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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs, or individually.

Accompanying these Student Center Activities is a Teacher Resource Guide that offers important insights on differentiated instruction and how to use the Student Center materials.

Component

Name of the reading component: Phonological Awareness (PA), Phonics (P), Fluency (F), Vocabulary (V), or Comprehension (C). Each component is color coded: PA is purple, P is orange, F is red, V is green, C is blue.

Subcomponent

Name of the reading subcomponent, which is a subskill of the component.

Activity Name

Activity Number

The letters correspond with the reading component (PA, P, F, V, or C). The numbers are listed in ascending order within each component. The activities are sequenced from simple to more complex within each component and subcomponent.

Student Icon

The suggested number of students for the activity. One student icon indicates that students may work independently or with a small group. Two student icons indicate that the activity requires students to work in pairs. Two student icons with a plus sign indicate that the activity requires two or more students.

Objective

States the goal of the activity, which is aligned with the subcomponent.

Materials

Materials are located on the pages that follow the Activity Plan. Most materials are non-consumable to be prepared and used repeatedly (e.g., word cards can be laminated). Some materials are consumable and will need to be duplicated for each student doing the activity. Other materials, such as counters, are commonly found in most classrooms.

Activity Statement

One sentence explanation of the purpose of the activity and what students do to complete the activity.

Activity Steps

The first step describes how to setup the center. The second step begins with: The student, Students, Working in pairs, or Taking turns depending on the number of students needed to complete the activity. The second step also starts the series of steps to complete the activity. The next steps explain what the student does to complete the activity. The last step lists one of three accountability methods: Self-check, Peer evaluation, or Teacher evaluation.

Example

A visual of the activity and key materials.

Extensions and Adaptations

Suggestions that extend or provide an adaptation for additional practice on the skill addressed in the activity. Materials for the extensions and adaptations are included after the pages that align to the Activity Plan.

Users may use the FCRR Student Center Activities resources as long as modifications are not made, the resources will only be used for non-profit educational purposes, and the copyright belong jointly to the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research. These resources may not be used for any commercial purposes. These resources on our site may be linked to but not reposted, reproduced, modified, or copied to other sites. For questions about the use of these resources, please contact The Florida Center for Reading Research at fcrr@fcrr.org.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Teaching Students to Drive Their Brains: Metacognitive Strategies, Activities, and Lesson Ideas

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If the difference between a student’s success and failure were something specific you could teach, wouldn’t you? Metacognition is exactly that—a tool that helps students unlock their brain’s amazing p

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Beth Dankert Sattes consults through her business, Enthused Learning, primarily in the area of effective questioning in K-12 classrooms. She works with clients and staff of service centers, districts, schools, and departments of education throughout the eastern and southern part of the United States, frequently facilitating adult learning and returning (in person or via the Internet) for follow-up. Beth began her work in education as an elementary special education teacher and then as a parent educator of preschool children with behavior disorders. She holds a bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University and a master's in early childhood special education from Peabody College. Her true love is to work with adult learners, be they teachers, administrators, instructional coaches, or parents. Her primary goal has always been to translate research-based practice into understandable and usable practice in an engaging and motivating way. She sometimes directly facilitates adult learning and sometimes trains teacher-leaders to facilitate the learning of colleagues.

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Questioning for Classroom Discussion: Purposeful Speaking, Engaged Listening, Deep Thinking

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What type of questioning invigorates and sustains productive discussions? That's what Jackie Acree Walsh and Beth Dankert Sattes ask as they begin a passionate exploration of questioning as the beatin

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The Six Shifts Where Science of Reading Meets Balanced Literacy. We provide resources, professional development, and literacy audits for busy literacy educators like you.

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Adolescent Literacy Intervention Selection Tool (A-List)

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Adolescent Literacy Intervention Selection Tool (A-List)

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The A-LIST provides information about literacy intervention programs for grades 4–12 to help educators make informed intervention program choices.

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Welcome to the Adolescent Literacy Intervention Selection Tool (A-LIST)!

The A-LIST provides information about literacy intervention programs for grades 4-12 to help educators make informed intervention program choices.

The A-LIST presents the results of expert educator panels' review of the extent to which each intervention program:

Disclaimer: The A-LIST only reports alignment to the practices identified. The A-LIST is not a list of recommended programs, does not evaluate the efficacy or evidence supporting program effectiveness, and should not be the sole means used to select programs.

To Learn More:
Read about the process used to develop this tool in the A-LIST Process Guide.
Access the rubrics used by panels:

Send any questions or inquiries online to: https://region1cc.org/contact .
To Participate:

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ADOLESCENT LITERACY INTERVENTION SELECTION TOOL

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Welcome to the Adolescent Literacy Intervention Selection Tool (A-LIST)! The A-LIST provides information about literacy intervention programs for grades 4-12 to help educators make informed intervention program choices. The A-LIST presents the results of expert educator panels' review of the extent to which each intervention program: Disclaimer: The A-LIST only reports alignment to the practices identified.

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Comprehensive Center Network: Region 1 - Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont 

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Comprehensive Center Network: Region 1 - Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont 

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Newsletter Sign up

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This material is in the public domain. While permission to reprint is not necessary, publication should be cited. The material is prepared by the Region 1 Comprehensive Center under Award #S283B190004 for the Office of Program and Grantee Support Services (PGSS) within the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) of the U.S.

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Concept-Based Inquiry in Action: Strategies to Promote Transferable Understanding

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Concept-Based Inquiry in Action: Strategies to Promote Transferable Understanding

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by Carla Marschall and Rachel French

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Acknowledgments About the Authors About the Illustrator Introduction Chapter 1: The Foundations of Concept-Based Inquiry Bringing Together Inquiry-Based and Concept-Based Learning Part 1: Exploring Inquiry-Based Learning Inquiry Approaches in Concept-Based Inquiry Part 2: Exploring Concept-Based Learning Concepts as Organizers The Structures of Knowledge and Process Disciplines Draw From Knowledge and Process Pause and Reflect Chapter 2: Concept-Based Inquiry A Model of Concept-Based Inquiry The Phases of Concept-Based Inquiry The Complexity of Inquiry Concept-Based Inquiry and the Inductive Approach Creating a Culture of Concept-Based Inquiry Pause and Reflect Chapter 3: Planning for Concept-Based Inquiry What Planning Steps Support Concept-Based Inquiry? How Can Teachers Enhance Their Understanding of a Unit? What Role Do Guiding Questions Play in Concept-Based Inquiry? What Do the Phases of Concept-Based Inquiry Look Like in a Unit? Pacing in Concept-Based Inquiry How Do the Phases of Inquiry Support Teacher Planning for Concept-Based Inquiry? What Are Approaches for Making Interdisciplinary Links? Connecting to the Phases of Inquiry Pause and Reflect Chapter 4: Engage Activating Prior Knowledge Using Engagement Strategies Using Strategies to Motivate Students Initial Questions, Initial Thinking Rethinking Our Use of Engagement Strategies Opinion-Based Strategies Experiential Strategies Discussion-Based Strategies Assessment in the Engage Phase Connecting Phases of Inquiry Pause and Reflect Chapter 5: Focus Using Concept Formation Strategies to Focus an Inquiry Concepts Provide Breadth and Depth Levels of Conceptual Thinking Effective Concept Formation Practices Concept Formation Strategies: Deductive and Inductive Approaches Choosing Concept Formation Strategies Assessment in the Focus Phase Connecting Phases of Inquiry Pause and Reflect Chapter 6: Investigate The Power of Factual Examples Case Study Approaches Focus on Skill Development A Preface to Strategies Assessment in the Investigate Phase Connecting Phases of Inquiry Pause and Reflect Chapter 7: Organize Making Meaning Using Organizers Cognitive Load Theory and the Importance of Organizing Representation and Conceptual Understanding Sharing Findings as a Community of Inquirers A Preface to Strategies Assessment in the Organize Phase Connecting Phases of Inquiry Pause and Reflect Chapter 8: Generalize An Inductive Approach to Generalizing Developing Strong Generalizations Scaffolding Thinking The Value of Recording Generalizations The Importance of Discussion A Preface to Strategies Assessment in the Generalize Phase Connecting Phases of Inquiry Pause and Reflect Chapter 9: Transfer Transfer That Deepens Understanding Testing and Justifying Generalizations Understanding New Events and Situations Predicting and Hypothesizing Applying Learning Taking Action Assessment in the Transfer Phase Connecting Phases of Inquiry Pause and Reflect Chapter 10: Reflect The Power of Reflection The Reflective Cycle Building Agency Reflection Throughout the Inquiry Assessing Reflection Throughout the Inquiry Connecting Phases of Inquiry Pause and Reflect Chapter 11: Concluding Thoughts A Vision for Thinking Classrooms Understand and Adapt Resources Resource A. Concept-Based Inquiry Glossary of Terms Resource B. Concept-Based Inquiry Planner Resource C. Sample Concept-Based Inquiry Planner: Industrialization Unit References Index

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Concept-Based Inquiry in Action provides teachers with the tools and resources necessary to facilitate the construction and transfer of conceptual und...

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Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning

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Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning

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by John Hattie

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"Reveals teaching's Holy Grail."
-The Times Educational Supplement

John Hattie's ground-breaking book Visible Learning synthesized the results of more than 15 years' research involving millions of students and represented the biggest ever collection of evidence-based research into what actually works in schools to improve learning.

Visible Learning for Teachers takes the next step and brings those ground breaking concepts to a completely new audience. Written for students, pre-service and in-service teachers, it explains how to apply the principles from Visible Learning to any classroom anywhere in the world. The author offers concise and user-friendly summaries of the most succesful interventions and offers practical step-by-step guidance to the successful implementation of visible learning and visible teaching in the classroom.

This book:

links the biggest ever research project on teaching strategies to practical classroom implementation;

champions both teacher and student perspectives and contains step-by-step guidance including lesson preparation, interpreting learning and feedback during the lesson and post-lesson follow up;

offers checklists, excercises, case studies and best practice scenarios to assist in raising achievement;

includes whole school checklists and advice for school leaders on facilitating visible learning in their institution;

now includes additional meta-analyses bringing the total cited within the research to over 900;

comprehensively covers numerous areas of learning activity including pupil motivation, curriculum, meta-cognitive strategies, behaviour, teaching strategies and classroom management.

Visible Learning for Teachers is a must read for any student or teacher who wants an evidence-based answer to the question: 'how do we maximize achievement in our schools?'

John Hattie is Professor and Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia and honorary Professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is author of Visible Learning and co-author of Intelligence and Intelligence Testing, both published by Routledge.

This book:

links the biggest ever research project on teaching strategies to practical classroom implementation

champions both teacher and student perspectives and contains step by step guidance including lesson preparation, interpreting learning and feedback during the lesson and post lesson follow up

offers checklists, exercises, case studies and best practice scenarios to assist in raising achievement

includes whole school checklists and advice for school leaders on facilitating visible learning in their institution

now includes additional meta-analyses bringing the total cited within the research to over 900

comprehensively covers numerous areas of learning activity including pupil motivation, curriculum, meta-cognitive strategies, behaviour, teaching strategies, and classroom management.

Visible Learning for Teachers is a must read for any student or teacher who wants an evidence based answer to the question; 'how do we maximise achievement in our schools?'

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This groundbreaking resource details the most successful classroom practices and interventions based on more than 900 meta-analyses and offers teacher...

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Visible Learning for Mathematics: What Works Best to Optimize Student Learning, Grades K-12

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Visible Learning for Mathematics: What Works Best to Optimize Student Learning, Grades K-12

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by John Hattie, Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, Linda M. Gojak, Sara Delano Moore, and William Mellman

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From math, literacy, equity, multilingual learners, and SEL, to assessment, counseling, and education leadership, our books are research-based and authored by experts on topics most relevant to what educators are facing today.

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From math, literacy, equity, multilingual learners, and SEL, to assessment, counseling, and education leadership, our books are research-based and authored by experts on topics most relevant to what educators are facing today.

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Bringing Math Students Into the Formative Assessment Equation: Tools and Strategies for the Middle Grades

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Bringing Math Students Into the Formative Assessment Equation: Tools and Strategies for the Middle Grades

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by Susan J. Creighton, Cheryl Rose Tobey, Eric Karnowski, and Emily R. Fagan

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Being a Self-Regulating Learner Using Formative Assessment Practices to Develop Self-Regulation Skills Using Formative Assessment in Your Classroom Teaching Students How to Participate in Formative Assessment How to Use this Book to Learn What You Want to Learn Conclusion Chapter 2: Using Mathematics Learning Intentions and Success Criteria What Are Learning Intentions and Success Criteria? Creating Learning Intentions and Success Criteria for Your Classroom Conclusion Chapter 3: Gathering, Interpreting, and Acting on Evidence What Is Evidence? Using Evidence in Your Classroom: The Teacher's Role The Student's Role and How You Can Develop and Support It Conclusion Chapter 4: Providing and Using Formative Feedback What Is Formative Feedback? Using Formative Feedback in Your Classroom Conclusion Chapter 5: Developing Student Ownership and Involvement in Your Students Student Ownership and Involvement What Do Students Need to Learn? Helping Students Develop Ownership and Involvement in Their Mathematics Learning Self-Regulation: It's Not a Linear Process Conclusion Chapter 6: Using Mathematics Learning Progressions What Is a Learning Progression? How Can You Use Learning Progressions in Your Instruction? Using Learning Progressions to Help Develop Student Ownership and Involvement Conclusion Chapter 7: Establishing a Classroom Environment Elements of the Classroom Environment The Social and Cultural Environment: Promoting Intellectual Safety and Curiosity The Instructional Environment: Framing Instruction to Encourage and Make Visible Students' Thinking and to Optimize Learning The Physical Environment: Keeping Resources Available Conclusion Chapter 8: Moving Toward Implementation Implementation Principles for Formative Assessment Sustaining Your Effort Over the Long Term Conclusion: Final Words of Encouragement Appendix A: Resources Appendix B: Implementation Indicators for Formative Assessment

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Bringing Math Students Into the Formative Assessment Equation

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This research-based, teacher-tested guide features a clear and manageable instructional model, strategies for helping students own their success, midd...

