Learner agency involves the capacity of students to initiate, direct, and transform their own educational experiences. In ILE, agency emerges through multiple, intertwined dimensions that shape how teachers and learners engage in flexible, technology-rich schooling contexts. Student agency can be understood as the capacity to engage with, shape, and be shaped by socio-material engagements in educational settings. Tensions exist around devolving power to students and the demands of standardized curricula. However, when effectively acknowledged and cultivated in ILE, student agency can transform relationships, support inclusive pedagogies, enable engagement with learning, and reconfigure traditional power relationships.
ILE have been linked with the demands of an unknown future and the need for “21st century learners” to be flexible and use their initiative when faced with uncertainty (Charteris et al., 2022). ILE can be used to foster diverse modes of learning, often through high degrees of flexibility with reconfigurable spaces, moveable furniture, and integrated digital tools. Depending on how the concept of ILE is interpreted, there can be a focus on maximized student engagement, collaboration, and initiative. Student agency has gained prominence as teachers look for ways to involve students actively in decisions about what, how, and where learning happens.