Monthly Archives: June 2020

Free Webinar: Executive Function in Schools

Distance Learning, Executive Function

No matter which definition of executive function you use, it’s clear that executive function and teaching executive function strategies are key to successful learning. What is harder to pinpoint is this: whose job is it to teach executive function strategies?

In some schools, executive function is the domain of Student Services teachers. These teachers (including special education, ELL teachers, Speech and Language Pathologists, and social workers) often work with students who have been identified as being at-risk of school failure. These students can have unique executive function challenges and may have IEPs or 504 Plans that mandate executive function support.

Student Services teachers are often experts at differentiation and meeting students where they are. However, if executive function strategies are taught exclusively in these settings, how will students learn how to generalize executive function strategies to their other classes?

Another approach is for schools to integrate executive function into academic contexts that put a high executive function demand on all students. Certain assignments (such as Project Based Learning or standardized testing) or certain times of year (such as transition years like sixth grade or ninth grade) can easily overload students’ and teachers’ executive function capacity. Integrating executive function strategies, taught by student support teachers or general education content teachers, can address executive function needs proactively for entire classrooms or grade levels.

However, will general education teachers, often strapped for time and concerned with curriculum standards, be able to find the time to teach executive function strategies? And how can these teachers differentiate to meet the needs of diverse learners?

As administrators and teachers grapple with these questions, some schools are looking at ways to integrate executive function into the broader systems and structures of the school district. While there are no federal or state standards for executive function, schools can develop their own frameworks that identify executive function expectations and strategies across grade levels and content areas. This approach, though complicated, embeds executive function across the district, making everyone responsible for supporting students’ executive function development.

Each of these approaches to integrating executive function into schools has advantages and disadvantages. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, we are committed to helping educators find their unique path to developing executive function supports that engage and empower their students.

Want to learn more? Join us for two free webinars this July.

Join  me, Michael Greschler, M.Ed., SMARTS Director, and Shelly Levy, M.Ed., SMARTS Curriculum Coordinator, to learn about executive function, best practices for integrating executive function into schools, and the content and structure of the SMARTS Executive Function Curriculum.

Hope to see you there!

  • Michael Greschler, M.Ed., SMARTS Director

Tips & Tricks to Make Your Online Classroom More Engaging

Posts

One of the most difficult things about distance learning is keeping students engaged and creating a warm, inviting atmosphere for online classes.

Edutopia.com recently outlined tips for engaging students when teaching online. Here are a few of my favorites.

Show Yourself

  • Your physical presence, warmly represented, provides key support to your students, so maintain eye contact and talk in a relaxed, friendly tone.
  • Set up your physical space so that your face is easily visible and warmly lit.

Relationships are the foundation of learning, and humans naturally look at each other’s faces in order to understand what is happening. Make sure your students can see your face to foster connection and engagement.

Ask Questions

  • Survey your students often on what they need to feel engaged and connected. Provide ways for them to give anonymous feedback and to be heard.
  • Build in frequent opportunities for engagement during your lesson by asking for thumbs up, thumbs down, or one-word answers in your meeting’s chat window, for example. Pause and ask students to check in with how they are feeling, and let them provide a silent gesture or signal that reflects how they are doing. Check-ins do not need to be long to be effective.

The more we ask students to share their opinions or provide feedback, the more engaged they will be. Zoom has a number of features that promote active learning, including polls, reaction icons, and the whiteboard. You can also use timers and encourage fidgeting to keep students engaged.

Stay Organized

  • If you’re distracted during your lesson, students will pick up on that, so have everything you need ready. Struggling to find files, links, or browser tabs can cause your stress level to rise, which students will feel and mirror.

Staying organized is a common challenge when teaching, whether in your classroom or online. Your students will benefit from clearly defined organizational strategies that keep the lesson moving fluidly.

If something goes wrong, own it. Students often do not understand how adults create and maintain organizational strategies. Share how your systems for organizing time and materials are evolving. Ask students how they are adapting their own organizational strategies.

Have you found it difficult to engage students online? What strategies have helped you create a more inviting online classroom? Let us know in the comments!

  • Elizabeth Ross, M.A., SMARTS Media Manager

The Fresh Start Effect and Executive Function

Distance Learning

The seemingly never-ending Zoom sessions that make up remote learning have made the concept of a “fresh start,” or new beginning, more important than ever for our students.

Many of our students are experiencing slumps, times when staying in bed or watching endless YouTube videos seems like the most viable option. Nevertheless, they seem always ready to readopt their goals and make a fresh start with some guidance and strategies.

New research on the “fresh start effect” offers implications for making the “fresh-start” most effective. We all know about New Year’s resolutions, which can trigger changes lasting for varying amounts of time. According to the fresh start effect, people are more likely to adopt positive changes when they are attached to an important temporal landmark.

These landmarks can be as significant as a birthday, a new school year, or New Years’ Day. They can also be as simple as a new day, a new week, or a new month. The “fresh start” allows the person to leave mistakes in the past, wipe the slate clean, and open a path toward the future. The goal is to extend the “fresh start” longer and longer and eventually to make the new strategies into a new habit.

In our executive function coaching with students, we have developed some easy strategies you can use to provide that “fresh start effect” for your students:

  • Listen without judgment. Put the learner in the center and give them time to talk about their frustrations to help them become open to new ideas.
  • Identify a temporal marker for change (e.g., a new day, new week, birthday, weekend to catch-up).
  • Help students to create a goal or goals—just for the day, if necessary. For example, read Lord of the Flies Ch. 7, collect four sources for the paper, attend yoga class, or walk for a half hour.
  • Expand to the week: what are your daily goals within the week? Use as simple a template as possible since many students are overwhelmed by a lot of text.
  • Reflect on your day or week. Keep it simple (very productive, productive, OK, squeezed by).
  • Start again with the next morning or the next Monday (or your birthday, the beginning of the month, the beginning of the school year, January 1).
  • Appreciate and acknowledge the small steps on the way to sustained change.

Our experience at ILD has shown that fresh starts are always possible. And with the right strategy, new habits can form.

New Online Workshop! Executive Function, Metacognition & Stress Reduction during Distance Learning

Distance Learning

As distance learning continues to be the new norm, educators are turning to executive function strategies to lower student stress and help students master reading, writing, and completing independent assignments online.

Here at The Institute for Learning and Development, and our partner company ResearchILD, we are excited to announce our next professional development workshop for elementary and secondary educators: Executive Function, Metacognition, and Stress Reduction during Distance Learning.

This two-hour training, hosted by Lynn Meltzer, Ph.D., ResearchILD’s President and Co-Founder, and Donna Kincaid, M.Ed., Director of Outreach & Training, offers:

  • Hands-on strategies for promoting metacognitive awareness so that students across the grades develop an understanding of their profiles of strengths and weaknesses and are empowered to learn HOW to learn. These strategies will help students to master remote learning as they read, write, complete independent assignments, and work on projects, and will also reduce their stress and anxiety.
  • Two comprehensive lessons from the SMARTS Online EF curriculum that you can use to teach metacognitive awareness. Includes access to lesson plans, activities, worksheets, reflection sheets, and PowerPoint presentations.
  • Certificate of completion for a total of 2 hours of instruction.

We look forward to having you join us!

Executive Function, Metacognition, and Stress Reduction during Distance Learning

Date: June 11, 2020
Time: 3:00-5:00 pm EST (with an optional Q & A from 5:00-5:15 pm)
Cost: $129

Learn more and register today!

  • Elizabeth Ross, M.A., SMARTS Media Manager