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Learning That Transfers: Designing Curriculum for a Changing World

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Learning That Transfers: Designing Curriculum for a Changing World

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by Julie H. Stern, Krista F. Ferraro, Kayla Duncan, and Trevor Aleo

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It is a pleasure to have a full length treatise on this most important topic, and may this focus on transfer become much more debated, taught, and val…

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Routines for Reasoning: Fostering the Mathematical Practices in All Students

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Routines for Reasoning: Fostering the Mathematical Practices in All Students

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by Grace Kelemanik, Amy Lucenta, and Susan J. Creighton

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Fostering the Mathematical Practices in All Students

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Teaching for Thinking: Fostering Mathematical Teaching Practices Through Reasoning Routines

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Teaching for Thinking: Fostering Mathematical Teaching Practices Through Reasoning Routines

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by Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta

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Building on their seminal work, Routines for Reasoning, Grace and Amy have demystified the process for teaching mathematical reasoning. Teaching for Thinking concretely unravels how a teacher can systemically give all students the opportunity to discover and make sense of mathematical structures, quantities, and relationships. Three critical instructional shifts and five essential teaching strategies are carefully integrated into clear implementable routines and then thoughtfully deconstructed.

This incredibly accessible text is a must read for classroom teachers and for systems leaders committed to transforming access to mathematical reasoning.
- Ellen Barger, Assistant Superintendent, Curriculum & Instruction, Santa Barbara County Education Office
A long overdue theme for mathematics learning and teaching is engagement and equity. To realize true mathematical understanding, all students must construct meaning for themselves. The challenge for teachers is not to do the reasoning for students, but rather for them to facilitate students' reasoning for themselves. For teachers, this is far easier said than done. Grace and Amy newest book, builds on the original book, Routines for Reasoning, to introduce daily mathematical routines to foster student-center classrooms that generate discourse and reasoning, and promote regular engagement in the Common Core Standards of Mathematical Practice. Grace and Amy's newest book, Teaching for Thinking: Fostering Mathematical Teaching Practices Through Reasoning Routines shares additional routines that promote strategies and techniques that foster student's mathematical reasoning. These two books are necessary reads for all mathematics teachers!!

- David Foster, Founder, Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative

In their book Routines for Reasoning, Kelemanik, Lucenta, and Jansen provided teachers with practical strategies for implementing the standards for mathematical practice. Teachers all over the country have embraced these routines and are making a difference for student achievement in mathematics. In their new book Teaching for Thinking, Kelemanik and Lucenta build on their previous work. This book encourages teachers to specifically tend to student thinking. They believe this can be done by having the teacher move out of the way and allow students to share their thinking with each other. Kelemanik and Lucenta share two new routines with readers that give teachers additional tools to support student success in the mathematics classroom. Kelemanik and Lucenta generously share strategies for teachers to develop their own routines. This book is for teachers, and anyone who supports them, to help them transform mathematics classrooms into spaces where students can thrive.
- Kyndall Brown, Executive Director, California Mathematics Project

Teaching thinking is the most important thing schools can do right now - not what to think or even how to think but to think before declaring what is right or wrong, true or false. In this book, Kelemanik and Lucenta what thinking can look like in math classrooms, how it can be taught and how it can be learned. They make explicit how students can interact with one another as they actively learn to think. They detail the importance of the teacher actions that make that interaction productive. And they clearly explain the importance of routines for building thinking as a habit for all students.

Since thinking in collaboration with peers is not something most people experience regularly in or out of schools, we need to engage in the kind of explicit habit-building that Kelemanik and Lucenta feature to make it part of our everyday actions. In Teaching for Thinking, the authors are more articulate and precise about the relationship between routines and learning new habits. Building on their earlier book, Routines for Reasoning, they offer a window into the design process, empowering teachers to create their own instructional routines.

There are many ways in which this book is perfect for use in teacher study groups, but it also contains the resources individual teachers can use to improve their own practice, building on routines to learn from students and to revise the ways in which they regularly interact in the classroom. The use of student work and examples of classroom dialogue in the text supports connections between the ideas in the book and how they play out in classrooms. Continuously emphasizing the ways in which teaching can be structured to get students talking and working together, Kelemanik and Lucenta demonstrate how teachers can learn by watching and listening to what students do. They recognize that habits take time to build and that time needs to be devoted to students developing their thoughts and taking account of the thoughts of others.
- Magdalene Lampert, Professor, University of Michigan, School of Education

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Teaching our children to think and reason mathematically is a challenge, not because students can't learn to think mathematically, but because we must

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Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential Through Creative math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching (1st Edition)

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Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential Through Creative math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching (1st Edition)

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by Jo Boaler

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Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching (Mindset Mathematics)

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Amazon.com: Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching (Mindset Mathematics): 9780470894521: Boaler, Jo, Dweck, Carol: Books

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by Cathy Humphreys and Ruth Parker

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Making Number Talks Matter

Developing mathematical practices and deepening understanding

Make this 15-minute daily routine a vibrant and vital part of math instruction! Discover practical ideas for using Number Talks to help students learn numerical reasoning, and build a solid foundation for the study of mathematics. Based on the insights of many years of experience, this straightforward book provides questions to ask during Number Talks, ways to turn thinking over to students, the math behind the strategies, and ways to overcome commonly-occurring problems.

Author(s): Cathy Humphreys and Ruth Parker

Pages: 216

Publication Date: 2015

ISBN: 9781571109989

All book orders receive a 10% discount

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Making Number Talks Matter Developing mathematical practices and deepening understanding Make this 15-minute daily routine a vibrant and vital part of math instruction! Discover practical ideas for using Number Talks to help students learn numerical reasoning, and build a solid foundation for the study of mathematics.

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the Math Pact: Achieving Instructional Coherence Within and Across Grades, Elementary 

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the Math Pact: Achieving Instructional Coherence Within and Across Grades, Elementary 

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by Karen S. Karp, Barbara J. Dougherty, and Sarah B. Bush

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Do you sometimes start to teach a mathematics concept and feel like you're staring at a sea of bewildered faces? What happens when you discover students previously learned a calculation trick or a mnemonic that has muddied their long-term understanding? When "rules" seem to change from year to year, teacher to teacher, or school to school, mathematics can seem like a disconnected mystery for students. Clear up the confusion with a Mathematics Whole-School Agreement!

Expanded from the highly popular "Rules that Expire" series of NCTM articles, this essential guide leads educators through the collaborative step-by-step process of establishing a coherent and consistent learner-centered and equitable approach to mathematics instruction. Through this work, you will identify, streamline, and become passionate about using clear and consistent mathematical language, notations, representations, rules, and generalizations within and across classrooms and grades. Importantly, you'll learn to avoid "rules that expire"-tricks that may seem to help students in one grade but hurt in the long run. Features of this book include

· Abundant grade-specific examples

· Effective working plans for sustainability

· Barrier-busting tips, to-dos, and try-it-outs

· Practical templates and checklists

· PLC prompts and discussion points

When teachers unite across grades, students hit the ground running every year. Take the next step together as a team and help all your students build on existing understanding to find new success and most importantly, love learning and doing mathematics!

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Expanded from the highly popular “Rules that Expire” series of NCTM articles, this essential guide leads educators through the collaborati...

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the Math Pact: Achieving Instructional Coherence Within and Across Grades, Middle School

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the Math Pact: Achieving Instructional Coherence Within and Across Grades, Middle School

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by Sarah B. Bush, Karen S. Karp, and Barbara J. Dougherty

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Do you sometimes start to teach a mathematics concept and feel like you're staring at a sea of bewildered faces? What happens when you discover students previously learned a calculation trick or a mnemonic that has muddied their long-term understanding? When "rules" seem to change from year to year, teacher to teacher, or school to school, mathematics can seem like a disconnected mystery for students. Clear up the confusion with a Mathematics Whole-School Agreement!

Expanded from the highly popular "Rules that Expire" series of NCTM articles, this essential guide leads educators through the collaborative step-by-step process of establishing a coherent and consistent learner-centered and equitable approach to mathematics instruction. Through this work, you will identify, streamline, and become passionate about using clear and consistent mathematical language, notations, representations, rules, and generalizations within and across classrooms and grades. Importantly, you'll learn to avoid "rules that expire"-tricks that may seem to help students in one grade but hurt in the long run. Features of this book include

· Abundant grade-specific examples

· Effective working plans for sustainability

· Barrier-busting tips, to-dos, and try-it-outs

· Practical templates and checklists

· PLC prompts and discussion points

When teachers unite across grades, students hit the ground running every year. Take the next step together as a team and help all your students build on existing understanding to find new success and most importantly, love learning and doing mathematics!

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Expanded from the highly popular “Rules that Expire” series of NCTM articles, this essential guide leads educators through the collaborat...

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Can You See it In Your Mind Strategy

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"Good readers construct mental images as they read a text. By using prior knowledge and background experiences, readers connect the author's writing with a personal picture. Through guided visualization, students learn how to create mental pictures as they read." (Reading Rockets, 2015). Visual imagery can take place before, during, or after reading. It can be taught to small groups, whole group, or individually. Visualization is an important part of comprehension, because students need to be able to create the picture in their head of what is going on in the story. For the picture to flow and make sense, the students need to be comprehending their text.

When readers are having a hard time understanding what they are reading, this is a good strategy to teach them. It helps them to create images, scenarios, or movies in their minds that reflect to the text. For example, a student is not understanding a story about an ocean, however when the student visualizes the place and really focuses on key details he/she understand because he/she can visually see it. Visualizing makes it easier for students to understand the text because they are looking beyond the words and creating images that help them understand the text.
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One might imagine a sunset on the beach and hear the waves, smell the seaweed, feel a breeze, and clearly see the rich colors of the sunset as the Sun drops below the horizon." (WiseGeek, 2015).

Creating mental images while reading can improve comprehension." (Reading Rockets, 2015).

Often times for struggling readers, words on a page are just words on a page. When we use a strategy that helps make the words on the page come alive it allows them to use their imagination and see more than just text. When students are creating images they can recall information easier, because they have a visual aid/representation to relate to the text. According to Harvey and Goudvis, visualizing strengthens students inferential thinking by having mental images rather than words and thoughts (Harvey and Goudvis, 2007). Also according to Wilson, her article states visualizing helps students feel more connected to the material and students are able to see the characters, be apart of the setting, and participate in the actions. It is like being apart of a film and brings the words on a page to life and helps them understand and connection to the text (Wilson, 2014). The authors of the text, Reading Problems: Assessment and Teaching Strategies, state that not all students learn through the same cognitive process. Some learners are visual learners and learn best through visualizing and having visual aids, so having students who struggle with reading will provide these students with a learner strategy that helps them effectively understand the material (Jennings, Caldwell, and Lerner, 2014).

"Begin reading. Pause after a few sentences or paragraphs that contain good descriptive information.

Share the image you've created in your mind, and talk about which words from the book helped you "draw" your picture. Your picture can relate to the setting, the characters, or the actions. By doing this, you are modeling the kind of picture making you want your child to do.

Talk about how these pictures help you understand what's happening in the story.

Continue reading. Pause again and share the new image you created. Then ask your child to share what he sees, hears, tastes, smells and feels. Ask what words helped him create the mental image and emotions. By doing this, you are providing your child with practice with this new skill.

Are your images identical? Probably not! This is a great time to talk about why your images might be different. Perhaps your child went on a school field trip or had a school assembly that changed the way they created the picture in their mind. Perhaps experiences you've had as an adult influenced what you "drew." These differences are important to understand and respect.

Read a longer portion of text and continue the sharing process.

Once this is a familiar skill, encourage your child to use mental imagery when she is reading by herself. You can feel confident that these mental pictures will help your child understand the story in an important way." (Reading Rockets, 2015).

Students can use visualizing to connect to the text. After modeling and practicing the visualizing strategy, the students will be able to utilize this throughout all of their readings in their life. There are many books that can be used to model visual imagery such as: Reading: All the World, Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing, Bunnicula, and Aesop's Fables. These are a few examples of books that will help create vivid images for students and will help teachers be able to model this strategy clearly.

Mathematics: Students can use the visualizing strategy to think through math problems. They can begin with the end in mind, and visualize how they are going to solve the problems. While doing mathematics, first you will need to begin with the think-aloud strategy, and then visual imagery, because the students will need to know the process to arriving at an answer to the certain types of problems. "Look at this problem and picture in your mind how you are going to get an answer. Think about what steps you are going to have to use." This would be a sample statement for students when they are practicing visual imagery.

Science: When students are unable to take a trip to somewhere to explore, we can ask them to visualize going there. "Take yourself to a beach, somewhere with a salty ocean." This will help the students to visualize what it is like to go to the ocean. The students will use this strategy to connect to their science content. "Visualize how a rabbit's fur would feel," or "picture in your mind how it would smell if we were at a cow pasture." These types of statements will help students connect to their outside world.

