Beyond Giving Choices: Building Student Agency Through Intentional Lesson Design

Introductory Note to the Reader      After more than three decades in education, I continue discovering that teaching is not simply about improving what we do, but sometimes about questioning what we have always done. My participation in the ISTE+ASCD course Designing Online Learning Experiences – U.S. Department of State has encouraged me to reconsider something fundamental: who actually makes the decisions that shape learning in my university courses?      For years, I have carefully planned communicative activities, assessments, and learning experiences intended to engage my students. Yet I am beginning to recognize that even a well-designed lesson can leave students with little opportunity to influence their own learning.      Understanding student agency has therefore begun to change how I approach lesson planning. Rather than deciding everything beforehand, I am learning to identify moments when students can meaningfully choose their learning pathways, contribute their experiences, and demonstrate achievement without compromising academic expectations.      This paper documents that evolving understanding. It is not a declaration that I have mastered student agency, but a reflection on how intentional instructional design can transform the relationship between teachers and learners.      Perhaps teaching becomes even more meaningful when we stop planning everything for our students and begin creating opportunities for them to shape their own learning. Jonathan Acuña Solano

Beyond Giving Choices: Building Student Agency Through Intentional Lesson Design

	Abstract Student agency has become an increasingly important consideration in digital education, yet translating its principles into everyday instructional practice remains a challenge. This reflective paper examines how participation in the ISTE+ASCD course Designing Online Learning Experiences – U.S. Department of State has influenced the author's understanding of student agency and transformed his approach to planning university-level English language courses. Drawing on the four avenues of agency—pace, path, time, and place—and three instructional structures—choice boards, checklists, and playlists—the discussion explores how educators can create meaningful opportunities for learner ownership without compromising established learning outcomes. A practical redesign of a communicative lesson on invention and innovation illustrates how choice boards can provide alternative learning pathways while preserving linguistic objectives and assessment expectations. The discussion is further informed by Mitra's Student Voice Framework, Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory, Schön's reflective practice, and Wiggins and McTighe's backward design principles. Particular attention is given to young adult university students and working adults participating in online language education. The paper argues that authentic student agency requires more than offering choices; it demands intentional instructional decisions that enable learners to influence their educational experiences while developing autonomy, responsibility, and meaningful engagement.	Keywords: Student Agency, Learner Ownership, Instructional Design, Online Language Teaching, Higher Education, Choice Boards, Student Voice, Reflective Practice. ISTE ASCD
	Resumen La agencia del estudiante ha adquirido una importancia creciente en la educación digital; sin embargo, trasladar sus principios a la práctica docente cotidiana continúa siendo un desafío. Este artículo reflexivo examina cómo la participación en el curso Designing Online Learning Experiences – U.S. Department of State, de ISTE+ASCD, ha influido en la comprensión de la agencia del estudiante por parte del autor y ha transformado su manera de planificar cursos universitarios de inglés. A partir de las cuatro dimensiones de la agencia —ritmo, trayectoria, tiempo y lugar— y de tres estructuras didácticas —tableros de opciones, listas de verificación y secuencias de aprendizaje—, se analiza cómo los docentes pueden generar oportunidades auténticas de participación y apropiación del aprendizaje sin comprometer los resultados esperados. El rediseño de una actividad comunicativa sobre invención e innovación ejemplifica cómo los tableros de opciones permiten diversificar las trayectorias de aprendizaje y conservar los objetivos lingüísticos y los criterios de evaluación. El análisis se fundamenta en el modelo de voz estudiantil de Mitra, la teoría de la autodeterminación de Deci y Ryan, la práctica reflexiva de Schön y los principios del diseño inverso de Wiggins y McTighe. Se presta especial atención a estudiantes universitarios jóvenes y adultos profesionales que aprenden inglés en entornos virtuales. Se concluye que la agencia auténtica exige decisiones pedagógicas intencionales que permitan al estudiante influir en su experiencia educativa y desarrollar autonomía, responsabilidad y compromiso con su aprendizaje.
	Resumo A agência do estudante tem adquirido importância crescente na educação digital; entretanto, transformar seus princípios em práticas pedagógicas cotidianas continua sendo um desafio. Este artigo reflexivo examina como a participação no curso Designing Online Learning Experiences – U.S. Department of State, da ISTE+ASCD, influenciou a compreensão do autor sobre a agência do estudante e transformou sua maneira de planejar cursos universitários de língua inglesa. Com base nas quatro dimensões da agência — ritmo, percurso, tempo e lugar — e em três estruturas pedagógicas — quadros de escolha, listas de verificação e sequências de aprendizagem —, discute-se como os professores podem criar oportunidades significativas de participação e autonomia sem comprometer os objetivos de aprendizagem. A reformulação de uma atividade comunicativa sobre invenção e inovação demonstra como os quadros de escolha podem oferecer diferentes percursos de aprendizagem, preservando os objetivos linguísticos e os critérios de avaliação. A discussão fundamenta-se no modelo de voz estudantil de Mitra, na Teoria da Autodeterminação de Deci e Ryan, na prática reflexiva de Schön e nos princípios do planejamento reverso de Wiggins e McTighe. Destaca-se especialmente o contexto de jovens universitários e adultos profissionais que estudam inglês em ambientes virtuais. O artigo argumenta que a agência autêntica exige decisões pedagógicas intencionais que permitam aos estudantes influenciar suas experiências educacionais, desenvolvendo autonomia, responsabilidade e envolvimento significativo com a própria aprendizagem.

