When we talk about project-based learning (PBL), we often highlight the engaging projects, authentic connections, and real-world applications. But beneath all of that is something even more transformative: student agency. Project-based learning (PBL) is more than completing a project, it’s about helping students develop the confidence, voice, and independence to direct their own learning. Agency is what allows learners to move from compliance to ownership, from doing schoolwork to doing meaningful work.
The challenge, of course, is that agency doesn’t happen by accident. It must be cultivated through structure, routines, and intentional design. Without guidance, “giving students voice and choice” can easily become overwhelming or superficial. That’s why thinking about student agency through the lens of surface, deep, and transfer learning provides a powerful framework for teachers. Each stage equips students with the habits and tools they need to grow as independent learners within and beyond PBL. breaks down the levels of learning as well as the important stage of dispositional learning.
The graphic below from Re-Envisioning Rigor: Powerful Routines to Promote Project and Problem-Based Learning, breaks down the levels of learning as well as the important stage of dispositional learning.
Surface Level Workshops: Building the Foundation for Agency
At the surface level, students need clarity, structure, and confidence. This is the stage where learners are just beginning to exercise agency, and they need scaffolds that help them feel that their contributions matter. Surface workshops focus on building fluency with essential knowledge while simultaneously creating conditions where students take an active role in learning.
Teachers set the stage by co-constructing purpose. Using processes like Know/Need to Know, students articulate what they already understand and what they’re curious about. This shifts ownership from the very beginning of the process, they’re not just receiving information, they’re helping shape their learning journey.
Classroom Moment: In a 6th-grade science class, students were using Odd One Out to examine four diagrams of ecosystems. One student, usually quiet, confidently explained why she thought the desert system was the “odd one out,” highlighting its limited biodiversity. Another student disagreed, pointing to differences in food chains. What emerged wasn’t a “right” answer, it was healthy discourse that revealed curiosity, ownership, and a willingness to put ideas forward. That simple structure gave students the confidence to see their thinking as valuable.
The focus at the surface level is clear: establish the habits of voice, participation, and responsibility. Students leave with not only new knowledge but also a growing sense that their contributions shape the learning journey.
Deep Level Workshops: Strengthening Agency Through Connection and Inquiry
Once students have confidence in their voice, they are ready to move beyond recall into analysis, connections and meaning making. Deep level workshops nurture agency by encouraging learners to question, connect, and challenge. This stage is about shifting from receiving information to constructing meaning. Students learn to take responsibility for building understanding, not just consuming it. Starting a classroom with a routine where students ask questions before making comments, ignites the inquiry process for students, and allows teachers to formatively assess where students are at in their learning.
Classroom Moment: During a humanities project on immigration, students used Perspective Analysis to examine journal entries from immigrants in different time periods. One student observed how economic motivations contrasted with political persecution across groups. Another noted the emotional thread of resilience that tied them together. By comparing and connecting ideas, students not only deepened content understanding but also saw themselves as historians constructing meaning. Their questions guided the learning more than the teacher’s answers.
At this stage, agency is strengthened because students begin to see themselves as authors of meaning. They question assumptions, connect concepts, and lead discussions, realizing that learning deepens when they take initiative and responsibility for collective growth.
Transfer Level Workshops: Agency in Action
The ultimate test of agency is whether students can apply their learning when the way forward isn’t obvious. Transfer level workshops push students into new, unfamiliar contexts where certainty is elusive and problems are complex. This is where agency truly comes alive: when students have to decide what to do when they don’t immediately know what to do.
Here, the teacher’s role shifts to providing structure and scaffolds that support independence. Teachers use protocols that asks students to step into another’s perspective to design solutions with compassion and inclusivity. Transfer requires adaptability and communication while having students respond spontaneously as experts. It also challenges them to distill clarity from complexity, and while asking them to connect personal, academic, and real-world insights.
Classroom Moment: In a high school environmental science project, students were asked to design solutions for local water conservation. One group used the 5 Whys to explore why water usage was high in their community. They discovered that misconceptions about lawn watering schedules were a root cause. By combining this insight with Empathy Protocols, they created a public awareness campaign that addressed both the science and the community’s perspective. The teacher noted how little direction was required, the routines gave students just enough structure to apply knowledge in a new, impactful way.
In transfer-level workshops, agency is no longer about contributing to learning, it’s about leading learning. Students leave these experiences with the confidence that they can face new challenges, adapt, and act with initiative, persistence, and empathy.
Why Agency Matters in PBL
Project-based learning (PBL) without agency risks becoming a checklist: projects are completed, presentations are made, but the deeper transformation doesn’t happen. When agency is at the center, however, students develop the skills they will need far beyond school, confidence, initiative, resilience, empathy, and adaptability.
Surface, deep, and transfer-level workshops paired with dispositional routines throughout the process, provide a practical roadmap for cultivating agency step by step. Teachers don’t have to leave agency to chance; they need to build it intentionally through structured routines that shift responsibility to students in meaningful ways.
When learners see themselves as active contributors at every stage, from clarifying what they need to know, to analyzing perspectives, to applying concepts in unpredictable contexts, they not only complete powerful projects. They become powerful learners.
