I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the importance of student agency in the K-12 setting. Growing student independence through choice creates the roots of strong critical thinking skills. This Harvard Graduate School of Education’s podcast, “Tapping into Student Agency,” is insightful & leaves you with these key ideas to create student agency, including this:

 “Have students give each other feedback and learn collaboration.” (https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/20/12/harvard-edcast-tapping-student-agency)

Now, as soon as I read that, 3 Turnitin solutions came to mind:

1. PeerMark Assignments: designed specifically to allow students to give feedback to their peers, this solution facilitates peer & self reflection.

2. Discussion Boards: allow for a Socratic style method of collaborative learning where students and teachers pose questions and dive deeper into key concepts.

3. Draft Coach: the collaborative tools built into to Google Docs work is enhanced through the use of Draft Coach. Students working in a group can each take agency over one of the 3 Draft Coach tools (Similarity, Citations, & Grammar) and work collaboratively on written work.

These solutions allow teachers to cultivate leaner agency. Students will become risk takers & independent thinkers while working collaboratively & growing together in academic success.