“The practitioner allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique.” — Donald A. Schön (1983), The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action

“Student agency does not require changing the destination. Instead, it requires designing meaningful opportunities for students to choose how they arrive there.” — Jonathan Acuña Solano (2026)

Introduction

Throughout my years as an online English language instructor and curriculum designer, I have always believed that meaningful learning begins with thoughtful planning. Every lesson, activity, and assessment should help students move toward clearly defined learning outcomes while maintaining high levels of engagement. However, participating in the ISTE+ASCD course Designing Online Learning Experiences – U.S. Department of State has challenged me to reconsider one aspect of my instructional design that I had rarely questioned before: How much ownership do my students actually have over their learning?

Before taking this course, I often associated student agency with differentiation. If students could choose between two activities or decide which exercise to complete first, I assumed I was already promoting learner autonomy. The course helped me realize that these ideas, although related, are fundamentally different. As I wrote in my reflective journal,

"Taking the ISTE+ASCD course Designing Online Learning Experiences – Department of State, I have now come to understand the true meaning of student agency and how it differs from differentiation. Making this distinction opens more doors to having students co-create assessments where they can better demonstrate what they have learned in a course. Agency is not giving students more choices of my own, but to allow them to find a way to make their own choices to show teachers what they have learned" (Acuña Solano, 2026).

This insight marked an important turning point in my professional thinking. Instead of asking how I could offer students more choices, I began asking a more meaningful question: Where can students genuinely influence their own learning without compromising the intended learning outcomes?

For someone who teaches college young adults and corporate working adults online, this distinction is especially significant. My students are accustomed to making important decisions every day in their professional and personal lives. They manage projects, supervise employees, solve workplace challenges, and make decisions that carry real consequences. Yet, once they enter a virtual classroom, they often encounter learning environments where almost every decision has already been made for them. The ISTE+ASCD course encouraged me to reconsider this imbalance and to explore practical ways of designing learning experiences that preserve academic rigor while giving students meaningful ownership.

From Understanding Agency to Designing It

The first part of the course introduced the four avenues of student agency, pace, path, time, and place, as practical dimensions where students can experience ownership. Reflecting on my own courses helped me recognize that digital environments naturally support some of these avenues. For example, students in my online university courses can generally decide when and where they complete asynchronous work, and they often have some flexibility regarding the pace at which they progress before established deadlines.

However, one avenue remained noticeably limited: path. Although students could choose the order in which they completed certain platform activities, they had very little influence over how they reached the learning objectives. This realization reinforced one of the course's central ideas: "Knowing where agency can live in a digital lesson is the first step. Knowing how to build it in is the second." (ISTE+ASCD Learning Academy, 2026). This sentence captures an important distinction. Identifying opportunities for agency is valuable, but opportunities alone do not transform learning. They must be supported through intentional instructional design.

