release vs. Abandonment Discussion (📄PDF): Explore the difference between scaffolding and removing support too soon. What does responsible release look like?

🎬 Learning Link 3: Leadership in Everyday Routines

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Student-Led Routine Planner (📄PDF): Use this tool to design or revise a classroom routine that students can lead independently or collaboratively.
Leadership Opportunities Reflection (📄PDF): Identify students who don’t typically hold leadership roles and reflect on opportunities to change that.
Voice + Action = Ownership Journal (📄PDF): Reflect on how voice and action intersect to create authentic student ownership.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Leadership Menu Brainstorm (📄PDF): In teams, create a list of authentic student leadership opportunities across grades and subject areas.
Everyday Leadership Recognition Wall (📄PDF): Begin a visual wall or digital board where students are recognized for daily leadership moments.
Inclusive Leadership Roundtable (📄PDF): Discuss how to ensure all students, including those with disabilities or marginalized identities, have access to meaningful leadership roles.

🧰 Tools & Templates:

Student-Led Routine Planner (📄PDF): A structured planning tool to help shift responsibility for common routines into students’ hands.
Agency Gradual Release Map (📄PDF): A guide to support educators in shifting from adult direction to student independence over time.
Ownership Opportunity Tracker (📄PDF): A reflection tool to monitor which students are regularly given chances to lead and which are not.

📚 Reference List (📄PDF)

Includes research on student agency, scaffolding, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), classroom leadership, and practical strategies for gradually releasing responsibility.

▶ Inside the Story: Chapter 4

Inside the Story: Chapter 4

A Voice Through Touch

Chapter 4: Building Belonging Through Voice ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Inspired by her growing confidence, Ms. Holtz introduces a mural project called “Our Classroom Belongs to Us.” Each student offers ideas for what should be included. Marisol selects a tree symbol and communicates her vision: “a big tree with all of us in it.” Her classmates build on the idea, suggesting branches for each person’s interests. They begin using her symbols in conversation and including her in group jokes and games. Her voice is not just supported. It is shaping the classroom community. Respect, reciprocity, and trust take root.

Project-Based Pathways

Chapter 4: Leading the Process ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

As confidence builds, students begin helping one another. A few who completed projects in the fall now mentor peers starting new ones. They help troubleshoot ideas, share templates, and offer encouragement. Staff formalize a peer leadership program that supports project development across cohorts. Teachers begin stepping back, watching students self organize and lead feedback sessions. Autonomy becomes community. Harmony’s culture shifts, not just in projects but in daily interactions, hallway conversations, and expectations. Students are no longer passengers. They are navigating.

From Compliance to Contribution

Chapter 4: Leading with Curiosity ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

In the spring, the class prepares a panel on neurodiversity for an upcoming learning showcase. Kai volunteers to co lead. He curates discussion questions, facilitates a session with teachers from other schools, and shares insights about how autonomy improved his focus and confidence. He is no longer just participating. He is leading. Classmates begin seeking his advice on project planning and mental wellness strategies. His quiet resistance has given way to thoughtful influence.

From Points to Partnership

Chapter 4: Leading the Way ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

When the idea of hosting a class community lunch arises, Mrs. Graham asks, “What would it look like for you to lead it?” The students leap in. They form planning teams, write a grocery list, draft a budget, design invitations, and assign kitchen roles. On the day of the event, they work together to host staff, peers, and family members with pride. Mrs. Graham steps back, offering gentle nudges but no commands. Watching them work, she sees what agency in action looks like: respectful, confident, invested learners.

Agency Begins in Play

Chapter 4: Responsibility in Little Hands ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Children begin leading more and more classroom routines: updating the weather board, documenting learning through photos, leading songs, and hosting kindness check ins. Even cleanup time becomes a cooperative task. With support, they launch a photo blog to share with families. Educators reflect on how responsibility and agency flourish when children are trusted to contribute meaningfully to the life of the classroom.

▶ Learning Interlude 5: Designing with Dignity and Trust

Learning Interlude 5: Designing with Dignity and Trust

Occurs After Chapter 4 → Before Epilogue

Module Name: Building Classrooms Rooted in Respect

📎 Facilitator Notes (📄PDF)

🌟 Success Criteria

I can describe how classroom systems reflect trust and dignity.
I can identify one practice that reinforces student worth and inclusion.