Social Studies: When students are able to use visualizing for social studies, they will be connecting to the reading in a whole new way. Cultures, places, and history are all important to the social studies content. "Close your eyes and picture yourself walking with Martin Luther King Jr. during his march. What would it feel like? Who would be with you?" This is an example of how we could use visualizing to help students connect to an important time in history. This is more effective than the students just reading it in the book.

Did you know?

Visual imagery can be treated as a stress management tool. It can be used to calm the students down as they begin to feel panicked.

Tips

* Use before, during, and after the reading.
* Allow time for students to discuss and share.
* Use a book with a lot of details.
* Read with expression to students

Echevarría, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. (2014). Making content comprehensible for elementary English learners: The SIOP model (2nd ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

Jennings, J., Caldwell, J., & Lerner, J. (2014). Reading problems assessment and teaching strategies. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Pounds, L. (2012, October 22). Increasing Reading Comprehension through Visualization. Retrieved September 27, 2015.

Model an example the first timeHarvey, S., & Goudvis, A (2000). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension to enhance understanding. York, ME: Stenhouse.

Visual Imagery. (2015). Retrieved September 27, 2015.

Visualizing Strategy. (2015). Retrieved September 18, 2015.

Wilson, D. (2014). Brain Movies: When Readers Can Picture It, They Understand It. Edutopia. Retrieved on 9/21/15. From http://www.edutopia.org/blog/brain-movies-visualize-reading-comprehension-donna-wilson.

Wright, W. E. (2010). Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, policy, and practice. Philadelphia: Caslon Pub.

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"Good readers construct mental images as they read a text. By using prior knowledge and background experiences, readers connect the author's writing with a personal picture. Through guided...

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Chunking Strategy

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How to Implement Chunking Teaching Strategy in Your Classroom

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Spread the loveDescription A chunking activity involves breaking down a complicated text into more manageable pieces and having learners rewrite these "chunks" in their own words. You can utilize this method with challenging texts of any length. Chunking helps learners identify keywords and ideas, develops their ability to summarize, and makes it easier for them to organize and synthesize information.

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Teach It Strategy

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Formative assessment is a proven technique for improving student learning, and the strategies shared here by Jay McTighe work both in the classroom and remotely.

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GOP (Goals, Options, Plan) Strategy

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Checklist Strategy

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TL;DR:

Social emotional learning is already integrated into everyday teaching, helping students develop essential life skills alongside academic knowledge.

Teachers can enhance SEL by implementing intentional strategies, such as reflection for self-awareness, authentic assessments for social awareness, choice boards for responsible decision making, checklists for self-management, and promoting collaboration and cooperation for building relationship skills.

These practices align with CASEL's five tenets of Social Emotional Learning. They empower students to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, establish empathy, maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

Social Emotional Learning Support

Social emotional learning does not have to be an add-on curriculum. It is already embedded in the teaching we do every day. School is about teaching the whole person. That means life skills and lifelong guidelines are part of our disciplinary curriculum. While students are studying earth science they are learning to take notes which are executive functioning skills and self-management competency.

Participating in a Socratic Seminar in history class, students practice active listening and build communication skills. This helps to develop relationship skills and social awareness. In English, students are reading about how characters persevere and cope with adversity. This models self-management and responsible decision making. These are just some of the ways that teachers are helping to meet the five tenets of social emotional learning as defined by Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).

SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. With some intentional teaching moves all teachers can empower students to learn deeply about their world, themselves, and others. The five practices below are based on each of CASEL's five tenets of Social Emotional Learning.

#1. Reflection Builds Self Awareness

After a unit or summative assignment, I usually have students complete a reflection to help them judge for themselves how hard they worked, how hard they tried, and the quality of the world they contributed. These three aspects of reflection are recommended by Daniel T. Willingham in his book Outsmart Your Brain (2023). Reflections can be in the form of short answers on a Google Form or in writing. You might consider a scale for students to rate their work effort. When students write about their experiences and opinions, they are developing a metacognitive awareness about themselves as a learner. When students are able to honestly share their strengths and weaknesses as learners, they build self-awareness.

Social emotional learning does not have to be an add-on curriculum. It is already embedded in the teaching we do every day. School is about teaching the whole person. Click To Tweet

#2. Social Awareness & Authentic Assessments

Connecting content to current events helps students develop a social awareness about the world around them. Instead of just writing an essay or taking a test to evaluate what students know and have learned, consider assigning a podcast about a topic that students are passionate about to build persuasive and informative communication skills. I always ask students what they want to change about the world. Some consider war, the environment, and even mental health. Students research the topic and then create a storyboard to either create a mini-documentary about their topic or public service announcement.

We study elements of both digital storytelling genres and then students choose a movie-making app like Adobe, Powtoons, or iMovie to effectively communicate their message. While completing this assessment, students are reading, researching, writing, speaking, listening, thinking critically, and leveraging technology for constructing knowledge and creative design. So, students are only meeting content area standards but harnessing interpersonal and social skills.

#3. Choice Boards Facilitate Responsible Decision Making

Providing choice in your assignments and assessments helps students navigate responsible decision making for themselves and also their classmates when collaboration is involved. Learning menu choice boards (menus, tic-tac-toes, Totally 10 choice boards) provide options for students. Our goal as teachers is to figure out how to teach the same content through a student's choice of instructional experiences. Our objective is to get all students engaged and that means all students must have high attention and high commitment. One of the best and most manageable ways is through choice boards and learning menus. When providing choice, students have to make constructive decisions and weigh options as they pertain to themselves and others.

#4. Checklists Help Develop Self-Management Skills

When designing units of study or multistep assessments, providing students with checklists is helpful to organize the work and time management. Consider it a scaffolded road map to support students with check boxes or bullet points. While a checklist helps students manage their time with projects or assignments, it also helps to bolster executive functioning skills.

[scroll down to keep reading]

#5. Cultivating Relationship Skills With Collaboration & Cooperation

Collaboration and cooperation are life skills necessary in school. Teachers cannot expect students to know how to effectively collaborate. These lessons are cultivated throughout the school year at every grade level. Teach students how to work in groups by highlighting speaking stems or frames when students work together. With group projects, students rate themselves and their group members. Provide explicit instructions and feedback.

When observing a group working really well together, announce to the class, "I noticed that when Sasha and Luke were discussing the questions, Sasha stopped and said we haven't heard from Osman yet, let's give him the opportunity to share what he thinks." This small move helps students learn what it means to work in a group and by showcasing positive examples, students are able to build positive relationship skills through collaboration and cooperation.

Social Emotional Learning has been evolving over an extended period of time and with simple intentional strategies, teachers can embed these key skills into any content area classroom to support learner success. Creative communication and cooperation elevate learning experiences and support student engagement, learning, growth, and achievement.

About Michele Haiken

Michele Haiken, Ed.D is an educator, author, and blogger. She has been teaching for more than twenty four years as a middle school English teacher and an adjunct professor in New York. Michele is the co-author of the forthcoming book Creative SEL: Using Hands-on Projects to Boost Social Emotional Learning (ISTE, 2023) and author of New Realms for Writing (ISTE, 2019), Personalized Reading (ISTE, 2018), and editor of Gamify Literacy (ISTE, 2017). Michele is passionate about empowering 21st Century learners, educational technology and literacy so everyone can reach excellence. Read more on her blog theteachingfactor.com and connect with Michele on Instagram @teaching_factor and Twitter @teachingfactor.

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5 Classroom Strategies for Social Emotional Learning Support

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TL;DR: Social emotional learning is already integrated into everyday teaching, helping students develop essential life skills alongside academic knowledge. Teachers can enhance SEL by implementing intentional strategies, such as reflection for self-awareness, authentic assessments for...

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Time Needed for Time Management Strategy

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Effective time management is all about achieving the right balance between your homework, university/college life, and your free time. As a student, organizing your days will eliminate stress and ensure that you are productive. The general time management tips for students, such as sleeping well, scheduling, and prioritizing, are some important tips that can help students in the long run. A more strategic approach is required to optimize the time a student has in a day.

Why is Time Management Important for Students?

Time management for students (and everyone else) is about making your day purposeful. It is about taking control of the time you have and optimizing it for focus, productivity, and above all, balance. Before we list out the time management tips for students, it is crucial for students to understand why time management is important.

All of us should make the most of the limited amount of time we have in a day. It is very easy to get wrapped up in a fury of various activities and accomplish less. Managing time effectively enables students to become more confident, and organized, and learn more efficiently. Effective time management skills are particularly essential for high school students, as they have to deal with more subjects, tests, assignments, and extracurriculars. Time management techniques can help students be on track and cope with the stress of added responsibilities.

Following are a few more reasons why time management is important for students:

Enables You to Accomplish Your Goals Faster

Appropriate time management makes one more effective and encourages you to give your best to what you are doing and what you can, thus helping you achieve your goals much faster.

Enables You to Prioritize Your Work

When creating a timetable, you prioritize and arrange essential tasks that need immediate attention. For example, students have to complete assignments before attending a session. A student can fit in time to work on the assignments before attending a study group with correct time management.

Enables You to Get More Done in Less Time

Dedicating a specified amount of time to a particular task helps you focus on it. Instead of working on a given task with no predefined time assigned, you can complete the same task by sticking to a time plan. Without a time plan, you might completely forget to finish a task.

Reduces Stress Levels

Time management skills can help you prioritize the time required for essential tasks; prioritizing tasks and having enough time to accomplish those tasks means reduced stress levels.

Helps You Become More Efficient

Effective time management helps you to be more focused at school/college/university, thus increasing your efficiency and enabling you to accomplish more within less time.

So, how can students learn to manage time more effectively? We have collated a list of the best time management tips for students to beat procrastination, stay focused, and be more productive.

10 Time Management Skills and Techniques for Students

Efficient time management is one of the primary keys to success, and thus, it is worth learning. Following are time management strategies for students to help them manage their time in the best possible manner.

1. Make Use of a Daily Schedule Template to Plan Your Day

Seminars, classes, and workshops may take up a chunk of your day, but how one schedules their own time makes all the difference. It is essential to master your schedule.

A daily schedule template helps you manage and control your time each day. It will enable you to stay organized and focus on what matters most and even help you overcome procrastination. The method that most successful people from Elon Musk to Bill Gates use is "time blocking". Time blocking is creating a template for how you intend to spend every minute of your day. Students should therefore follow this method to manage their time more fruitfully.

2. Understand How You are Currently Spending Your Time (And Where You Are Losing It)

Your schedule will offer you an ideal version of your day, but you need to analyze how you spend your time to develop better time management habits. Without understanding how you are spending your time each day, it is impossible to build better time management strategies for students to stay focused.

3. Set Proper Goals to Measure Your Progress

Goals are an excellent way to get you motivated to do school work. However, the problem is that goals are just the result, with you not knowing how to achieve them. So, focus on what needs to be done to achieve that goal by focusing on constant progress and developing better habits. For example, if you need to write a 5,000-word essay in a month, set a daily goal of writing 500 words. If you continue this, you can complete your essay in a week.

4. Break Large Projects Into Smaller, Actionable Tasks

A part of proper goal-setting is to segregate large goals from smaller daily tasks. Doing this will help you stay focused and stop you from procrastinating. It is easy to procrastinate when a project feels like a huge task. However, taking that first step is all you need to build momentum.

5. Be Realistic About the Time You Need to Complete a Task

Once you begin to schedule your tasks for the day, you may get overly optimistic about how much you can achieve. Psychologists also have a name for this - The Planning Fallacy. One of the most effective time management tips for students is to counter the planning fallacy. Students should add a buffer to their schedule depending on how familiar they are with the task. If it is something that has been done before, then 1-1.5X time must be allocated to the time they think it may take to complete the project.

6. Pay Attention to Your Body's Natural Energy Highs and Lows

We all have moments in the day when we are more energetic and alert. And if you want to exploit the time you have each day to its maximum, you cannot fight against your body's natural state. What does this mean in terms of time management tips for students? Simply put, students should do their most essential work when they feel most energetic. This means scheduling intense projects during energy highs and scheduling passive activities when the body is at its natural low.

7. Take Breaks at the Right Time

Take more breaks to manage your productivity over time. But when exactly is the right time to take a break? Sleep researcher Nathaniel Kleitman states, "our minds naturally crave breaks after every 90 minutes of intense work. Even if you do not have a timer going, your body will let you know that you need a break by turning sleepy, fidgeting, hungry, or losing focus". When you begin to feel this way, you know it is time to take a break.

8. Remove Distractions

Between social media, cell phones, and friends, there are so many activities that can distract students from their school work. When it is time to get down to doing school work, students need to turn off their cell phones and sign out of social media accounts. Any amount of time that is devoted to school work must be television and cell phone free!

9. Avoid Multitasking

It may be tempting for students to feel that they can multitask when their schedule is jam-packed. But the more one tries to do it at once, the longer each thing takes. Instead, studies have found that deeply focusing on one task at a time can be around 500% more productive.

10. Build Better Routines and Habits for Long-Term Success

We are what we repetitively do. One of the best time management strategies for students and everyone else is to develop routines and habits that endorse the kind of actions you would like to do more of, for example, following a morning routine that concentrates on getting an early win and prepping yourself for a productive day. Or, ensure your evening routine preps you for an effective next day by setting your goals and schedules the night before.

Working Smarter to Enhance Productivity

When planning, prioritize the more extensive, more complex, and time-consuming chores at the beginning of the week (or day), so you may complete them first and relax more as the week progresses. Front-load your week to maximize your chances of success. This is similar to Eat That Frog, a productivity strategy that recommends performing the most important or influential activity first every day to ensure it gets done.