The course explains that student agency does not emerge because teachers simply believe in learner-centered education. Instead, it develops because educators intentionally create moments where students make authentic decisions that influence their learning experience. This perspective aligns closely with Wiggins and McTighe's (2005) principles of backward design. Effective instruction begins by identifying the desired learning outcomes and acceptable evidence of learning. Once these elements are clear, teachers can determine where flexibility can be introduced without altering the destination. In other words, the learning goal remains fixed, while students gain greater ownership over the journey that leads them there.

From the Four Avenues to the Three Structures

One of the concepts I appreciated most in this module was that it moved beyond theory and offered practical structures for implementing student agency. According to the course,

"Understanding the four avenues helps you see where students could have more ownership. But opening an avenue without a clear structure to support it often creates confusion rather than empowerment." (ISTE+ASCD Learning Academy, 2026)

This statement resonated with me because it recognizes an important reality of online teaching. Adult learners appreciate flexibility, but they also value clarity. Simply telling students that they have choices is not enough if those choices are poorly organized or disconnected from the intended learning outcomes.

To address this challenge, the course introduces three practical instructional structures:

	·       Choice Boards
	·       Checklists
	·       Playlists

Each structure supports student agency differently. Choice boards primarily strengthen the path avenue by allowing students to select among different tasks that all address the same learning objective. Checklists primarily support pace, allowing learners to determine the sequence in which they complete required activities. Playlists integrate both required and optional learning experiences, opening multiple avenues of agency throughout longer instructional sequences.

What I found particularly valuable is that these structures do not remove teacher guidance. Instead, they organize student choice within carefully designed parameters. As Toshalis and Nakkula (2024) argue, structured agency consistently produces stronger educational outcomes than either excessive teacher control or unlimited student freedom because learners make meaningful decisions while working within a coherent instructional framework.

Choosing the Right Structure for My Own Teaching

One of the reflective activities in the course invited participants to examine a lesson where students currently had little opportunity to make learning decisions and redesign it using one of the three agency structures. As I analyzed one of my own lesson plans, I immediately thought about Unit 12: Invention or Innovation. This unit includes topics such as frugal innovation, Maurice Ward and Starlite, a TED Talk by Navi Radjou, role plays, innovation stories, memorandums, adverbials, and phrasal verbs. It is one of my favorite units because students enjoy discussing real-world innovation and connecting it to their own professional experiences. However, viewing the lesson through the lens of student agency revealed something I had never noticed before.

As I reflected in my journal,

"Looking at my planning for Unit 12: Invention or Innovation, through the student agency lenses, I noticed that my students are almost always making linguistic choices— which adverbial to use, how to argue, what opinion to defend— but they are not making many learning decisions." (Acuña Solano, 2026)

This distinction proved enlightening. Students were certainly thinking critically and communicating meaningfully, but they were doing so within a learning experience that had been almost entirely designed by me.

Redesigning a Role Play Through Student Agency

The role plays on frugal innovation illustrate this point clearly. Originally, every pair of students received exactly the same learning experience.

• The same scenario.
• The same professional roles.
• The same discussion questions.
• The same language prompts.
• The same expected progression of the conversation.

Although students decided what they wanted to say, they had virtually no influence over how they would engage with the learning objective.

The instructional goals themselves were already strong and did not need to change. Students still needed to:

• discuss innovation in professional contexts;
• negotiate ideas collaboratively;
• justify opinions with supporting evidence; and
• accurately incorporate adverbials into spoken communication.

What changed was not the objective, but the pathway students could take to reach it.

After considering the three instructional structures presented in the course, I concluded that a Choice Board offered the best solution. Unlike a checklist, which primarily supports self-management, or a playlist, which is especially useful for longer asynchronous sequences, a choice board fits naturally within my highly communicative, synchronous online classes. Instead of assigning every pair the same simulation, students now select one of four professional challenges, each requiring the same language outcomes while encouraging different perspectives and forms of reasoning.

For example, one pair may evaluate why an innovative product such as Google Glass or Segway failed commercially. Another group may act as consultants recommending examples of frugal innovation for a company with limited resources. Others might design an original workplace innovation or debate whether inventors should always patent their ideas using Maurice Ward's story as inspiration. Although every option requires students to negotiate ideas, justify opinions, and accurately use at least five adverbials, each pathway allows learners to connect the lesson with their own professional interests and experiences. This redesign illustrates what I now consider one of the most valuable lessons from the ISTE+ASCD course: student agency does not require changing the destination. Instead, it requires designing meaningful opportunities for students to choose how they arrive there.

