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Participants will explore how AI can help students and educators build greater agency by setting meaningful goals, making choices, directing their learning, exercising judgment, and taking action.
Earn this badge in the fall semester!
Learning Activities:
Four sideby sessions: Three Paired Sessions with a different peer each time, and one Solo Reflection Session (~20 minutes each)
Explore how AI use can equitably build agency, in themselves and in those they serve
Use AI in at least one way that supports choice, goal-setting, self-directed learning, decision-making, or efficacy, aligned to sideby’s AI for Deeper Learning Framework
Share reflections on the observed effects of AI practice/strategies
(Optionally) Post related Small Win stories about your practice to the sideby community
(Optionally) Attend Office Hours with course facilitators
The Fostering Agency with AI learning experience runs from September 15 - November 10, 2026.
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Session 1: What is Agency in the Age of AI?
Partners share experiences about when AI made learning or teaching easier and consider how it supported human agency. They extrapolate their operating assumptions and definitions of agency from the experiences they shared and compare them to a research-based description. Then, they identify an aspect of agency they’d like to see more of — in themselves or in those they serve (students or staff).
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Session 2: Educator Mindsets & Competencies for Agency
Participants review a set of educator mindsets and competencies for transforming learner agency in the AI age and self-reflect on their tendencies, strengths, growth areas, and assumptions. After revisiting the aspect of agency they desire to see more of, participants identify a novel idea or approach to try during the badge experience
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Session 3: Small Wins with Fostering Agency
Partners exchange stories about the approach they tried to foster agency with AI, and what happened as a result. They pinpoint Success Signs they noticed, identifying explicitly whom in their range of learners or team members exhibited Success Signs. They also share lessons learned from approaches that didn’t work. Together, they brainstorm how they might iterate their approaches to more equitably foster agency.
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Session 4: Presentation of Learning: Fostering Agency with AI
Partners reflect on their overall experiences with fostering agency in the age of AI — in themselves and in those they serve (e.g., staff and/or students). They present their experiences and observational evidence of agency (Success Signs) and consider the impact of their approaches. Participants also articulate shifts they’ve noticed in themselves during this learning journey.
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Guiding Question & Learning Targets
How might we use AI to strengthen student and educator agency?
Leaders and educators participating in this badge will explore AI’s potential to help people become more empowered and capable, and help learning environments foster agency more equitably. Participants will examine the effects of AI on their own agency and on those they serve. They’ll explore where AI might augment people’s skills and where humans might have the advantage. This badge journey starts by building a shared understanding of what equitable student and educator agency looks like. Then, the focus shifts to trying new approaches in one’s context to discover what’s possible. Throughout, badge cohort members will exchange ideas, insights, and reflective stories with one another — sideby’s central way of learning.
We have designed this learning experience so busy leaders and educators can learn in the context of their actual work, rather than through disconnected tasks. The badge is job-embedded, experiential, and peer-driven: participants will learn from colleagues in the cohort and from applying new approaches to their everyday work. They will also build background knowledge through curated, high-quality resources and tools.
Learning Targets:
1. I can articulate my own working definition of agency and what it looks like in AI-influenced learning environments.
2. I can identify scenarios in which AI augments human skills, and scenarios where human thinking may have the advantage.
3. I can try, iterate, and share one novel strategy for equitably fostering agency with AI in my leadership or pedagogical practice.
4. I can reflect on and communicate my growth around fostering agency with AI, naming Success Signs and next steps. (Habits of Professional Work and Learning)
AI for Deeper Learning Framework:
All our open community badges are aligned to AI for Deeper Learning.
What past participants in badging have to say
Real educators, real results from sideby’s 2025 Impact Report
Your Learning Facilitators
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Erica Crane, EdD
Erica is a former teacher and high school founding principal. She is a current ceo and co-founder at sideby, a platform that connects educators for guided conversations along learning pathways to accelerate community-driven innovation at scale. She is also a faculty associate and course designer in Ed Leadership at ASU where she currently coaches principal interns. With an emphasis on liberatory practices, she has taught, coached, consulted, and led in schools and supported school systems across the United States since 2006, from the South Bronx to rural Northern California.
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Mike Mendelson
Mike brings deep experience at the intersection of teaching, learning design, and applied AI in education. He began his career as a high school math and technology educator and later served in a district-level role supporting the implementation of personalized, competency-based learning systems. Across these roles, he focused on designing structures that support educator practice, student agency, and coherent learning pathways at scale.
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Kippy Smith
Over the last 20 years, Kippy has held roles on all sides of professional learning—from classroom teacher, to programs designer and facilitator, leadership coach, and organizational leader. Kippy has spent her career at the intersection of school design, edtech innovation, and educator collaboration. Her work is grounded in the belief that transformational learning isn’t top-down — it’s co-created in schools, classrooms, and teams. As SVP of Learning at sideby, Kippy continues to lead SWD while influencing how we grow sideby’s learning network.
✺ Frequently Asked Questions ✺
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No. You’ll spend short, focused time learning in sideby sessions. Then, you’ll apply what you’re learning directly to your practice through authentic challenges and reflection. This course is meant to support learning in the flow of your real workday.
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The synchronous commitment is light: a 20-minute guided peer session every two weeks. Asynchronous work is flexible and embedded in your day-to-day leadership — not extra homework or long written assignments. The total time spent on this course is equivalent to 3 hours all together.
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We have educators and education leaders from across the United States who engage in our sideby badges. We are also growing our international community members. Past badge participants have appreciated the chance to engage in learning with peers who understand the real work in schools and educational organizations.
Why sideby?
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We’re real educators too who designed sideby for transformational professional learning. We’ve taught, led, and facilitated great PD in real schools. We’re constantly listening and learning from our open community and organizational partners too.
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Our learning experiences offer an opportunity for collaboration and cross-pollination across contexts through the sharing of ideas and Small Wins.
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Educators should learn how they teach. Our approach to more personalized, reflection-centered, peer-driven, application-based experiences models deeper learning in action. Educators deserve the best learning, just like students do.
✺ Contact Information ✺
For questions about the learning experience or technical support within sideby, reach out to: team@sideby.ai