The Benefits of Good Time Management

Constant meetings, social media, and an endless stream of emails may make it challenging to create a productive day. Developing effective habits at work will enable you to accomplish your best job regularly. You have two options for increasing your productivity. You may work longer hours if you bring your job home with you. You may also work smarter by boosting efficiency without sacrificing quality. Let's look at some significant benefits of good time management are:

Stress Relief

One of the primary causes of increased stress is poor time management. When you have a lot to accomplish and are unsure how to do it, you usually perform a rush job under pressure. However, with proper time management, you can schedule your daily chores so that you work smarter rather than harder. For example, you may prepare critical tasks for when you're most productive or set aside additional time for things you suspect will take longer than expected. So, even if you work longer, you will have enough time to complete everything while being calm.

More Time

By identifying task completion time, you can use less energy and worry less about whether you can achieve everything you need to do today. Instead, make time to take a break from your typical routine. You may preserve energy for your spare time since time management helps you to plan when your task will be completed before you begin it. Having more free time can help you achieve a better work-life balance and ensure you make time for yourself.

More Opportunities

Effective time management may help you achieve more success by improving the quality of your work. When you manage your time well, you not only provide excellent work on schedule, but you also work without stress. This displays improved decision-making abilities and potential for leadership. In other words, you exhibit traits that are necessary for job advancement. This will provide you with greater and more chances.

Ability to Realize Goals

You may simplify your day and spend less time selecting what to do or how to accomplish it if you use time management to arrange what you need to complete each day. For example, deciding what to do for each step before commencing the project may be beneficial if you have a complex project with an outline that requires several yet unclear phases. The project is then reduced to a short set of activities that give guidance. You save time by preparing your objectives rather than finding them out as you go. This might mean spending less time pondering what you should be doing and more time doing it.

How Well Do You Manage Your Time?

There are several approaches you may use based on your time management abilities and experience, but the goal is to explain a system that works for you and makes sense in the position you're going for. In other words, if you're working in a team atmosphere, discuss an efficient time management approach for teamwork, such as getting everyone acquainted with project management software. Then, discuss the advantages of employing this method for time management. Going into depth about how this technique has worked for you demonstrates to the interviewer that you have real-world experience adopting this way to manage your time and aren't simply making it up.

General Time-Management Tools

Time management is critical to your success. You may achieve any goal you set your mind to by using an excellent time planner and master list. These are common time management tools and practices that you should employ to maximize productivity and personal organization. Each of these takes some effort to learn and perfect, but they will pay you back in increased efficiency and effectiveness for the rest of your life.

Prioritization

The 80/20 rule was developed by the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. It's believed that 20% of activities are accountable for 80% of results. The purpose of Pareto analysis is to assist you in prioritizing tasks that are most successful at issue resolution. List some of the difficulties you are experiencing. Determine the fundamental source of each issue. Assign a score to each problem and arrange them by cause. Add the scores from each group: The topic should be addressed first in the group with the highest score. Take some action.

Scheduling

Scheduling is the art of preparing your activities so that you may accomplish your goals and prioritize your priorities in the time you have available. When done correctly, it can assist you in realizing what you can do with your time. Ensure you leave adequate time for import duties and only take on what you can do.

Goal Setting

Smart goals enable people to plan and attain their objectives in a reasonable amount of time. It can also aid in improving time management in professional contexts such as school and the workplace. Smart goal planning may give direction for your aims and help you build practical measures to attain those goals if you want to manage your time wisely.

Concentration and Focus

Distractions are a major impediment to personal time management. Close the door to avoid as many distractions as possible. Only pay attention to what you're doing right now.

In terms of significance, describe your top two distractions over the next two weeks. Remember that staying focused during the day necessitates proper sleep habits and enough fluids.

Time Management in Practice

Effective time management entails completing more vital tasks in a single day. Effective time management is more important than efficient time management. The most successful time managers are also the most efficient. Try some time management software. The first time management tool you require is a time planner, which provides all the information you need to plan and arrange your life. The most excellent time planners, whether looseleaf or electronic, allow you to prepare for the whole year, the month, the week, and each day.

Implications of Poor Time Management

We all know that there never seems to be enough time in the day, and as a result, things slip by the wayside. While this occurs to the best of us from time to time, students who battle with time management regularly are doing themselves no favors.

Poor Workflow

Poor efficiency results from a failure to plan and keep to goals. For example, completing related chores concurrently or sequentially is an intelligent approach if many significant tasks need to be accomplished. However, if you plan, you may be able to bounce back and forth, or backtrack, in your job. This equates to decreased efficiency and output.

Wasted Time

Wasted time arises from poor time management. For example, chatting with pals on social media while working on an assignment is a distraction and a waste of time.

Loss of Control

You will lose control of your professional life if you do not know the next assignment. This might lead to increased tension and worry.

Poor Quality of Work

The quality of your work could be better when you manage your time well. Quality is often degraded when things are rushed at the last minute.

Poor Reputation

When clients or your company cannot rely on you to finish things on time, their expectations and impressions of you suffer. A client who needs to trust you to complete a task on schedule will likely look for another service provider.

How to Better Manage Your Time at Work?

Your ability to manage your time affects how productive you are each day. You can accomplish more in less time with effective time management, which also helps you feel less stressed and advance in your profession. Instead of just using the following tools as a timetable to complete more tasks, make them represent your values-what is most important to you. When you arrange and calendar your time and make the split-second decisions essential to efficient time management for balance and well-being, remember these principles.

1. Know How You're Spending Your Time

You need to keep track of what you do with your time to identify any activities or routines preventing you from achieving your desired objectives. You must start and end each day with a purpose to make the most of your time.

You have two choices for keeping track of your time:

Spend a day or two manually recording your activities in a "time log."

To automatically log your time, use a free program like RescueTime.

2. Stick to a Daily Schedule

While making a to-do list is a common theme in time and productivity management advice for students, mastering your daily schedule is even more crucial.

Time blocking is the strategy of choice for many of the most successful people in the world, including Bill Gates and Elon Musk. But time blocking is planning how to spend each minute of your day.

Create Realistic Timelines: A schedule must be practical to be effective. Plan your study time wisely to increase your study skills. The study techniques of the students vary from one another. This entails scheduling time for breaks, meals, exercise, social interaction, phone calls to loved ones, and all other "non-school" activities that keep you content and motivated.

Give your undivided Attention: Your best friend in this situation is "self-discipline" and "self-control." If you must take a break, do so, but try to avoid sneaking away to other websites while working. Turn off your phone or put it away until it's time for a scheduled break.

3. Prioritize

1440 minutes make up one day. Within these hours, you must set practical priorities. Setting suitable priorities for your study goals is one of the sage study advice. If you have a lot of material to learn, start breaking it down into manageable chunks and choose what is most crucial. One of the best study strategies is making the most of your morning hours when nobody is awake to disturb you since they are asleep.

Do immediately: Tasks that are crucial and have clear deadlines, or ones you've put off so long they're past due.

Schedule for later: Crucial assignments with no set deadlines.

Delegate: Those tasks that others can execute.

Delete: Activities you can skip since they are optional to achieving your objectives or carrying out your mission.

4. Tackle the Most Difficult Task First

You should complete your most crucial tasks when you're most energetic. This entails arranging writing or other demanding tasks for when your energy levels are at their highest and reading or other passive pursuits for when they are at their lowest.

Brian Tracy's renowned Eat That Frog productivity technique is quite effective for those who delay or find themselves procrastinating frequently or who may have difficulty avoiding distractions. It suggests starting with the task that is the hardest, most complicated, and most critical, i.e., the one you're most inclined to put off for later. Once you've "devoured that frog," only then should you move on; that too without much stress.

5. Batch-Process Similar Tasks

Task batching is when you organize related jobs or tasks into groups and finish them all at once. Using this method, you can easily cut down on multitasking and extend your time to give all your projects your full attention.

For instance: At around 10 to 11 a.m. daily, organize and respond to emails and organize your digital study materials simultaneously.

6. Set Reasonable Time Limits

Focus on what has to be done to reach and surpass the objective instead of starting at the end and moving backward. You might take a full day to finish two different tasks that could be completed in only three hours if you had a full day to do so. There's a good possibility you'll still reach the earlier deadline if you give yourself a shorter window.

What can you do every day to further your ultimate aim? This entails putting an emphasis on steady improvement and forming improved routines. Even better, seeing daily progress will spur you to do more. Work "expands to occupy the time given to do it," according to Parkinson's law.

7. Learn When to Say No

Our energy levels are limited each day and tend to decrease with time. It is wise to know your limits and be prepared to say no to prevent doing subpar work. Understand your advantages and disadvantages. It is ideal for concentrating on one's strengths and delegating tasks that others can complete more quickly and effectively.

8. Avoid Multitasking

Concentrate on one item at a time to manage your time and commit it to study effectively. Nothing gets accomplished when you attempt to perform too many tasks at once. So, starting with one activity, finishing it, and moving on to another is one of the greatest study- focus- ideas.

When your schedule is packed, believing you can multitask is tempting. But everything takes longer the more you try to complete it at once. Instead, studies show that concentrating intently on a single activity can increase productivity by up to 500%. The American Psychological Association claims that mental juggling comes with "switching costs" that reduce your output. Changing tasks may take a few seconds each, but it adds up if you multitask regularly. Your potential for error also increases.

9. Keep Things Organized

Efficiency will rise if your workspace is tidy and organized because you won't have time to look for paper. Learning how to be organized is a talent that can be known. Start with these fundamentals.

Maintain a clean work desk: The office's physical surroundings greatly impact how you operate. When your environment is chaotic, you are too. You can also be affected by clutter in less direct ways. Research has demonstrated that your physical settings substantially impact your cognition, emotions, and behavior, affecting how you make decisions and interact with others.

Coordinate your computer files and shared drives: Loss of files and decreased productivity might result from improperly arranging shared files. Nothing is more confusing than spending most of your working hours searching your system for files. Create distinct folders for your files according to their categories to save yourself the hassle.

Use a calendar: Using a well-organized calendar, you can manage your time to keep on top of your to-do lists and maintain focus throughout the workday. Although many executives have secretaries who work their calendars, anyone may utilize the same procedures to become more productive.

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Conclusion

Time management for students is highly intimidating, especially when you have multiple things on your to-do list. It is one of the most challenging tasks for students as they are expected to fare well and produce good results while handling the pressures of school assignments, homework, projects, and maintaining a social life. However, with our list of time management tips for students, we are confident that students will be able to come up with an arrangement to ensure that every day is as productive as possible.

As you know, there is never an end to learning. To make your day more effective, you can always take up courses as a student to boost your career. A PMP® Certification Training from Simplilearn will help you master core project management tools as a strategic tool for business transformation.

Why is Time Management Important for Students?

Time management for students (and everyone else) is about making your day purposeful. It is about taking control of the time you have and optimizing it for focus, productivity, and above all, balance. Before we list out the time management tips for students, it is crucial for students to understand why time management is important.

All of us should make the most of the limited amount of time we have in a day. It is very easy to get wrapped up in a fury of various activities and accomplish less. Managing time effectively enables students to become more confident, and organized, and learn more efficiently. Effective time management skills are particularly essential for high school students, as they have to deal with more subjects, tests, assignments, and extracurriculars. Time management techniques can help students be on track and cope with the stress of added responsibilities.

Following are a few more reasons why time management is important for students:

Enables You to Accomplish Your Goals Faster

Appropriate time management makes one more effective and encourages you to give your best to what you are doing and what you can, thus helping you achieve your goals much faster.

Enables You to Prioritize Your Work

When creating a timetable, you prioritize and arrange essential tasks that need immediate attention. For example, students have to complete assignments before attending a session. A student can fit in time to work on the assignments before attending a study group with correct time management.

Enables You to Get More Done in Less Time

Dedicating a specified amount of time to a particular task helps you focus on it. Instead of working on a given task with no predefined time assigned, you can complete the same task by sticking to a time plan. Without a time plan, you might completely forget to finish a task.

Reduces Stress Levels

Time management skills can help you prioritize the time required for essential tasks; prioritizing tasks and having enough time to accomplish those tasks means reduced stress levels.

Helps You Become More Efficient

Effective time management helps you to be more focused at school/college/university, thus increasing your efficiency and enabling you to accomplish more within less time.

So, how can students learn to manage time more effectively? We have collated a list of the best time management tips for students to beat procrastination, stay focused, and be more productive.

10 Time Management Skills and Techniques for Students

Efficient time management is one of the primary keys to success, and thus, it is worth learning. Following are time management strategies for students to help them manage their time in the best possible manner.

1. Make Use of a Daily Schedule Template to Plan Your Day

Seminars, classes, and workshops may take up a chunk of your day, but how one schedules their own time makes all the difference. It is essential to master your schedule.

A daily schedule template helps you manage and control your time each day. It will enable you to stay organized and focus on what matters most and even help you overcome procrastination. The method that most successful people from Elon Musk to Bill Gates use is "time blocking". Time blocking is creating a template for how you intend to spend every minute of your day. Students should therefore follow this method to manage their time more fruitfully.

2. Understand How You are Currently Spending Your Time (And Where You Are Losing It)

Your schedule will offer you an ideal version of your day, but you need to analyze how you spend your time to develop better time management habits. Without understanding how you are spending your time each day, it is impossible to build better time management strategies for students to stay focused.

3. Set Proper Goals to Measure Your Progress

Goals are an excellent way to get you motivated to do school work. However, the problem is that goals are just the result, with you not knowing how to achieve them. So, focus on what needs to be done to achieve that goal by focusing on constant progress and developing better habits. For example, if you need to write a 5,000-word essay in a month, set a daily goal of writing 500 words. If you continue this, you can complete your essay in a week.

