Building Students' Sense of Agency

Where does problem solving start? The ready answer is that it starts with a problem. And much of the time this is true: From potholes to pollution, the world's challenges often insistently make themselves known. But sometimes problems aren't so obvious. Researchers who study problem solving have pointed out that good problem solvers are often good problem finders: They see the world in terms of problems to be fixed and find opportunities for solutions where others may not.¹ 

Problem finding is important, but it's possible to go back even further in the search for the roots of problem solving. Regardless of whether a problem is obvious or hidden, the impetus to engage with it starts with a sense of agency—a sense that it's possible to reshape the way things are by directing one's actions purposefully. This may seem so basic as to not be worth mentioning. But if educators want to cultivate problem solving at the foundational level, it's important to ask how this sense of agency develops. Over the last five years, we and our colleagues at Project Zero²  have had the opportunity to take a fresh look at this question through our work on a research project called Agency by Design.

Problem Solving in the Making