What instructional strategies elevate student agency?

  • Educators learn how to incorporate and leverage student voice, peer review, and audience for student self-motivation.

  • Educators learn practical tools to show learning as a process and normalize/celebrate challenge and struggle. Every student can build and celebrate a sequence of successes.

  • Educators learn the power of authentic reflection and ways to co-create resources for student use. We also emphasizes the need for authentic failure and learning from those opportunities.

  • Educators learn how to make goal-setting a staple in any classroom daily, and will understand how shared ownership of learning goals feeds students’ internal drive.

  • Educators learn simple ways to infuse curiosity into every lesson and to design learning to foster critical thinking across all learners.

  • Educators learn a powerful, underused model for crafting student-centered, differentiated learning experiences.

  • This learning experience design tool invites educators to intentionally plan each of their learning experiences across any subject area or grade level to foster student self-motivation.

  • This session equips teachers with 3 strategies for helping student understand their habits as learners. With these strategies in place, students work more accurately, intentionally, and are more willing to challenge themselves academically.

Ready to ignite student agency on your campus?

At Autonomy Learning, we design, facilitate, and coach professional learning that is tailored, purposeful, and energizing. As former teachers ourselves, we commit to providing in-person and virtual PD experiences that build on teacher strengths and challenge teacher assumptions. We’re always about the research and every session includes instructional strategies from the list above or tailored to the specific needs of your campus. All are designed to cultivate student ownership and agency, self-regulation, and self-management.

  • In this interactive session, teachers will learn, practice, and create their own empowering language patterns to use with students. In addition, teachers will experience multiple differentiated, low-prep instructional routines that build a structure for students to engage and sustain their self-motivation.

    What will teachers know and be able to do?

    • Choose from a menu of research-based strategies for igniting student internal drive

    • Implement a low prep, high impact routine that elevates student self-motivation

    • Use teacher language patterns designed to nudge students from dependent to independent

  • This 2-hour training is designed to upgrade student self-motivation on your campus. Training resources include an Autonomy Playbook for each participant.

    What will teachers know and be able to do?

    • Cultivate learning partnerships that nudge students to stretch themselves

    • Elevate expectations while scaffolding as needed

    • Use teacher language patterns that maximize student autonomy, connection, purpose, and self-efficacy

    • Lead instructional routines that cultivate active student engagement

    • Reflect on current management practices and set goals for continued growth

  • Where does self-motivation come from? Research in neuroscience and across the social sciences show we have 4 core psychological needs. When our classrooms meet those basic needs, students ignite their own inner drive. Participants will experience multiple low-prep, cross-curricular, hands-on strategies that promote active student engagement and self-motivation. Teachers will also learn practical, flexible language patterns that validate, support, and nudge learners (of all ages and with any curriculum) to chase learning for themselves. Training resources include an Autonomy Playbook for each participant.

    What will teachers know and be able to do?

    • Implement research-based strategies to ignite student self-motivation

    • Use criteria to evaluate and shift classroom practices to amplify student self-motivation

    • Language patterns that maximize student autonomy, connection, purpose, and self-efficacy

    • Reflect on current management practices and set goals for continued growth

  • After completing 30 hours of training across 5 days, teachers will know how to ignite self-motivated learning in their classrooms. They’ll feel confident about designing a collaborative, inclusive classroom culture with strong classroom management. They will be connected to a supportive cohort of teacher leaders. Every educator will be able to use language patterns that shift learners from dependent to independent and be able to empower academically resilient, high-achieving learners. Training resources include an Autonomy Playbook for each participant.

    What will teachers know and be able to do?

    • Choose from a menu of low-prep or no-prep tools to elevate student academic and social-emotional learning, starting by establishing collaborative and inclusive classroom communities

    • Use verbal and instructional strategies to cultivate self-motivation and self-regulation in service of deeper learning

    • Implement simple systems that minimize the need for extrinsic motivation and maximize student ownership and agency

Self-motivation is an investment in lasting student achievement.

As former classroom teachers ourselves, we’ve lived the daily challenge of actively engaging students. We build real solutions to combat student apathy over the long term, not short-term band-aids.

Our approach instills self-motivation and builds academic self-esteem, so students enjoy learning and embrace challenge. With our core four growth conditions in place, classrooms become truly student-centered.

As John Hattie’s Effect Size has shown, teacher and student self-efficacy have enormous impacts on student learning. How do we capitalize on that knowledge?

We help students and teachers build systems and structures through research-based strategies and intentional language, creating a culture and climate where autonomy blooms. Our coaching sessions and workshops build agency, confidence, and self-advocacy so they become an internal dialogue and identity.

Bottom line - student achievement, student self-efficacy, and teacher satisfaction soar when students chase learning for themselves.

New to the profession 1st grade teacher:

“The practice on the site is the best way to learn and put all the theory to work. I appreciated the willingness to share new ideas, strategies, and just have conversations to talk through problems or concerns. You are fantastic!”

Middle School teacher:

“Jen and Jewellyn are amazing presenters! They were engaging and I have so many takeaways to use in my classroom!”

“I now know my effort is what I need to learn, and it’s what drives me to my goal. If I’m not putting in the effort, there will be no learning.”

— 4th grader