4. Break Large Projects Into Smaller, Actionable Tasks

A part of proper goal-setting is to segregate large goals from smaller daily tasks. Doing this will help you stay focused and stop you from procrastinating. It is easy to procrastinate when a project feels like a huge task. However, taking that first step is all you need to build momentum.

5. Be Realistic About the Time You Need to Complete a Task

Once you begin to schedule your tasks for the day, you may get overly optimistic about how much you can achieve. Psychologists also have a name for this - The Planning Fallacy. One of the most effective time management tips for students is to counter the planning fallacy. Students should add a buffer to their schedule depending on how familiar they are with the task. If it is something that has been done before, then 1-1.5X time must be allocated to the time they think it may take to complete the project.

6. Pay Attention to Your Body's Natural Energy Highs and Lows

We all have moments in the day when we are more energetic and alert. And if you want to exploit the time you have each day to its maximum, you cannot fight against your body's natural state. What does this mean in terms of time management tips for students? Simply put, students should do their most essential work when they feel most energetic. This means scheduling intense projects during energy highs and scheduling passive activities when the body is at its natural low.

7. Take Breaks at the Right Time

Take more breaks to manage your productivity over time. But when exactly is the right time to take a break? Sleep researcher Nathaniel Kleitman states, "our minds naturally crave breaks after every 90 minutes of intense work. Even if you do not have a timer going, your body will let you know that you need a break by turning sleepy, fidgeting, hungry, or losing focus". When you begin to feel this way, you know it is time to take a break.

8. Remove Distractions

Between social media, cell phones, and friends, there are so many activities that can distract students from their school work. When it is time to get down to doing school work, students need to turn off their cell phones and sign out of social media accounts. Any amount of time that is devoted to school work must be television and cell phone free!

9. Avoid Multitasking

It may be tempting for students to feel that they can multitask when their schedule is jam-packed. But the more one tries to do it at once, the longer each thing takes. Instead, studies have found that deeply focusing on one task at a time can be around 500% more productive.

10. Build Better Routines and Habits for Long-Term Success

We are what we repetitively do. One of the best time management strategies for students and everyone else is to develop routines and habits that endorse the kind of actions you would like to do more of, for example, following a morning routine that concentrates on getting an early win and prepping yourself for a productive day. Or, ensure your evening routine preps you for an effective next day by setting your goals and schedules the night before.

Working Smarter to Enhance Productivity

When planning, prioritize the more extensive, more complex, and time-consuming chores at the beginning of the week (or day), so you may complete them first and relax more as the week progresses. Front-load your week to maximize your chances of success. This is similar to Eat That Frog, a productivity strategy that recommends performing the most important or influential activity first every day to ensure it gets done.

The Benefits of Good Time Management

Constant meetings, social media, and an endless stream of emails may make it challenging to create a productive day. Developing effective habits at work will enable you to accomplish your best job regularly. You have two options for increasing your productivity. You may work longer hours if you bring your job home with you. You may also work smarter by boosting efficiency without sacrificing quality. Let's look at some significant benefits of good time management are:

Stress Relief

One of the primary causes of increased stress is poor time management. When you have a lot to accomplish and are unsure how to do it, you usually perform a rush job under pressure. However, with proper time management, you can schedule your daily chores so that you work smarter rather than harder. For example, you may prepare critical tasks for when you're most productive or set aside additional time for things you suspect will take longer than expected. So, even if you work longer, you will have enough time to complete everything while being calm.

More Time

By identifying task completion time, you can use less energy and worry less about whether you can achieve everything you need to do today. Instead, make time to take a break from your typical routine. You may preserve energy for your spare time since time management helps you to plan when your task will be completed before you begin it. Having more free time can help you achieve a better work-life balance and ensure you make time for yourself.

More Opportunities

Effective time management may help you achieve more success by improving the quality of your work. When you manage your time well, you not only provide excellent work on schedule, but you also work without stress. This displays improved decision-making abilities and potential for leadership. In other words, you exhibit traits that are necessary for job advancement. This will provide you with greater and more chances.

Ability to Realize Goals

You may simplify your day and spend less time selecting what to do or how to accomplish it if you use time management to arrange what you need to complete each day. For example, deciding what to do for each step before commencing the project may be beneficial if you have a complex project with an outline that requires several yet unclear phases. The project is then reduced to a short set of activities that give guidance. You save time by preparing your objectives rather than finding them out as you go. This might mean spending less time pondering what you should be doing and more time doing it.

How Well Do You Manage Your Time?

There are several approaches you may use based on your time management abilities and experience, but the goal is to explain a system that works for you and makes sense in the position you're going for. In other words, if you're working in a team atmosphere, discuss an efficient time management approach for teamwork, such as getting everyone acquainted with project management software. Then, discuss the advantages of employing this method for time management. Going into depth about how this technique has worked for you demonstrates to the interviewer that you have real-world experience adopting this way to manage your time and aren't simply making it up.

General Time-Management Tools

Time management is critical to your success. You may achieve any goal you set your mind to by using an excellent time planner and master list. These are common time management tools and practices that you should employ to maximize productivity and personal organization. Each of these takes some effort to learn and perfect, but they will pay you back in increased efficiency and effectiveness for the rest of your life.

Prioritization

The 80/20 rule was developed by the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. It's believed that 20% of activities are accountable for 80% of results. The purpose of Pareto analysis is to assist you in prioritizing tasks that are most successful at issue resolution. List some of the difficulties you are experiencing. Determine the fundamental source of each issue. Assign a score to each problem and arrange them by cause. Add the scores from each group: The topic should be addressed first in the group with the highest score. Take some action.

Scheduling

Scheduling is the art of preparing your activities so that you may accomplish your goals and prioritize your priorities in the time you have available. When done correctly, it can assist you in realizing what you can do with your time. Ensure you leave adequate time for import duties and only take on what you can do.

Goal Setting

Smart goals enable people to plan and attain their objectives in a reasonable amount of time. It can also aid in improving time management in professional contexts such as school and the workplace. Smart goal planning may give direction for your aims and help you build practical measures to attain those goals if you want to manage your time wisely.

Concentration and Focus

Distractions are a major impediment to personal time management. Close the door to avoid as many distractions as possible. Only pay attention to what you're doing right now.

In terms of significance, describe your top two distractions over the next two weeks. Remember that staying focused during the day necessitates proper sleep habits and enough fluids.

Time Management in Practice

Effective time management entails completing more vital tasks in a single day. Effective time management is more important than efficient time management. The most successful time managers are also the most efficient. Try some time management software. The first time management tool you require is a time planner, which provides all the information you need to plan and arrange your life. The most excellent time planners, whether looseleaf or electronic, allow you to prepare for the whole year, the month, the week, and each day.

Implications of Poor Time Management

We all know that there never seems to be enough time in the day, and as a result, things slip by the wayside. While this occurs to the best of us from time to time, students who battle with time management regularly are doing themselves no favors.

Poor Workflow

Poor efficiency results from a failure to plan and keep to goals. For example, completing related chores concurrently or sequentially is an intelligent approach if many significant tasks need to be accomplished. However, if you plan, you may be able to bounce back and forth, or backtrack, in your job. This equates to decreased efficiency and output.

Wasted Time

Wasted time arises from poor time management. For example, chatting with pals on social media while working on an assignment is a distraction and a waste of time.

Loss of Control

You will lose control of your professional life if you do not know the next assignment. This might lead to increased tension and worry.

Poor Quality of Work

The quality of your work could be better when you manage your time well. Quality is often degraded when things are rushed at the last minute.

Poor Reputation

When clients or your company cannot rely on you to finish things on time, their expectations and impressions of you suffer. A client who needs to trust you to complete a task on schedule will likely look for another service provider.

How to Better Manage Your Time at Work?

Your ability to manage your time affects how productive you are each day. You can accomplish more in less time with effective time management, which also helps you feel less stressed and advance in your profession. Instead of just using the following tools as a timetable to complete more tasks, make them represent your values-what is most important to you. When you arrange and calendar your time and make the split-second decisions essential to efficient time management for balance and well-being, remember these principles.

1. Know How You're Spending Your Time

You need to keep track of what you do with your time to identify any activities or routines preventing you from achieving your desired objectives. You must start and end each day with a purpose to make the most of your time.

You have two choices for keeping track of your time:

Spend a day or two manually recording your activities in a "time log."

To automatically log your time, use a free program like RescueTime.

2. Stick to a Daily Schedule

While making a to-do list is a common theme in time and productivity management advice for students, mastering your daily schedule is even more crucial.

Time blocking is the strategy of choice for many of the most successful people in the world, including Bill Gates and Elon Musk. But time blocking is planning how to spend each minute of your day.

Create Realistic Timelines: A schedule must be practical to be effective. Plan your study time wisely to increase your study skills. The study techniques of the students vary from one another. This entails scheduling time for breaks, meals, exercise, social interaction, phone calls to loved ones, and all other "non-school" activities that keep you content and motivated.

Give your undivided Attention: Your best friend in this situation is "self-discipline" and "self-control." If you must take a break, do so, but try to avoid sneaking away to other websites while working. Turn off your phone or put it away until it's time for a scheduled break.

3. Prioritize

1440 minutes make up one day. Within these hours, you must set practical priorities. Setting suitable priorities for your study goals is one of the sage study advice. If you have a lot of material to learn, start breaking it down into manageable chunks and choose what is most crucial. One of the best study strategies is making the most of your morning hours when nobody is awake to disturb you since they are asleep.

Do immediately: Tasks that are crucial and have clear deadlines, or ones you've put off so long they're past due.

Schedule for later: Crucial assignments with no set deadlines.

Delegate: Those tasks that others can execute.

Delete: Activities you can skip since they are optional to achieving your objectives or carrying out your mission.

4. Tackle the Most Difficult Task First

You should complete your most crucial tasks when you're most energetic. This entails arranging writing or other demanding tasks for when your energy levels are at their highest and reading or other passive pursuits for when they are at their lowest.

Brian Tracy's renowned Eat That Frog productivity technique is quite effective for those who delay or find themselves procrastinating frequently or who may have difficulty avoiding distractions. It suggests starting with the task that is the hardest, most complicated, and most critical, i.e., the one you're most inclined to put off for later. Once you've "devoured that frog," only then should you move on; that too without much stress.

5. Batch-Process Similar Tasks

Task batching is when you organize related jobs or tasks into groups and finish them all at once. Using this method, you can easily cut down on multitasking and extend your time to give all your projects your full attention.

For instance: At around 10 to 11 a.m. daily, organize and respond to emails and organize your digital study materials simultaneously.

6. Set Reasonable Time Limits

Focus on what has to be done to reach and surpass the objective instead of starting at the end and moving backward. You might take a full day to finish two different tasks that could be completed in only three hours if you had a full day to do so. There's a good possibility you'll still reach the earlier deadline if you give yourself a shorter window.

What can you do every day to further your ultimate aim? This entails putting an emphasis on steady improvement and forming improved routines. Even better, seeing daily progress will spur you to do more. Work "expands to occupy the time given to do it," according to Parkinson's law.

7. Learn When to Say No

Our energy levels are limited each day and tend to decrease with time. It is wise to know your limits and be prepared to say no to prevent doing subpar work. Understand your advantages and disadvantages. It is ideal for concentrating on one's strengths and delegating tasks that others can complete more quickly and effectively.

8. Avoid Multitasking

Concentrate on one item at a time to manage your time and commit it to study effectively. Nothing gets accomplished when you attempt to perform too many tasks at once. So, starting with one activity, finishing it, and moving on to another is one of the greatest study- focus- ideas.

When your schedule is packed, believing you can multitask is tempting. But everything takes longer the more you try to complete it at once. Instead, studies show that concentrating intently on a single activity can increase productivity by up to 500%. The American Psychological Association claims that mental juggling comes with "switching costs" that reduce your output. Changing tasks may take a few seconds each, but it adds up if you multitask regularly. Your potential for error also increases.

9. Keep Things Organized

Efficiency will rise if your workspace is tidy and organized because you won't have time to look for paper. Learning how to be organized is a talent that can be known. Start with these fundamentals.

Maintain a clean work desk: The office's physical surroundings greatly impact how you operate. When your environment is chaotic, you are too. You can also be affected by clutter in less direct ways. Research has demonstrated that your physical settings substantially impact your cognition, emotions, and behavior, affecting how you make decisions and interact with others.

Coordinate your computer files and shared drives: Loss of files and decreased productivity might result from improperly arranging shared files. Nothing is more confusing than spending most of your working hours searching your system for files. Create distinct folders for your files according to their categories to save yourself the hassle.

Use a calendar: Using a well-organized calendar, you can manage your time to keep on top of your to-do lists and maintain focus throughout the workday. Although many executives have secretaries who work their calendars, anyone may utilize the same procedures to become more productive.

Choose the Right Program

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Conclusion

Time management for students is highly intimidating, especially when you have multiple things on your to-do list. It is one of the most challenging tasks for students as they are expected to fare well and produce good results while handling the pressures of school assignments, homework, projects, and maintaining a social life. However, with our list of time management tips for students, we are confident that students will be able to come up with an arrangement to ensure that every day is as productive as possible.

As you know, there is never an end to learning. To make your day more effective, you can always take up courses as a student to boost your career. A PMP® Certification Training from Simplilearn will help you master core project management tools as a strategic tool for business transformation.

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10 Time Management Skills and Techniques for Students

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Achieve the perfect balance between academics, college life, and leisure through effective time management. Organize your days, eliminate stress, and boost productivity. Read on!

