In the last few months, it’s been a real privilege to see so many people engaging with my book Self-Efficacy in Action.

I first want to shout out Teacher Talk Radio, Jon Hutchinson, Sapphira Talbot-Strettlea and Ernest Jenvas at Edurio for inviting me onto their podcasts and giving me the chance to talk about it. You can find links to these talks here and here: https://youtu.be/YFWrMF6BR1A?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/mnND6q0R7Io?feature=shared

P.S. You can also buy the book here! https://amzn.eu/d/i7DjHdb

Throughout this time, I’ve spoken on these podcasts and to practitioners about the book and it’s meaning for them. Inevitably, with the talent that we have in our teaching profession, each conversation has made me wonder and think. What is it about self-efficacy that I’m learning? What are the part of the books that I now wish I’d written or wish I’d emphasised in greater detail? What are the parts that I feel are landing the most?

So, in this blog, I want to spend some time talking about three key ideas that I have learnt about self-efficacy in my interactions with people in the last few months.

Agency as a North Star

Something that has grabbed the attention of others (and of myself for that matter) is how inspired people have been by the notion of agency. The idea that we are preparing young people and adults to feel and know that they can make decisions for themselves and their communities. And that this should be our North Star. I found myself continually saying that I’m not quite sure what the education system should be working toward if it is not agency.

Agency means that we can influence and shape the directions of our lives. It means we can take the perspective on others on board, without being passively driven by them. It means that we can take the relatives risks we need to take – whether that’s applying for the University, we don’t feel we’re good enough for, the job that we feel that’s out of our reach or to throw ourselves into personal and social situations, which otherwise might seem daunting.

I’ve become quite obsessed about the idea that our professional development and school structures could be centrally organised around this goal. What if one of our core questions when designing learning experiences or curriculum, regardless of whether they are children or adults, is how are they will proactively develop a person’s sense of agency?

What About the Adults?

A few people have reflected that they found the book useful for the adults that they lead. Although the case studies are aimed at working with children, some leaders have been led to question whether or not their staff feel efficacious in their roles.

I would say the principles of self-efficacy are universally applicable. At its heart, we’re asking what we need in order for us to feel and know that our decisions can lead to a positive outcome. Do we have goals and clear manageable steps to work toward them? Are we receiving feedback that validates our performance and gives us the next step? Are we able to access credible and relatable models that are both instructionally sound and based on secure, trusting and open relationships?

Critically, do we recognise that our capacity to make decisions in our classrooms and in our teams is predicated on the environment and the individual’s interaction with it? This leads me to my next reflection.

Inclusion Requires Agency.

This final reflection is a bit of a” hotter” take. This is in part inspired by the work I do at ambition exploring how we can support teachers to work with a more diverse range of pupils in our mainstream classrooms.

I’m increasingly convinced that developing practitioners ability to work with a diverse range of need requires us to develop and enhance practitioner decision making. This includes decision-making in advance of lessons. However, this also requires us to work on how practitioners make adaptive decisions “in the moment” for when issues or challenges emerges through the learning process.

There are a whole host of factors that are interwoven which effect our capacity to make decisions. The knowledge that we hold – do we understand how different needs (Physical, sensory, executive functioning etc ) can emerge and present themselves as well as what we can do to incorporate this need into our teaching. How much we have practised decision making in a safe environment. Watching and listening to how others make decisions and reflecting upon that for our own process. Brought together, all these activities can support efficacy, and eventually agency. Ultimately, we need to feel that we can take those decisions and that they will have and a positive influential effect on our students.

Often, protocols of teaching and learning can be incredibly helpful devices. However, we should be prepared to ask how they support decision making and not replace it. Make these protocols too prescriptive we might not be able to build our efficacy, and therefore the extent to which we are willing to take decision when the protocol doesn’t apply or reaches it limits. Prescriptions, protocols and frameworks on ‘what’ to do can only go so far. This is especially the case when working with a more diverse range of needs, when the opportunity for the unexpected is higher and documenting every possible decision would just be impossible. The self fulfilling prophecy, where a protocol that is too tightly held limits decision making, restricting teachers further and unwillingness to act outside of pre-determined parameters.

Equally, we can’t just say ‘here’s agency, do what you like’. That would be irresponsible. It would set many to fail. It might be that, as situations becomes more complex the capacity to prescribe the ‘what’ diminishes. Instead we need to focus on approaches which develop ‘how’ decisions are made – how we help people to have the knowledge and practice to weigh up the most appropriate insights and knowledge to understand the station better, and to adjust in light of that knowledge and context.

Therefore, we need to think about how we can use protocols of teaching and learning to support teachers with the ‘how’. And we, therefore, need to return to efficacy – how are we proactively developing the efficacy through modelling, practice, steps and goals, feedback and the cultural willingness to enable, support and provide for teachers to make informed agentic decisions around this we need to think hardest about. Ultimately, efficacy and agency comes about through action we generate – guided toward, yes, but it has to be our actions.

Thank you for letting me share these thoughts with you.