Page 8 - Agency Project

The Agency Project

is a Team Effort

The Agency Project is a team-based, workplace activity that brings together
people with a common goal to work on ways to enhance school outcomes. It is
important that the inquiry be undertaken by a team and not just by individuals.
Participants are thus required to work in teams called Alliances. Your Alliance is
your Agency Project Team. Most will have four members.

Working together in an Alliance provides opportunities to pool knowledge and
skills, share learning tasks, review and reflect on new learning, question others’
views and ideas, and learn how to work productively as a team. The term
Alliance acknowledges individual differences in what the members bring to the
group; it is about working together for mutual benefit.

Teachers who have tried to get students to work together on class projects
know of the many difficulties that arise in trying to get a group of students
to work together as a team. There are the issues of shared workload, roles,
and responsibilities. There are also the practical issues of how to get together,
when and where to do so, and complex issues related to differences in opinion,
approach and beliefs. Naturally these issues will also arise in this Alliance
Project. One of the key purposes of the joint project is to build your skills in
working together as an effective leadership team.

The Agency Project is about trying out new ways of dealing with real issues in
your school as members of an authentic leadership team.

2