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Stop Think Act Strategy

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This stop and think activity is just that: a resource to help kids stop and think! Getting kids to stop and think is a social emotional skill that is needed for self-regulation and emotional intelligence. I love to use these printable executive function worksheets to teach impulse control skills to children.

Stop and Think Activities

These stop and think worksheets are activity based, meaning you can print them off and use them again and again within games, functional tasks, classroom learning activities and everyday daily occupations.

These worksheets can be used in collaboration with Zones of Regulation activities and strategies to help kids with emotional and behavioral regulation.

Included in the Stop and Think worksheets are several pages of resources for teaching children the valuable self-regulation skill of stopping what they are doing and thinking before acting out impulsively. The free worksheet packet includes:

Impulse Control Red Flags

Stop and Think Questions for Kids

Stop and Think Cards

Tools to Stop and Think

Daily Reward Chart

When to stop and think

As we know, executive functioning skills do not fully develop until early adulthood. This is because the cognitive functioning center of the brain in the frontal lobe continues to develop into the twenties. You can probably think about specific incidents during your young adult years where impulse control, prioritization, planning, inhibition, and other executive functioning skills were not at their prime. You may have made some inappropriate or unwise decisions during those years.

Our children are developing these skills and won't fully be developed until much later, so it is natural to see issues with impulsivity, foresight, cognitive flexibility and other skills that are inappropriate. To help children develop these skills on an age-appropriate level, however allows kids to have the working memory for classroom lessons, the impulse control for safety and homework completion, and the self-monitoring skills to not interrupt. All of these skills and abilities take practice, modeling from adults, and repetition.

When children are given opportunities to practice stopping and thinking before their actions, they have that chance to develop these skills effectively participate in occupations such as learning, self-care, social participation, and within safe environment.

Some examples of red flags for when these skills can be addressed include the following:

Speaks out or blurts out answers

Interrupts others

Quits or gives up on tasks, assignments, games, etc.

Shoves in lines

Cuts in front of others while waiting in lines

Jumps up from seat

Asks questions about irrelevant topics

Shows physical impulses

Hyperactive behavior

Hypo-active behavior

Jumps to conclusions

Reacts strongly to criticisms

Gets sidetracked by strong emotions

Personal boundary issues

Jumps from one task to another

Easily distracted

The Stop and Think worksheets includes these examples, as well as others. This page in the free packet can be a teaching list for children to see when they might apply the ability to stop and think before they act.

Stop and Think Questions for Kids

Also included in the worksheet set are stop and think questions. Children can use them within a situation, activity, game, or event to pause and answer the questions given the situation in which they find themselves.

There is space to answer the questions in a blank writing area, and you can cut out the questions as a visual model for future situations. Sometimes having that visyal prompt listing out the questions is a good prompt for children, teens, and young adults. These stop and think questions can even be useful for adults to address mindfulness, mindset, emotional regulation, and executive functioing.

Stop and Think Cards

Next, you'll find stop and think cards that can be cut out and used for students to write out their current situation, as they think through their emotions, behaviors, and the environment or situation. Questions include:

What am I supposed to be doing?

What am I doing?

I feel___because____.

What might happen?

What tools can I use to help me?

These cards give users the chance to literally stop, and think!

Try using the stop and think questions and cards within activities like these:

Tools to Stop and Think

Next, you'll find a printable page that can help within the moment. These are the tools that kids (or teens or adults) can use after they pause and think. The list of coping tools are strategies that implement sensory input or input in the way of heavy work, oral motor input, or vestibular movement.

These are calming and regulating sensory strategies that allow one to refocus and get to a calm and alert state of "ready to go". There is also space to write in specific tools that work for the individual.

Other tools to help kids stop and think include:

Stop and Think Reward Chart

Finally, the last page of the Stop and Think Worksheets set is a reward chart sheet. This is a visual prompt for achieving goals as a result of stopping and thinking in the moment. This reward chart may not work for every child or every individual using these stop and think strategies, but it is a tool that is available.

Helping kids to set goals for stopping and thinking is so valuable and this reward chart page can be used in that process.

Would you like to use this printable resource in your interventions, home programing, or classroom? You can grab this resource, print it off, and use over and over again.

Simply enter your email address into the form below and the file will be delivered to your inbox. NOTE: Due to increases in email and internet security for those using work email addresses, the email that delivers this file may be blocked. If you typically use an email ending with .edu, .org, .uni, .gov, etc. consider using a personal email address instead for deliverability.

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(Free) Stop and Think Worksheets for Kids - The OT Toolbox

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This stop and think activity is just that: a resource to help kids stop and think! Getting kids to stop and think is a social emotional skill that is needed for self-regulation and emotional intelligence. I love to use these printable executive function worksheets to teach impulse control skills to children.

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Brain Games for Stop Think Act Strategy

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Skip to main content

Why Do This?

If students practice and build executive function skills, they can organize their thinking and behavior to meet goals in order to engage deeply in learning with each other.

When You Might Use This Practice

Integrated into daily schedules as a routine or used as-needed throughout the day

During a designated SEL block of 10-15 minutes per day for Kernels practice or as time allows

During a morning meeting, a middle school advisory period, class transitions, after recess, or at the end of the day

Time Required

Materials

A "Stop and Think Power" game from the Brain Games Pack:

Learning Objective

Students will:

Practice controlling impulses and thinking before they act

Additional Supports

SEL Competencies

Self-Awareness

Self Management

Social Awareness

Relationship Skills

Responsible Decision-Making

Reflection Before the Practice

How well do you practice self-control when faced with a challenging or tempting situation? What strategies and practices help you to practice self-control (e.g, taking deep breaths, walking away from the temptation, counting to ten)?

Note: Click here to download and print a card version of this practice that can be added to the other Brain Games practices to make an easy-to-use hand-held collection. See the SEL Kernels pack for additional activities.
The Big Idea

Playing Brain Games helps us to build our "brain powers," or executive function (EF) skills.

Executive function (EF) skills are the mental processes required to focus, plan, and control behavioral responses in order to reach a goal.

They're important because... They help students to listen carefully, follow directions, use self-control, and think flexibly. These basic skills are foundational for academic achievement, interpersonal skills, perseverance, and critical thinking.

Three Brain Powers

Focus: The ability to sustain attention and ignore distractions when needed.

Remember: The ability to keep track of, update, and use information over short periods of time.

Stop and Think: The ability to control impulses and to "think before you act."

Instructions

Introduce THE BIG IDEA (above) and define "executive function skills" and their importance, as necessary.

Explain that the brain has three powers: Focus, Remember, and Stop and Think. Tell students:
Today we're going to talk about Stop and Think Power (see "Three Brain Powers" above for a definition).

Share the following information about STOP AND THINK POWER:

WHAT IS STOP AND THINK?
The ability to control impulses and to "think before you act."

WHY STOP AND THINK IS IMPORTANT:
It helps students to wait patiently, to resist temptations, and to think carefully before making important decisions. Students also use stop and think to self-monitor and to reflect.

THINGS THAT HELP US STOP AND THINK:

Taking deep slow breaths can help you focus even when you feel angry, frustrated, overwhelmed, or confused.

Counting quietly or singing to myself when I need wait.

Thinking aloud to notice and describe how I am thinking or feeling-this helps me to consider what I should do next.

Telling myself to "stop and think"-first I pause and give myself time to think, then I decide what to do.

INTRODUCE THE HAND SIGNAL:
Hold one hand with palm facing out, and with the other hand point to your head, when you want students to think before they act.

WHEN DO WE USE STOP AND THINK POWER?

When I have an idea to share, instead of shouting I can raise my hand and wait until the teacher calls on me.

When I need to wait my turn, I can tell myself to be patient: in line at the doctor's office, at the grocery store, or when playing a game.

When I want to do something difficult, I can tell myself to move slowly and carefully.

When my ball rolls into the street, I can tell myself to "stop" before running after it.

When my friend is upset, I can stop and think about whether I need to apologize or ask how I can help.

Play one or more of the following STOP AND THINK POWER GAMES:

Source

This practice is part of the SEL Kernels project developed by the EASEL Lab at Harvard University.

Reflection After the Practice

Do you observe changes in your students' ability to control their impulses or to think before they act? Which games are more challenging for students? Which games are easiest for them? Why?

Evidence That It Works

Children who are able to effectively manage their thinking, attention, and behavior are also more likely to have better grades and higher standardized test scores.

Why Does It Matter?

Children use cognitive regulation skills whenever faced with tasks that require concentration, planning, problem solving, coordination, conscious choices among alternatives, or overriding a strong internal or external desire-all key skills for behavioral and academic success.

These skills enable children to prioritize and sequence behavior (e.g., put their pants on before their shoes), inhibit dominant or familiar responses in favor of a more appropriate one (e.g., raise their hand rather than blurt out the answer), maintain task-relevant information in mind (e.g., remember the teacher's request to wash hands and then put coats on before going outside), resist distractions, switch between task goals, use information to make decisions, and create abstract rules and handle novel situations.

"Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you most want."

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Brain Games for "Stop and Think Power": A Set of SEL Kernels Practices | Greater Good In Education

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Skip to main content If students practice and build executive function skills, they can organize their thinking and behavior to meet goals in order to engage deeply in learning with each other.

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6 Strategies for Effective Learning Videos

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6 Strategies for Effective Learning Videos

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Classroom videos for use with students on: Retrieval Practice, Interleaving, Spaced Practice, Elaboration, Concrete Examples, and Dual Coding

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The videos below were design to grab students' attention and very quickly teach them about the strategies in a fun way. These videos may not be the most suitable for the classroom because of their speed.

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Self-Check Card Strategy

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

A review of three types of SEL assessment, with suggestions for ways to collect and report student growth to families.

As more and more states adopt social and emotional learning (SEL) standards, there are more calls for SEL assessment. But the state of the field is unsettled: What we know about SEL intervention and theory derives from research studies that have used a wide variety of methods to assess SEL and related areas. Because the focus of these studies has been to build the research base, the assessments used in them were not necessarily designed for use in practice contexts.

So the SEL field is at a bit of a crossroads-it is clearly a research-based field that does not have a clear paradigm for student assessment.

In a recent article titled " Challenges and Opportunities in the Applied Assessment of Student Social and Emotional Learning," SEL assessment expert Clark McKown points out that researchers, assessment developers, educators, and mental health professionals have different priorities with regard to the most important qualities in an assessment. For educators and mental health professionals, the priority is to find practical, cost-effective measures that can predict students' difficulties, as well as identify their SEL strengths. Since the primary foci for researchers and test developers are psychometrics and internal validity, it is no surprise that many practitioners have reservations about current SEL assessments.

Reviewing SEL Assessment Systems

Let's take a look at three ways to assess students' SEL.

Self-assessment: Asking students (third grade and up) to assess their own SEL presumes that they have the perspective-taking skills and self-awareness to accurately monitor their own SEL and then accurately report it. Even when self-report is relatively convenient, students tend to try to guess what answer teachers want to hear. When the teacher is asked to provide ratings, the key issue is how much inference the ratings require, or allow, outside of what a teacher directly observes. Sometimes rating items ask the teacher to rate students' empathy, for example. This is challenging because empathy is a personal feeling that may be hard for teachers to infer. Plus, expressions of empathy vary developmentally.

Scoring simulated scenarios: Direct SEL assessments use game-like scenarios to pose challenging interpersonal tasks or simulated situations to students and track how they respond. Some assessments ask students to look at faces and infer what feelings are being expressed; others post illustrated or video vignettes and ask students to respond to questions about characters' intentions, what they did or might do next, and the consequences of these choices. But these direct assessments may not account for age or culture, and because they are simulated they lack authentic context.

Observational: There is an observational system in use for assessing SEL called CLASS (Classroom Assessment Scoring System). McKown notes that CLASS assessments bring outsiders into the classroom, and this may prompt "best behavior" by both students and teachers. Further, CLASS variables are not equally linked to all SEL skills and approaches to SEL intervention, nor are they applicable to all age levels. Further,children may try to infer the answers that adults want, and these perceptions are influenced by local factors, including culture and context.

It's important to note that educators are typically not trained to know how most SEL assessment scores (from outside tests and systems) map onto instructional guidance. In addition, schools do not usually prioritize time for systematic review and discussion of data related to SEL, or school culture and climate. Without these discussions, it is hard to understand the instructional implications of what the data reveal for these types of SEL scoring.

Integrating SEL on Report Cards

There is nothing more accessible as an assessment system than traditional report cards. For example, in elementary schools, caregivers and students are typically given feedback from the teaching staff-usually quarterly-about important behaviors. This feedback leads to subsequent planning, particularly about areas in need of improvements.

1. The staff determine which SEL skills or character virtues they want to focus on.

2. Each skill or virtue must be defined behaviorally at each grade level and in that school's context (what will that skill look like?).

3. The staff design criteria that align to the focus skills and virtues for each grade level.

Given the importance of social and emotional learning, it makes sense to include these dimensions as part of this regular feedback. Indeed, it would formalize the reality that teachers are in fact always observing various SEL-related aspects of student behavior and incorporating these impressions into their overall grading assessments.

Three steps to consider before formalizing SEL student data on reports cards:

Collecting SEL Data in the Classroom

For each skill, at each marking period a teacher can identify the skill level most characteristic of a student, and a profile can be created, or each SEL skill can be rated on a three-point scale, relative to a student's current grade or age level (see this grade-level-specific, three-point criteria for an example). Because behavior can be contextual, it's important to have at least two assessors who see a student regularly, and in different kinds of situations.

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A review of three types of SEL assessment, with suggestions for ways to collect and report student growth to families.

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Binder Organization Strategy

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Ten simple strategies for helping students who struggle with executive function skills like organization and prioritization.