🎬 Learning Link 1: Trust as a Design Principle

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Dignity Reflection Guide (📄PDF): Reflect on how your classroom policies, routines, or tone affirm, or unintentionally undermine, student dignity.
Trust Audit Journal (📄PDF): Think through a typical school day and note where students are trusted with real responsibility and where control dominates.
Language and Trust Prompt (📄PDF): Reflect on how the language you use (instructions, corrections, praise) communicates trust or mistrust.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Trust as Design Gallery Walk (📄PDF): Share classroom visuals, routines, or tools that model trust and discuss their impact.
Dignity Scenario Discussions (📄PDF): Work through classroom scenarios where student dignity is upheld, or violated, and reflect on alternatives.
Shared Responsibility Brainstorm (📄PDF): Collaboratively generate ways to shift classroom responsibilities toward shared trust and ownership.

🎬 Learning Link 2: From Token Voice to True Leadership

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

Tokenism vs. Trust Journal Prompt (📄 PDF): Reflect on a time when student voice was invited but not fully honored. How could that experience shift?
Leadership Equity Tracker (📄PDF): Track which students regularly get opportunities to lead and which are overlooked or under-invited.
Trust-Building Practice Tracker (📄PDF): Begin documenting daily and weekly actions that build trust, autonomy, and mutual respect.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

Leadership Ladder Sorting Activity (📄PDF): Categorize classroom tasks by their level of student leadership, and brainstorm how to elevate low-trust roles.
Voice-to-Leadership Protocol (📄PDF): Share examples of how student input evolved into student-driven leadership, and unpack what made it possible.
Equity in Leadership Roundtable (📄PDF): Explore how systemic bias can impact who gets to lead, and commit to one equity-focused shift in your setting.

🎬 Learning Link 3: Culture of Respect in Inclusive Classrooms

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Dignity Practices Reflection Sheet (📄PDF): Identify which of your classroom structures (e.g., rules, feedback, seating, groupings) affirm respect and worth.
One Practice, One Shift Journal (📄PDF): Choose one common practice (e.g., hallway transitions, behavior correction, assessment) and redesign it with dignity in mind.
Respectful Culture Audit (📄PDF): Use a quick self-check to assess if your classroom culture reflects trust, inclusion, and respect across all student identities.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Practices of Respect Sharing Circle (📄PDF): Share concrete practices that have reinforced student dignity in your classroom or school.
Inclusive Systems Walkthrough (📄PDF): Walk through your routines as if you were a student with limited agency or a marginalized identity. What would you notice?
Respectful Redesign Challenge (📄PDF): In teams, choose a common policy (e.g., late work, behavior charts, grading) and redesign it to better reflect dignity and trust.

🧰 Tools & Templates:

Dignity Reflection Guide (📄PDF): A structured tool for analyzing classroom routines and their impact on student worth and respect.
Trust-Building Practice Tracker (📄PDF): A tool to record, monitor, and grow intentional practices that foster autonomy, safety, and respect.
Leadership Equity Tracker (📄PDF): A resource to evaluate who is given the opportunity to lead and who may be missing from those spaces.

📚 Reference List (📄PDF)

Includes research on relational trust in schools, restorative classroom practices, dignity-based education frameworks, student leadership equity, and inclusive school culture.

▶ Inside the Story: Epilogue

Inside the Story: Epilogue

A Voice Through Touch

Epilogue: Agency Beyond the Device ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

As the year ends, the team reflects on how deeply agency has shifted—not just for Marisol but for the whole class. AAC is no longer seen as a support tool. It is seen as a communication mode, as valid and expected as speech. Students naturally wait for Marisol’s input, build space for her ideas, and engage with her as a peer. Ms. Holtz shares, “We do not design around Marisol anymore. We design with her at the center.” Agency has become the norm, not the exception.

Project-Based Pathways

Epilogue: A New Kind of Engagement ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

At the end of year celebration, students present their projects in a school wide exhibition. The room is filled with community members, families, and former students. One student who had previously dropped out shares her podcast and says, “This is the first time I did not feel like I had to prove myself. I just had to be myself.” Teachers reflect that these shifts were not about lowering expectations. They were about honoring voice. Agency did not just bring students back. It moved them forward.

From Compliance to Contribution

Epilogue: A Shift in Posture ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Kai’s teachers reflect on the transformation. His ability had not changed. What changed was the context. “We thought he needed structure,” Ms. Lem says. “But what he needed was ownership.” They see now that compliance and success are not synonymous, and that agency is the bridge between potential and purpose. With curiosity and trust, Kai’s learning came to life. And with his voice at the center, the classroom culture changed for everyone.

