The Dutch Educational Network  “Sprong Voorwaarts [“Jump Forward”] aims to contribute to knowledge utilization related to future-oriented education. In total, 13 partner organizations participate in the network varying from primary and secondary schools, teacher education institutes, and an academy for community and talent. Within this network teachers, teacher educators, and researchers collaborate in ‘Knowledge Labs’ (KL) to develop knowledge products for daily practice. The network aims at finding possible solutions for future challenges in education related to  four overarching themes (1) developing teacher behavior, (2) developing teacher identity, (3) developing leadership and (4) developing organizations. This workshop focuses on the output of the Knowledge Lab: ‘Agency of Educational Professionals’ which is related to the theme of developing teacher behaviorin the context of innovations in education.

Agency is defined as "the conscious and purposeful exercise of influence, making choices, taking advantage of opportunities or adopting a proactive attitude resulting in changes in the work situation and/or in one's own professional development (Eteläpelto et al., 2013). Agency is seen as an important part of the professionalism of teachers and teacher educators especially in relation to the continuous changes in education (Oolbekkink et al., 2017). Researchers have indicated that teachers’ professional agency is a key capability for advancing student learning, and for their continuing professional development and school development (Toom et al., 2015). Agency is “practiced when teachers exert influence, make informed choicesin a way that affects their work within and beyond schools, and/or their professional identities (Eteläpelto et al. 2013, p. 61).” In relation to the role teachers can play in educational innovations they are sometime referred to as change agents. A study by Van der Heijden et al. (2015) indicates characteristics of change agents pertaining to lifelong learning, mastery, entrepreneurship and collaboration.

However, how to effectively promote professional agency of teachers is still uncharted territory, especially because knowing what agency is, does not automatically gives professionals the capacity to develop their agency within their professional contexts (Oolbekkink et al., 2017). Research suggests that professionals are more likely to develop professional agency, when they: a) involve themselves in acts of agency fitted to their professional contexts, b) choose acts of agency that are within their zone of proximal development, c) when they discuss together which actions are most suitable in specific contexts for them to develop agency, and d) when they reflect on the impact of these actions on the development of their agency (Van der Heijden et al., 2015). These insights were used to develop a knowledge product for practice: the serious game Super Agent in the Knowledge Lab.

The Super Agent game is built around ‘Super Agents’ who all represent a specific quality that supports agency (for example Socrates is the Super Agent that represents “reflection” in the game). All the qualities that are related to change agency characteristics are operationalized in concrete actions that can be undertaken in daily educational practice. After playing this game, the participants are expected to have gained insight in their own agency and they will have taken a next step on their path of lifelong learning.

During the first year of its existence, the members of the Knowledge Lab developed a game for educational professionals which aims to encourage agentic actions and reflection. Using the Design-Based Research methodology (McKenney & Reeves, 2018 ) and Design Thinking (Brown, 2008), researchers explored: What are the most important characteristics of professional agency?, Which persona might represent those characteristics?, Which kind of actions might support agency from the perspective of that specific characteristic? For example, developing the qualities of the Super Agent “the Entrepreneur” is fostered when professionals take actions such as: taking initiatives, persevering on a task, setting goals, monitoring boundaries, etc. In the second year the Knowledge Lab was continued and the first version of the game was tested in different settings. The following version was developed in co-design with educational partners (Sanders & Stappers, 2018) using the prototyping methodology for serious games (Viudes-Carbonell et al., 2021). Prototypes of the game where tested in several rounds of testing and development. Four rounds of play sessions were organized with small (N=8 up to N=12) mixed groups of educational professionals: teacher educators, teachers from higher and secondary education and teacher-students. Every play session was evaluated with the participants, and each time the game mechanics, the super agents, the action cards, and the gaming experience were discussed, leading every time to small or bigger changes in the game design.

The game that was developed received enthusiastic comments from the network partners. A major finding was that the Super Agents were not only appealing to the participants and clarifying what agency was about, but they also made very clear how the specific characteristics of agency could be developed to a maximum. A second important finding was, that although the actions cards needed to be aligned to the Super Agents, they worked best when suggested actions were not too specific. When participants were invited to make a more general suggestion for an action (for example “visit a webinar and share your findings with a colleague”) more specific for their own contexts, this would make the enactment of the action more likely and more beneficial for the player. Finally, a third major finding was, that playing the game made players more aware of the possibilities for developing agency, but organizing a second “return” meeting in which players could exchange whether and how they had implemented the proposed actions and reflect on the reasons why they had or had not succeeded in doing so, was most beneficial for understanding and developing their agency. The preferred outcome of this workshop is to provide participants with a gaming experience with our serious game in order to help them understand how we encourage educational professionals to develop their agency in daily educational practices. After playing this game, the participants will: a) have gained insight in what the agency concept means, b) gained an experience of how to strengthen their own agency, and c) will have acquired deeper knowledge how the game mechanics in a serious game may contribute to the intended goals of the game.

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