If you're like me, nobody taught you how to organize yourself for middle and high school academic life. You just picked it up over time. That might work for some adolescents, but not for those with executive function (EF) struggles. They need more intensive support.

Initiate or plan a project

Pay attention

Understand different points of view

Follow directions

Keep track of belongings

Regulate emotions

Tell a story (verbally or in writing)

Remember and communicate details in a sequential manner

Retain information needed to complete a task

Dr. Christina Young, who coaches students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in New York City, describes EF as cognitive skills processed primarily in the prefrontal cortex: "organization, prioritization, activation, personal and academic reflection, and emotional regulation and modulation." In contrast to the amygdala, which gives us full access to emotions at birth, the prefrontal cortex is not completely developed until the age of 25. That's why 15-year-olds roll their eyes at their teachers more than graduate students do.

Helping Students With EF Issues

EF coach Seth Perler says his executive function clients are "start-a-million-projects-but-finish-none type of people." To help them, Perler starts with a backpack overhaul. Each item is discussed and put in a specific location, and the students do backpack rehab sessions once a week to keep organized.

Instead of multipurpose binders, Perler recommends that kids with EF issues purchase a distinctive paper folder-not plastic, because papers slide out too easily-write "QUEUE" in giant letters on both sides, and insert blank Post-it flags in the pocket. All active papers should be kept in the folder and flagged as homework needing to be completed, homework ready to be turned in, or forms to be signed by a guardian.

Anything else is either archived or thrown out during the weekly backpack rehab.

Students with EF struggles have difficulty organizing their brains to interact meaningfully with a text, according to Barbara Cartwright, the author of Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension. She recommends that teachers provide explicit guidance in goal formation as a pre-reading strategy. Some prompts based on her recommendations: What are your goals for reading? What will get you there? What parts should you slow down for or read quickly? What do you already know about this text that will help you reach your goals?

10 Tips for Teaching Organization for All Kinds of Learners

Whether their students struggle with EF or not, teachers can help all of them develop more orderly dispositions with the following tactics.

1. Make assignment details memorable. Unorganized students will repeatedly ask, "How many pages are due again?" Try to make the details sticky: "The essay needs 10 pages, 10 sources, and is due on 10/10." Consider offering a visual checklist of assignment details, or a process infographic, or a bookmark with reading reminders.

Calmly Writer and ZenPen are writing tools that attempt to remove distractions.

Noisli plays ambient sound to block out noise.

Timetable plots learners' homework and exam times and mutes their phones during designated study periods.

2. Set up a start page. Have learners embed study resources into Start.me to quickly access popular online tools like Google Drive and E.gg Timer and checklists like TickTick and Wunderlist. Less familiar tools are also worth including:

3. Help students feel in charge. If kids ask what to do next, don't give them a quick answer-ask them what they think comes next.

4. Space out assignment dates. Cramming big-assignment due dates into the last two weeks of a semester overwhelms even organized students.

5. Use motivation techniques. Connect organization habits with students' specific life goals. Praise them for improvement and effort.

6. Introduce long-term projects with care. On a calendar, show how the project is divided into stages with multiple due dates. Scholastic recommends that instructors show kids "how to work backward from a due date and set interim goals." Because disorganized learners often underestimate how much time and effort a task will take, it's helpful to address how many hours of study per week are expected.

7. Keep parents informed. Share with parents a Google Calendar of color-coded assignment and quiz dates. Send out due dates with Classroom Messenger or Remind.

8. Discuss organization in class. Who has the most organized backpack? Which cooperative teams organized and executed their projects deftly?

9. Show students how to preplan homework. Ask kids to write down when, where, and for how long they will do their homework. Then they can make a homework menu of what they will study and in what sequence.

10. Help students visualize to-dos. To reduce cognitive overload, students can use online "canvases" like Lino-have them organize the left-hand side of the board with tasks that take less than 30 minutes, and the right-hand side with tasks that take longer than that. Lino allows users to set alarms for due dates.

A last word about ownership. Don't insist that the disorganized student get organized "the right way." Organizational practices that kids launch to placate adults are quickly abandoned. Instead encourage students to experiment with methods that fit them and fuel their highest ambitions. And tell them, "You got this!"

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Ten simple strategies for helping students who struggle with executive function skills like organization and prioritization. If you're like me, nobody taught you how to organize yourself for middle and high school academic life. You just picked it up over time. That might work for some adolescents, but not for those with executive function (EF) struggles.

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Adapted from: Accelerating Learning for All: Equity in Action pp 43-44

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Accelerating Learning for All: Equity in Action

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Accelerating Learning for All: Equity in Action

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by Rebecca McKinney and Colleen Urlik

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Designed to support equitable access and opportunities through rigorous and engaging assessment, curriculum, and instruction, Accelerating Learni…

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Trauma, Instructional Loss and the Resilience of the Learning Brain

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Trauma, Instructional Loss and the Resilience of the Learning Brain

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YouTube Video Aspen Brain Institute

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Trauma, Instructional Loss and the Resilience of the Learning Brain – Pamela Cantor, M.D.

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Everyday Executive Function Strategies: Improve Student Engagement, Self-Regulation, Behavior and Learning

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Everyday Executive Function Strategies: Improve Student Engagement, Self-Regulation, Behavior and Learning

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by Valerie Saxton Sharpe and Roberta Strosnider

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Designed to be applicable to and usable by all educators, this toolbox of executive function strategies will help you improve student engagement, self…

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Executive Functions for Every Classroom: Creating Safe and Predictable Learning Environments

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Executive Functions for Every Classroom: Creating Safe and Predictable Learning Environments

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by Mitch Weathers

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Acknowledgments Introduction Lost in the Wilderness Navigating With Executive Functioning Skills The Two Challenges With Teaching Executive Functions Why Predictable Learning Routines? Three Keys to Teaching Executive Functions Chapter 1. Executive Dysfunction and Disengagement Struggling With "Studentness" We Can't Afford Executive Dysfunction Any Longer Chapter 1 Reflection Questions Chapter 2. Teaching Executive Functions What are Executive Functioning Skills? The Benefits Clarity, Routine, & Modeling Self-Regulation Through a Daily Routine Conclusion Chapter 2 Reflection Questions Chapter 3. Working Memory: Beginning Routine Designing a Beginning Routine Why the Old Beginning Routine Doesn't Work Strategies to Make Your Beginning Routine Better Beginning Routine Example Adjustments and Considerations Self-Regulation Through the Beginning Routine Conclusion Chapter 3 Reflection Questions Chapter 4. Working Memory: The Concluding Routine How to Receive Authentic Feedback Designing Your Concluding Routine Why the Old Concluding Routine Doesn't Work Strategies to Make Your Concluding Routine Better Concluding Routine Example Adjustments and Considerations I Dare You to Try It Self-Regulation Through the Concluding Routine Conclusion Chapter 4 Reflection Questions Chapter 5. Time & Task Management: The Agenda Developing Time & Task Management Skills Why the Old Agenda Doesn't Work Strategies to Make Your Agenda Better Agenda Template Adjustments and Considerations Self-Regulation Through Agendas Conclusion Chapter 5 Reflection Questions Chapter 6. Organization: Tables of Contents and Academic Toolkits What is a Table of Contents? Why the Old Table of Contents Doesn't Work Strategies to Make Your Table of Contents Better Table of Contents Example Adjustments and Considerations Academic Toolkits Academic Toolkit Example Self-Regulation Through Tables of Contents and Academic Toolkits Conclusion Chapter 6 Reflection Questions Chapter 7. Accountability: Portfolio Checks Accountability Starts With Expectations Accountability Through Portfolio Checks Designing Your Portfolio Check Portfolio Check Example Adjustments and Considerations Self-Regulation Through Portfolio Checks Conclusion Chapter 7 Reflection Questions Chapter 8. Goal Setting Why the Old Goal Setting Doesn't Work Strategies to Make Goal Setting Better Goal Setting Example Adjustments and Considerations Self-Regulation Through Goal-Setting Conclusion Chapter 8 Reflection Questions Chapter 9. Conclusion Self-Regulation Self-Efficacy and Internal Motivation Tenacity (Formerly Known as Grit) Executive Functions as Transferable Skills Content Area Gains Family Engagement Signing Off Appendix: Effect Size Glossary References

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Executive Functions for Every Classroom, Grades 3-12

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Every educator wants to know: What has the greatest impact on student success? The answer: executive function skills. They are crucial for students' a...

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The Social-Emotional Learning Playbook: A Guide to Student and Teacher Well-Being

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The Social-Emotional Learning Playbook: A Guide to Student and Teacher Well-Being

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by Nancy Frey, Douglas Fischer, Dominique Smith

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Teach skills and foster the dispositions of social and emotional learning in yourself, your students, and your school.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is like any academic subject students learn in school-their learning expands and deepens, year after year. As an educator, what can you do to support not only your students' well-being and SEL development, but your own?

The Social-Emotional Learning Playbook: A Guide to Student and Teacher Well-Being provides the language, moves, and evidence-based advice you need to identify and nurture social and emotional learning in yourself, your students, and your school. Sparking deep reflection and transformative growth, this highly interactive playbook profiles six tenets of social and emotional learning-building resilience, belonging and prosocial skills, emotional regulation, relational trust and communication, individual and collective efficacy, and community of care. Each module features

Reflection prompts and self-awareness resources that help teachers identify strengths, target areas for growth, and engage with colleagues over social and emotional development.

Strategies for teaching and reinforcing SEL skills that are proven through effect size to increase your impact on students, both academically and socially.

Ideas for creating a school culture that manifests social and emotional learning in policies, procedures, and interactions with families and the community.

Vocabulary self-assessments, word clouds, and a "Case in point" feature that allows you to analyze a situation, cognitively reframe it, and decide a course of action.

With this actionable playbook in hand, jumpstart your social and emotional development journey, reduce compassion fatigue, and create alliances and opportunities for the children and adults in your school community to thrive.

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This interactive playbook provides the language, moves, and evidence-based advice you need to nurture social and emotional learning in yourself, your ...

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by Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

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Foster knowledge, skills, and attitudes across five areas of social and emotional competence;

Establish equitable learning environments and coordinate practices across four key settings that support students' social, emotional, and academic development.

Download more information on the framework (available in and Spanish).

Use our reflection protocol to facilitate a discussion on implementation efforts in your school, district, or other setting.

Read more about the 2020 update to our framework, which highlighted the potential of SEL in promoting educational equity and excellence.

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Communities

Communities. Community partners often provide safe and developmentally rich settings for learning and development, have deep understanding of community needs and assets, are seen as trusted partners by families and students, and have connections to additional supports and services that school and families need. Community programs also offer opportunities for young people to practice their social and emotional skills in settings that are both personally relevant and can open opportunities for their future. To integrate SEL efforts across the school day and out-of-school time, school staff and community partners should align on common language and coordinate strategies and communication around SEL-related efforts and initiatives.
Learn more: CASEL Guide to Schoolwide SEL - Community Partnerships

Families & Caregivers

Families & Caregivers. When schools and families form authentic partnerships, they can build strong connections that reinforce students' social and emotional development. Families and caregivers are children's first teachers, and bring deep expertise about their development, experiences, culture, and learning needs. These insights and perspectives are critical to informing, supporting, and sustaining SEL efforts. Research suggests that evidence-based SEL programs are more effective when they extend into the home, and families are far more likely to form partnerships with schools when their schools' norms, values, and cultural representations reflect their own experiences. Schools need inclusive decision-making processes that ensure that families-particularly those from historically marginalized groups-are part of planning, implementing, and continuously improving SEL.

Schools can also create other avenues for family partnership that may include creating ongoing two-way communication with families, helping caregivers understand child development, helping teachers understand family backgrounds and cultures, providing opportunities for families to volunteer in schools, extending learning activities and discussions into homes, and coordinating family services with community partners. These efforts should engage families in understanding, experiencing, informing, and supporting the social and emotional development of their students.
Learn more: CASEL Guide to Schoolwide SEL - Family Partnerships

Schools

Schools. Effectively integrating SEL schoolwide involves ongoing planning, implementation, evaluation, and continuous improvement by all members of the school community. SEL efforts both contribute to and depend upon a school climate where all students and adults feel respected, supported, and engaged.

Because the school setting includes many contexts-classrooms, hallways, cafeteria, playground, bus-fostering a healthy school climate and culture requires active engagement from all adults and students. A strong school culture is rooted in students' sense of belonging, with evidence that suggests that it plays a crucial role in students' engagement. SEL also offers an opportunity to enhance existing systems of student support by integrating SEL goals and practices with universal, targeted, and intensive academic and behavioral supports. By coordinating and building upon SEL practices and programs, schools can create an environment that infuses SEL into every part of students' educational experience and promotes positive social, emotional, and academic outcomes for all students.
Learn more: CASEL Guide to Schoolwide SEL

Classrooms

Classrooms. Research has shown that social and emotional competence can be enhanced using a variety of classroom-based approaches such as: (a) explicit instruction through which social and emotional skills and attitudes are taught and practiced in developmentally, contextually, and culturally responsive ways; (b) teaching practices such as cooperative learning and project-based learning; and (c) integration of SEL and academic curriculum such as language arts, math, science, social studies, health, and performing arts. High-quality SEL instruction has four elements represented by the acronym SAFE: Sequenced - following a coordinated set of training approaches to foster the development of competencies; Active - emphasizing active forms of learning to help students practice and master new skills; Focused - implementing curriculum that intentionally emphasizes the development of SEL competencies; and Explicit - defining and targeting specific skills, attitudes, and knowledge.