Student Voice and Shared Ownership of Learning

Redesigning my Unit 12 lesson also led me to think more deeply about student voice. While the ISTE+ASCD course focuses primarily on agency, my reflections naturally connected with the work of Dana Mitra, whose Student Voice Framework illustrates how students gradually move from simply expressing opinions to becoming partners in educational improvement. Mitra (2004, 2024) describes this progression through three interconnected levels: being heard, collaboration with adults, and building capacity for leadership. Initially, I interpreted student voice as collecting students' opinions through surveys or end-of-course evaluations. Although these practices remain valuable, I now recognize that they represent only the beginning of a broader process.

The redesigned role-play activity demonstrates this progression. Students are no longer limited to responding to a scenario selected entirely by the teacher. Instead, they participate in choosing the professional context that best matches their interests, experiences, or career aspirations. Their voices influence the learning process before the activity even begins. This seemingly small design decision changes the classroom dynamic considerably. Students are not simply completing an assignment; they are participating in shaping how they will achieve the learning objective.

Looking ahead, I can also envision extending this idea beyond the lesson itself. At the conclusion of the unit, students could evaluate which innovation challenge contributed most to their learning and propose additional scenarios for future classes. These suggestions could then become part of subsequent versions of the course. In this way, students move beyond participating in learning activities toward contributing to the continuous improvement of the curriculum itself. For me, this is perhaps one of the most powerful ideas emerging from both the ISTE+ASCD course and Mitra's work: agency is not about giving away instructional responsibility. Rather, it is about inviting students to share responsibility in meaningful and purposeful ways.

Why Structured Agency Matters

Another important lesson from the course is that meaningful agency requires structure. The course materials emphasize that educators often understand the importance of student ownership but struggle to translate that belief into practical lesson design. As the module explains,

"The gap between believing in student agency and actually building it into a lesson is where most educators get stuck. Choice boards, checklists, and playlists are not just organizational tools; they are design structures that make it possible to open specific avenues of agency in a controlled, intentional way." (ISTE+ASCD Learning Academy, 2026)

This statement resonated with my own experience. Like many teachers, I have occasionally worried that increasing student choice might reduce academic rigor or make classroom management more complicated. The course helped me understand that this concern often arises because agency is mistakenly associated with unlimited freedom.

Instead, structured agency provides carefully designed boundaries within which students make authentic decisions. This perspective is consistent with Toshalis and Nakkula (2024), who argue that students benefit most when they exercise meaningful ownership within a clearly defined framework. Too much teacher control limits autonomy, while unlimited choice can overwhelm learners and reduce instructional coherence. The challenge for educators is to design experiences that balance flexibility with purposeful guidance.

Reflecting on my own lesson redesign, I realize that the Choice Board accomplishes precisely this balance. Students do not choose whether to meet the learning outcomes. They choose how they will demonstrate them. Every pathway requires the same linguistic objectives, similar cognitive demands, and identical assessment criteria. The learning goal remains constant. The learning journey becomes personalized.Student Agency and Adult Online Learners

Teaching college young adults and corporate working adults has also influenced the way I interpret student agency. Much of the literature on student voice originates in elementary and secondary education. Although the underlying principles certainly apply across educational contexts, adult learners bring characteristics that deserve special consideration.

My students enter the virtual classroom with extensive professional and personal experience. Many manage projects, coordinate teams, negotiate with clients, analyze data, or make important decisions as part of their daily work. Consequently, learning environments that restrict every instructional decision may unintentionally overlook the expertise students already possess. Allowing learners to exercise meaningful agency acknowledges these experiences while maintaining academic expectations.

This perspective also aligns with Self-Determination Theory developed by Deci and Ryan (2000). Their research identifies autonomy, competence, and relatedness as three essential psychological needs that support intrinsic motivation. Student agency directly addresses autonomy by allowing learners to make authentic decisions. Competence develops as students demonstrate learning through meaningful tasks connected to their strengths and professional experiences.