From Points to Partnership

Epilogue: Becoming the Guide ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

That evening, Mrs. Graham journals, “They know what to do. They want to contribute. They just needed the chance.” Her classroom has changed—less managed, more alive. Students now speak up during class planning, advocate for changes in routines, and suggest new community projects. Her old systems sit untouched in the cupboard. She does not miss the charts or the binder. The trust she has gained has replaced the control she thought she needed. In partnership, learning thrives.

Agency Begins in Play

Epilogue: Play as Leadership ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

By spring, the classroom hums with co constructed activity. The educators look back at the journey and realize they have redefined their roles—not as directors of learning but as co learners and mentors. Through playful leadership, the children have not only learned about the world. They have shaped it. “Agency,” one educator writes in her journal, “begins in play and grows in trust.”

▶ Learning Interlude 6: Writing Your Own Story

Learning Interlude 6: Writing Your Own Story

Occurs After Epilogue

Module Name: From Strategy to Culture

📎 Facilitator Notes (📄PDF)

🌟 Success Criteria

I can name one practice I will shift to enhance learner agency.
I can explain how learner voice connects to inclusion and equity.

🎬 Learning Link 1: What Will You Keep Doing?

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Practice Shift Tracker (📄PDF): Identify one classroom practice you will shift to give students more voice, choice, or ownership and track your progress.
Voice Reflection Journal (📄PDF): Reflect on how your understanding of learner agency has grown and how that shows up in your current practice.
“What I’m Taking With Me” Commitment Card (📄PDF): Write a one-sentence commitment to yourself about how you will keep learner agency visible in your work.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 1 (Choose 1 or More)

Reflecting Forward Poster (📄PDF): As a team, co-create a visual reflection of key learnings and shared commitments to agency-based practices.
Takeaway Circle (📄PDF): Share one small shift you’ve already made, or plan to make, that’s making a difference.
Practice Share Wall (📄PDF): Contribute to a collaborative space (digital or physical) where team members post practices that amplify student agency.

🎬 Learning Link 2: Small Shifts, Big Impact

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

Student Voice Integration Plan (📄PDF): Plan how you’ll integrate student voice into a specific routine, unit, or decision-making process.
Micro-Shift Journal Prompt (📄PDF): Reflect on one small moment when you invited student input. What did you notice? How did it matter?
From Theory to Action Planning Sheet (📄PDF): Connect a core concept from the module to a practical classroom or school-based application.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 2 (Choose 1 or More)

Agency in Action Planning Session (📄PDF): In teams, identify key areas for growth and co-develop next steps for building a culture of voice and choice.
Mini Case Study Swap (📄PDF): Share brief examples of student agency in action from your context and discuss lessons learned.
Barrier Busters Brainstorm (📄PDF): Collaboratively name structural or mindset barriers to learner agency and strategize how to remove them.

🎬 Learning Link 3: Designing for Belonging

Power Point Slides (📄PDF)

📝 Individual Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Belonging Reflection Prompt (📄PDF): Journal about how learner voice connects to a deeper sense of inclusion, dignity, and participation.
Inclusive Design Self-Assessment (📄PDF): Reflect on how your learning environment currently fosters, or limits, belonging through student voice.
Belonging Goals Planning Sheet (📄PDF): Set a concrete goal for how you’ll enhance student belonging through voice and agency.

🤝 Group Learning Activity 3 (Choose 1 or More)

Designing for Belonging Roundtable (📄PDF): As a team, share how learner voice has shaped classroom or school belonging and how to keep that momentum going.
Voice and Inclusion Reflection Gallery (📄PDF): Contribute reflections, images, or quotes that represent what student voice looks like in an inclusive space.
Next Chapter Planning Protocol (📄PDF): Co-develop a team plan for ongoing learning, reflection, and growth in support of learner agency and equity.

🧰 Tools & Templates:

Practice Shift Tracker (📄PDF): A personal planning tool to support the intentional shift of one instructional or relational practice.
Student Voice Integration Plan (📄PDF): A structured planning form for embedding student voice into everyday classroom decisions and routines.
Reflecting Forward Poster (📄PDF): A collaborative visual tool for capturing team insights, commitments, and future focus areas.

📚 Reference List (📄PDF)

Includes research on learner agency, culturally responsive education, inclusive instructional design, and the relationship between voice, dignity, and belonging.

▶ Reflection and Recognition