SEL instruction is carried out most effectively in nurturing, safe environments characterized by positive, caring relationships among students and teachers. To facilitate age-appropriate and culturally responsive instruction, adults must understand and appreciate the unique strengths and needs of each student and support students' identities. When adults incorporate students' personal experiences and cultural backgrounds and seek their input, they create an inclusive classroom environment where students are partners in the educational process, elevating their own agency. Strong relationships between adults and students can facilitate co-learning, foster student and adult growth, and generate collaborative solutions to shared concerns.
Learn more: CASEL Guide to Effective SEL Programs

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness: The abilities to understand one's own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts. This includes capacities to recognize one's strengths and limitations with a well-grounded sense of confidence and purpose.

Such as:

Integrating personal and social identities

Identifying personal, cultural, and linguistic assets

Identifying one's emotions

Demonstrating honesty and integrity

Linking feelings, values, and thoughts

Examining prejudices and biases

Experiencing self-efficacy

Having a growth mindset

Developing interests and a sense of purpose

Check out this video from PBS Learning Media for more information.

Self-Management

Self-management: The abilities to manage one's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations and to achieve goals and aspirations. This includes the capacities to delay gratification, manage stress, and feel motivation and agency to accomplish personal and collective goals.

Such as:

Managing one's emotions

Identifying and using stress management strategies

Exhibiting self-discipline and self-motivation

Setting personal and collective goals

Using planning and organizational skills

Showing the courage to take initiative

Demonstrating personal and collective agency

Check out this video from PBS Learning Media for more information.

Social Awareness

Social awareness: The abilities to understand the perspectives of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts. This includes the capacities to feel compassion for others, understand broader historical and social norms for behavior in different settings, and recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.

Such as:

Taking others' perspectives

Recognizing strengths in others

Demonstrating empathy and compassion

Showing concern for the feelings of others

Understanding and expressing gratitude

Identifying diverse social norms, including unjust ones

Recognizing situational demands and opportunities

Understanding the influences of organizations and systems on behavior

Check out this video from PBS Learning Media for more information.

Responsible Decision-Making

Responsible decision-making: The abilities to make caring and constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions across diverse situations. This includes the capacities to consider ethical standards and safety concerns, and to evaluate the benefits and consequences of various actions for personal, social, and collective well-being.

Such as:

Demonstrating curiosity and open-mindedness

Learning how to make a reasoned judgment after analyzing information, data, and facts

Identifying solutions for personal and social problems

Anticipating and evaluating the consequences of one's actions

Recognizing how critical thinking skills are useful both inside and outside of school

Reflecting on one's role to promote personal, family, and community well-being

Evaluating personal, interpersonal, community, and institutional impacts

Check out this video from PBS Learning Media for more information.

Relationship Skills

Relationship skills: The abilities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups. This includes the capacities to communicate clearly, listen actively, cooperate, work collaboratively to problem solve and negotiate conflict constructively, navigate settings with differing social and cultural demands and opportunities, provide leadership, and seek or offer help when needed.

Such as:

Communicating effectively

Developing positive relationships

Demonstrating cultural competency

Practicing teamwork and collaborative problem-solving

Resolving conflicts constructively

Resisting negative social pressure

Showing leadership in groups

Seeking or offering support and help when needed

Standing up for the rights of others

Check out this video from PBS Learning Media for more information.

Social & Emotional Learning

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.

SEL advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation. SEL can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities.

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Our SEL framework, known to many as the "CASEL wheel," helps cultivate skills and environments that advance students' learning and development.

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A Strategy in the Learning to Learn Series by the University of Arizona

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Evidence indicates that students learn better when they use strategies that involve active retrieval of information as opposed to relatively passive study techniques such as rereading or highlighting. The greatest benefits are achieved when the information that is retrieved is expressed in different formats (e.g., writings, drawings, diagrams), when students go back to check class materials for accuracy after they engage in retrieving, and when they do not just try to recall words and definitions but core concepts and ideas. Retrieval practice helps students identify what they do and do not understand, and focus their attention on what they really need to learn.

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L2L Strategy - Retrieval Practice | Arizona Site

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Evidence indicates that students learn better when they use strategies that involve active retrieval of information as opposed to relatively passive study techniques such as rereading or highlighting.

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A Strategy in the Learning to Learn Series by the University of Arizona

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Strategy Toolkit for Instructors

Below are useful resources that can be used during class to encourage students to incorporate Learning to Learn strategies in their studies. The Toolkit includes links to more information about a specific strategy as well as the Learning to Learn Blog which provides an opportunity to engage in lively discussion with colleagues about creative ways to promote effective learning strategies for your students.
NEW: Strategies for Fostering Metacognition in the Online Classroom

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Below are useful resources that can be used during class to encourage students to incorporate Learning to Learn strategies in their studies. The Toolkit includes links to more information about a specific strategy as well as the Learning to Learn Blog which provides an opportunity to engage in lively discussion with colleagues about creative ways to promote effective learning strategies for your students.

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A Strategy in the Learning to Learn Series by the University of Arizona

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L2L Strategy - Elaboration | Arizona Site

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Elaboration helps students make connections between new material and what they already know. Asking learners to answer "Why?" questions encourages them to think more deeply about the new concepts and explore the connections to related topics, thus increasing the quality of learning.

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A Strategy in the Learning to Learn Series by the University of Arizona

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L2L Strategy - Interleaving | Arizona Site

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Interleaving is a process where students mix, or interleave, multiple subjects or topics while they study in order to improve their learning. Blocked practice, on the other hand, involves studying one topic very thoroughly before moving to another topic. Interleaving has been shown to be more effect…

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A Strategy in the Learning to Learn Series by the University of Arizona

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How students react when they are faced with challenges in their learning, is determined by their mindset. Students can be taught to develop a growth mindset. Instructors should praise effort, strategy and process rather than focusing on talent and intelligence to promote a growth mindset. Growth mindset does not mean that every student has equal ability or potential. Instead, it means that every student has the opportunity to improve and to develop their knowledge, skills and abilities with effort and good strategies. Students should view failure as an opportunity to learn and improve their knowledge and should be encouraged to persist despite obstacles. Carol Dweck, Stanford University, states that focusing on "yet" (i.e. "that is something I don't understand yet") creates a growth mindset environment which helps students to change their perspectives and be more receptive to learning.

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L2L Strategy - Growth Mindset | Arizona Site

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How students react when they are faced with challenges in their learning, is determined by their mindset. Students can be taught to develop a growth mindset. Instructors should praise effort, strategy and process rather than focusing on talent and intelligence to promote a growth mindset.

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A Strategy in the Learning to Learn Series by the University of Arizona

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In simple terms, metacognition is thinking about one's thinking. In an educational context, it is students' awareness and understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses as learners and their ability to adapt accordingly to be more successful learners. Metacognition involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning. Novices tend to think more like experts when they recognize their strengths and weaknesses as learners. Self-monitoring and self-regulation, important metacognitive processes, lead to better goal-setting, planning, implementation of plans, monitoring of progress toward goals and, generally, better adaptation of learning strategies. Metacognitive practices increase students' ability to determine how to expand their knowledge and transfer that knowledge to new contexts. Recent studies show that these practices can be taught and learned. Students should understand that their ability to be self-regulated learners can improve with practice. Metacongnition is applicable to a single class session, a homework assignment, an exam, or an entire course.

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L2L Strategy - Metacognition | Arizona Site

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In simple terms, metacognition is thinking about one's thinking. In an educational context, it is students' awareness and understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses as learners and their ability to adapt accordingly to be more successful learners. Metacognition involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

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by Zaretta Hammond

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The achievement gap remains a stubborn problem for educators of culturally and linguistically diverse students. With the introduction of the rigorous Common Core State Standards, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement and facilitating deeper learning

Culturally responsive pedagogy has shown great promise in meeting this need, but many educators still struggle with its implementation. In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction.

The book includes:

Information on how one's culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships

Ten "key moves" to build students' learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners

Prompts for action and valuable self-reflection

With a firm understanding of these techniques and principles, teachers and instructional leaders will confidently reap the benefits of culturally responsive instruction.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain

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In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compati...

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Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A guide for Educators

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Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A guide for Educators

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by Kelly B. Cartwright

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Executive Skills and The Struggling Reader

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Executive Skills and The Struggling Reader

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by Kelly B. Cartwright

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Learn how executive skills-like working memory and cognitive flexibility-play an essential role in reading.

Editor' s note: This piece is adapted from Kelly B. Cartwright's Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Guide for Educators, now available from Guilford Press.

Students who struggle with reading often lack the thinking skills, such as memory, planning, and the ability to shift focus when necessary, that seem natural to skilled readers. For many teachers, the process of reading is so familiar that they often have difficulty explaining it to students. Much like riding a bicycle, we know we can do it, but explaining how it happens is another story entirely!

Recently, I had a conversation with a reading specialist colleague who was worried about a young reader who didn't seem to have the memory skills to understand text. I mentioned that the student might have difficulty with executive skills, which can sometimes explain the difference between good and poor readers. Research is just beginning to show the importance of executive skills for reading comprehension (e.g., Borella, Carretti, & Pelegrina, 2010; Cain, 2006; Locascio, Mahone, Eason, & Cutting, 2010), and understanding that importance has the potential to change the way we teach our students.

What Are Executive Skills?

Think of the term executive skills as an umbrella term that refers to a set of mental tools we use to manage tasks and achieve goals (Anderson, 2002; Dawson & Guare, 2010; Goldstein & Naglieri, 2014; Meltzer, 2010). Just as a chief executive of a company sets goals for the company and manages that company's operations to achieve those goals, our executive skills are what we use to engage in self-regulated, goal-directed behavior in any area of life, from planning and executing a trip to the grocery store to reading and understanding a complex journal article. Other words used to describe executive skills are executive control processes and executive functions, and these terms are used interchangeably in the literature on this topic.

There is fairly wide agreement that the core, or most basic, executive skills are cognitive flexibility, working memory, and inhibition (Best & Miller, 2010; Diamond, 2013; Miyake, Friedman, Emerson, Witzki, & Howerter, 2000).

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to shift attention from one task to another. Students must shift attention during classroom transitions, such as when shifting from recess to math. Likewise, skilled readers actively shift focus between many things, such as word and story meanings or converting letters into sounds.

Working memory is the child's capacity for holding information in mind while working with part of that information, such as when a child remembers the steps involved in the classroom's morning routine (i.e., remembers what comes next) while engaging in each of the steps​. Similarly, when building a mental model of a text's meaning, a good comprehender must keep in mind the various text ideas presented, note the causal links between them, and update the model as he or she encounters new ideas in text.

Inhibition involves the ability to resist engaging in a habitual response as well as the ability to ignore distracting information. You might think of this as stifling a gut reaction, such as when a child resists the impulse to grab a nearby toy. Similarly, good comprehenders must inhibit incorrect or irrelevant associations, such as ignoring ideas about financial institutions when reading about the banks of a river.

More complex executive skills also include planning, which involves setting and working toward a goal, and organization, which involves ordering and sequencing information or subtasks in ways that support completion of a goal. For example, a shopping trip requires planning, such as making a shopping list, as well as organization, such as arranging the items on your shopping list by the sections in the store. You cannot reach your goal without a plan, and you can do so most effectively if you are aware of the steps you need to take, in the proper order, to ensure that your goal is met.

Can We Assess Executive Skills?

In short, yes! Dawson and Guare's Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents: A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention provides a thorough overview of existing assessments for executive skills. In addition, I have developed a rubric that you can use to informally assess students' executive skills as they read (see Appendix A in my book). You can also download and print graphic organizers, rubrics, and planning and assessment forms through the "reproducible materials" link on Guilford's website.

Children who have difficulties with reading comprehension, despite having age-appropriate word reading skills, may have lower levels of executive skills than their peers with better comprehension (Borella, Carretti, & Pelegrina, 2010; Cain, 2006; Locascio, Mahone, Eason, & Cutting, 2010). These discoveries are important for all educators because reading comprehension is the foundation for all other learning in school: Students cannot understand, enjoy, or respond to literature without effective reading comprehension; likewise, students cannot gather new information from science, math, or social studies texts when they don't understand what they read. Fortunately for educators and for our students, executive skills can be taught, which can support our students' current-and future-academic success.

Notes

Anderson, P. (2002). Assessment and Development of Executive Function (EF) During Childhood. Child Neuropsychology, 8, 71-82.

Best, J. R., & Miller, P. H. (2010). A Developmental Perspective on Executive Function. Child Development, 81, 1641-1660.

Borella, E., Carretti, B., & Pelegrina, S. (2010). The Specific Role of Inhibition in Reading Comprehension in Good and Poor Comprehenders. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 43, 541-552.

Cain, K. (2006). Individual Differences in Children's Memory and Reading Comprehension: An Investigation of Semantic and Inhibitory Deficits. Memory, 14, 553-569.

Dawson, P., & Guare, R. (2010). Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents: A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.

Diamond, A. (2013). Executive Functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135-168.

Goldstein, S., & Naglieri, J. A. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of Executive Functioning. New York: Springer.

Locascio, G., Mahone, E. M., Eason, S. H., & Cutting, L. E. (2010). Executive Dysfunction Among Children With Reading Comprehension Deficits. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 43, 441-454.

Meltzer, L. (2010). Promoting Executive Function in the Classroom. New York: Guilford Press.

Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., & Howerter, A. (2000). The Unity and Diversity of Executive Functions and Their Contributions to Complex "Frontal Lobe" Tasks: A Latent Variable Analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 49-100.

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