Relatedness is strengthened when students collaborate, negotiate ideas, and learn from one another rather than relying exclusively on teacher-directed instruction. Taken together, these principles suggest that agency contributes to much more than engagement. It encourages learners to become increasingly self-directed, reflective, and responsible for their own learning. For adult learners studying online, these qualities are particularly valuable because independent learning plays such an important role in their academic success.

Reflection as a Tool for Continuous Improvement

One unexpected outcome of this course has been recognizing the close relationship between student agency and reflective practice. Throughout my career, I have considered reflection an essential component of effective teaching. Donald Schön (1983) argues that professionals improve their practice by systematically examining their decisions and using those reflections to guide future action.

The ISTE+ASCD course encouraged me to apply this same principle to instructional design. Rather than simply evaluating whether a lesson was successful, I now find myself asking additional questions:

• At what moment during this lesson did students make a meaningful learning decision?
• Which avenue of agency was open?
• Which avenue remained closed?
• What small design change could increase student ownership without changing the learning objective?

These questions represent a subtle but important shift in my professional thinking. Previously, I often reflected on whether students appeared engaged. Now, I also reflect on whether they experienced genuine ownership. This distinction has transformed the way I analyze my lessons. Engagement remains important, but I now recognize that meaningful engagement often grows from opportunities to participate actively in shaping one's own learning.

Implications for My Teaching and Curriculum Design

As both an online instructor and a curriculum designer, I believe the ideas presented in this course extend beyond individual lesson planning. They encourage educators to reconsider the purpose of instructional design itself. Rather than asking,

"How can I make this lesson more engaging?"

I now ask,

"Where can students meaningfully influence their own learning while still achieving the intended learning outcomes?"

Although the wording appears similar, the two questions lead to different design decisions. The first focuses primarily on increasing motivation. The second focuses on distributing ownership. This distinction has already influenced the way I think about assessment, collaborative learning, project design, and classroom interaction. More importantly, it has reinforced my belief that teachers remain essential, not because they make every decision, but because they intentionally design environments where students can make meaningful ones.

Conclusion

Completing the ISTE+ASCD course Designing Online Learning Experiences has prompted me to rethink one of the most fundamental questions in education: Who owns the learning? My reflections have shown that authentic student agency is not synonymous with differentiation, unlimited choice, or reduced instructional structure. Instead, it emerges when teachers intentionally create opportunities for students to exercise meaningful ownership while maintaining clear learning goals.

Redesigning my Unit 12 innovation lesson illustrated this principle in a practical way. By replacing a single teacher-directed role-play with a Choice Board, I preserved every linguistic objective while allowing students to select professional contexts that reflected their interests and experiences. A relatively small design change transformed students from participants following identical instructions into learners making authentic educational decisions. This experience has also reminded me that agency is not a destination but a continuous design process. Every lesson offers opportunities to ask where ownership can be expanded, how student voice can be strengthened, and which instructional structures best support meaningful learning.

Ultimately, I now see my role not simply as someone who delivers carefully designed lessons, but as someone who intentionally designs opportunities for students to become increasingly reflective, autonomous, and responsible learners. In my context of teaching college young adults and corporate working adults online, that may be one of the most meaningful contributions I can make—not only to their language development but also to their lifelong capacity to learn.

San José, Costa Rica

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Blog Post #595

📚 References

Acuña Solano, J. (2026). Reflective journal: Supporting student agency through intentional design [Unpublished course reflection]. ISTE+ASCD Learning Academy, Designing Online Learning Experiences – U.S. Department of State course.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The "what" and "why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01

ISTE+ASCD Learning Academy. (2026). Designing Online Learning Experiences – U.S. Department of State [Professional learning course].

Mitra, D. L. (2004). The significance of students: Can increasing "student voice" in schools lead to gains in youth development? Teachers College Record, 106(4), 651–688. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9620.2004.00354.x

Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.

Toshalis, E., & Nakkula, M. J. (2024). Student agency and structured ownership in digital learning. In ISTE+ASCD Learning Academy, Designing Online Learning Experiences course materials.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (Expanded 2nd ed.). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Estruturas Didáticas e Dimensões da Agência do Estudante

Click to enlarge the infographics: Deiseñando la agencia estudiantil