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After reading this article, multiple students come to mind who struggle with Executive Functioning. Most of my students need explicit instruction when it comes to organizational skills.

As a teacher, I think I have not done a good enough job at intervening at personal level, I have focused on the environment my students are in rather than providing them with tools to develop their own strategies so they are better able to deal with the difficulties they face on a larger scale. I have tried to take the time to do backpack checks,  create checklist for them to follow and organize binders for children however, as the year went on it began to fall to the wayside and become ignored. I need to better develop my method for teaching this transferable life skills to my students.

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When I hear the term "Executive Functioning" several of my 7th grade students immediately come to mind. However, one student in particular has shown tremendous difficulty when it comes to this.

This particular student has major challenges when it comes to organizing, turning in work and memory. Several measures have been taken to assist this student, however, it has not worked for him due to his refusal to try these measures. For instance, to assist him with his lack of organization skills, we have created him countless of checklists and reminders. However, he ends up losing these checklists and reminders or he refuses to create a check list himself because he claims he can remember everything without having to jot anything down. This brings me to the issue of memory.

This student claims that he doesn't need to write a list, or write things down in his planner because his memory serves him well. However, when he relies simply by memory, he tends to forget everything by the time he gets home and comes back to school frustrated because he hasn't done the work.

In terms of strategies, I assist my students with Executive Functioning skills with the cleaning out their binders and lockers. These students don't necessarily have to be students with IEPs. These students have found these clean-ups beneficial because it enables them to take time to organize their materials and because we are organizing in a 1 on 1 setting, they like the fact that there are no distractions when it comes to cleaning up.

One strategy that I would like to continue to work on is in regards to helping my students improve their planning skills. I have encountered students who are very diligent when it comes to writing every single down on their planner. We have shown the class "model" planners and have told them each time they have an assignment to jot it down in their planners. However, there are always students that do not do that and I would like to find/learn other ways to encourage them to write down checklists, use a planner, etc.

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This article described a major need of my students.  I teach 6th, 7th and 8th grade social studies in a 12-1-1 classroom. Many of my students struggle with one or more of the six executive functions. I liked the distinction between intervening at the level of the environment and intervening at the level of the person.

As a teacher, I do a fairly good at intervening at the level of environment. I move student's seats to change the social environment and , assign project-based assessments to increase student motivation.

I am not as effective at intervening on the level of the person and teaching new executive functioning skills. Many of our kids who have the poorest executive function are tech savvy. I would like to teach them to use google calendar as a scheduling aid. Using this and other apps students could build scaffolding for their own executive functioning.

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After reading this article, I can absolutely see connections to the students in my classroom. There are 2 in particular that stand out, who despite engagement in the material we discuss, consistently struggle to follow simple directions and are often distracted In class. I can also recall many MANY students that I have had in the past that have had similar issues that I have flagged for evaluation. I also have a very clear understanding of the kind of cognitive overload that the article alluded to (pg. 251).

In terms of strategies, I find one of the most important tools I use in my classroom is the fourth feature - "monitoring student responses and providing immediate feedback" (pg. 253). When teaching, I always strategically circulate the room in order to 1) gain an understanding of student achievement and collect data and 2) provide feedback to students as they work so they can immediately apply their new understandings. Additionally, after class is over, I will provide written feedback on student work and then the students will spend time at the beginning of class to implement that feedback and revise their work (see picture) attached to post.   I was additionally struck by the advice from the article that stated "to carefully guide practice opportunities" and "strategically sequence examples of new skills" because they seemed so obvious to an experienced reader. These are tried and true strategies that are best practices for ALL teachers and learners, not just those who struggle with working memory. In order to BETTER support these students, I believe that they must have individualized scaffolding plans, as well as more 1X1 check ins and plans than other students - but this is not NEW information. It is logical and understandable that a student must master basic steps before moving
to more complex ones (i.e. mastering single digit multiplication before doing triple digit multiplication). However, if looking at strategies I would like to implement more, I immediately think of graphic organizers. The text stated that visuals such as these "reduce working-memory processing demands because the information that must be worked with is tangible and not required to be kept in the mind" (pg. 253). Graphic organizers have consistently helped my students - I specifically think of the Double Entry Journal that I had my intervention students use to interpret The New Colossus - understand texts at a deeper level.  Yet, I rarely use them in my teaching practice, yet this is a strategy I would like to implement on a more consistent basis.

For my students with IEPs and learning disabilities, I know that they regularly struggle with applying feedback during completely independent work. I believe that a graphic organizer that is like a "checklist" for them would be extremely beneficial
because they would be able to better "memorize" certain steps, and remember to "check off" these steps before moving on to another part of their independent work.

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Reading about EF is not something I've done before, and I feel like I've gained a real understanding of some of the issues my students face.  Difficulties that I often chalk up to misunderstandings of the content seem to be much more than just that.  I have a few specific students in mind that really seem to fade in and out of lessons.  Both the article and the PowerPoint really made me think about my own practice in redirecting students to "focus," when it was hardly that simple.

I really liked reading about some of the quick, daily strategies to implement like small incentives during timing breaks where the work time increases as those goals are reached.  I also think that I haven't been explicit with these students about how their attention span may be interfering with their understanding of the math content.  For one of my students in particular, I think his confidence in math is very low.  He feels very discouraged when trying lengthy problems.  Recently, he's experienced a little more success, but it really seems to be only momentarily.  If I'm being honest, it seems, after reading that my co-teacher and I have been trying to target the math content only instead of going further to target the source of why the math is hard to pick up in the first place. It seems as though it's not necessarily the math units at all, but could actually be him struggling to just process the new information, the directions, and the review all at one time. Shortening our instructions could for sure be a helpful intervention here, but I am excited to try some visual aids as well. Hopefully this could help reduce the amount of verbal processing necessary to access a word problem. I think of this as exchanging a line or two from a written problem with a visual that represents that instead and allowing the student to work from that. I'm excited to try some of these out and see how it benefits them.

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The ability of Executive Functioning is something that many of my students struggle with. As I teach self contained special education, I have observed this with many of my students. I always implement the "I do, We do, You do" strategy of instruction as a way to carefully guide practice opportunities. This is a great whole class strategy and I differentiate within and circulate to give individual attention.

Another feature for managing working memory load during instruction I use to promote executive functioning is providing clear explanations and models. I use economy of language so that students are given just what they need and nothing extraneous. Students' attention spans are short lived and the intake of information they get in one day is a lot, so to appeal to their memory, I keep things simple and straightforward.

I already implement many strategies to help students with executive functioning. One that I find to work very well is focusing on environment. Seating is key to a functional classroom and instruction. I place students next to each other based on level and need. I also place students strategically in different parts of the room, depending on what will help them work optimally.

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Using the slideshow and article from this week's reading, respond to the following questions:

1. What connections can you make between information presented about executive functioning and your own classroom?
2. What strategies do you (or would you like to) implement at a whole class level to help promote practicing one (or more) of the executive functioning skills mentioned?
3. Think of a student that you teach that may struggle with one of the executive functioning skills. Which skill is a challenge for them? What strategies mentioned could you use to assist this student?
4. Respond to 2 of your classmates!