Improving Executive Functioning- What You Need To Know To Ensure Student Success
Inside: Learn all about the process of improving executive functioning and supports for students in the classroom. You’ll be ready to support your student’s time management, attention, and organization skills.
I walked into my classroom, the sun shining in the windows, the whiteboard sparking ready for the day’s lesson, and half of my students announced they forgot their homework. Again.
Amid choruses of “I did it!”, “I forgot it at home”, “it’s in my locker”, and “you never told me to do that page”, I felt my heart sink. I love teaching.
My students bring me joy and I love to see the “aha” lightbulb moment when they have learned something new.
But the hours spent reminding students to get work done, bring homework back, and searching for their lost pencil drains every bit of energy I have!
If only I could spend more time teaching.
My students needed me to do things differently to help them be successful. And maybe I could learn a few tricks to help my forgetfulness.
“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
Insanity is exhausting. My students were struggling with something called Executive Functioning.
Executive Functioning deficits tripped them up and caused them to struggle with the basics of school, which left them unable to focus on the academic tasks I desperately wanted them to learn.
What You Need To Know About Executive Functioning
For our purposes, you will want to know it boils down to:
How you get yourself together to do the things you need to do (including learning).
I had a fellow teacher who used to talk about how her students needed to learn “school skills”.
Without realizing it, she said her students struggle with Executive Functioning.
Executive Functioning deficits may look like-
The student who forgets to do their homework.
The student that never has a pencil.
The student whose gaze is out the window or anywhere but at the lesson.
The student who panics as soon as you say “time’s up!”
The student who can’t close their folder because of the papers shoved inside.
Each of these causes time away from the lesson. And extreme frustration for the student and the teacher.
Students who struggle with executive functioning may:
forget the next step
overreact or under-react to a situation
appear distracted
come to school without necessary supplies.
You can spend hours online and on social media observing the fall-out of these deficits. Frustrated posts from teachers, concerned stories from parents, students who have given up.
In your classroom, it can be different. The first step- Identify the problem. Not in the way of those frustrated posts that list in great detail what the students do wrong, but in what the cause may be.
Forgetting the Laundry and other Important Things
“I forget, I forgot. That is all I ever hear from you!” I could feel my heart pounding faster and harder as my brain raced to try to remember what it now guessed it should have remembered.
As a child, my mom believed my memory did not function correctly.
As I stood there, I remembered:
I had homework due the next day
I remembered my best friend’s birthday the next day
I remembered the dog ate my mom’s favorite shoes and I hadn’t told her yet.
But I couldn’t remember what my mom was mad at me for and I had forgotten.
This conversation happened often in our household, much to my mom’s frustration. She finally saw the memory had evaporated and I had no idea what I needed to remember.
“I asked you to switch the laundry.”
I earned As in school, but when it came to random things people told me, my brain pretended it had never heard them at all.
30 years later it now makes sense.
Most people take memory for granted.
We may tease someone about not being able to remember something they walked into the room to get.
We will talk about our pasts and about what we had for lunch.
When it comes to school, day to day tasks, and your mom requesting you switch the laundry, the process may be a bit different.
To be able to remember, we first need to be able to pay attention. If a student struggles with paying attention to their environment or the lesson, memory will already be impeded.
Once we have attention, then the event must be encoded, stored, consolidated, and retrieved at just the right time.
Outside distractions or retrieval deficits will cause students to struggle with retaining the information they are expected to learn.
My brain will learn most things quickly. But it struggles with attention. I’m constantly thinking of at least 10 separate things. And that day one my mom’s request to do laundry did not make the list.
Many students struggle in this same way. They want to remember, they have every intention of completing the assignment. But their brain may be thinking of so many things, their memory cannot keep up.
In addition to ADHD, many other medical conditions can cause students to struggle with memory. Most of these do not have a simple “fix”.
But you can increase their ability to remember by providing visuals and implementing tools to support attention.
Why Most Teachers Hate Lawnmowers
Oh no. The lawnmower again. While I love the huge windows most days, I loathe them on lawn mowing day.
Our district has huge, red, loud lawnmowers.
That mow around every tree in front of my classroom window.
For the next 30 minutes, I could:
take a short nap
get a workout in
watch an episode of my favorite T.V. show
My students would never notice. They have eyes only for that mower.
We have all worked with students who appear to struggle with paying attention. This can be because of a plethora of classroom distractions, or because of medical conditions such as ADHD.
This isn’t only with loud, red, amazingly fascinating lawnmowers.
Distractions could be the principal entering the room, the buzz of the lights, or the repetitive click-click-click of a pen in the hands of a peer.
And it isn’t only students who struggle with this.
The distractions are inevitable.
But we can know how attention works and learn how to better plan for and support student’s levels of attention.
How To Master Attention
Hierarchical- hard to pronounce but important to understand when it comes to attention.
Attention works on simple rules. You must be able to reach one level before you can attain the next.
Level 1- Focused Attention
(turning on the game)
You master this level before you even know you’re playing the game. A baby looks at a caregiver’s face.
This is focused attention.
Level 2- Sustained Attention
(watching the introduction)
Think of toddlers in front of a television.
What do they pay the most attention to?
Commercials. Every time.
Commercials are short and their attention does not have to be sustained for a long period.
When you play games with young children, you often are aware of their “short attention spans”.
Most children will develop longer and longer attention spans as they get older.
However, some students will struggle with this due to environmental, physical, emotional, or cognitive differences.
A student’s sustained attention length may be different than their peers and as such, may struggle with attention much beyond this point.
Level 3- Selective Attention
(playing the demo level)
Let’s call this “freedom from distractibility”.
Let’s also be honest and admit we all struggle with this from time to time.
Even as educators, there are times our executive functioning skills may be decreased.
As a child grows, they learn to pay selective attention to important things.
Listen to a storybook while the dog barks
play a board game while they are hungry
color an entire picture when their parents are talking
These are all selective attention skills.
Now imagine a student who struggles with this when a bird flies by the classroom window or they have a sock inside their shoe.
Level 4- Alternating Attention
(play the game)
If we have played the game long enough to master the previous levels, the next challenge: alternating attention.
Start with one task, move to the next, and then go back. You may also hear this called mental flexibility.
How many times each class period do you ask students to ‘switch’ tasks?
Read a paragraph
Write your answer
Listen to the teacher’s direction
Go back writing
Raise your hand for a roll call
Five minutes of class may have students switch tasks from 2-10 times.
Level 5- Divided Attention
(go up against the biggest bad-guy & use all of the skills you have all at once)
The last most complicated level of the Attention Game.
Some describe this level as “multitasking”.
We may tease our spouse about being bad at multitasking, or pride ourselves on the skill.
But in reality, this is a complex process.
To be successful at multitasking, you must first be able to have focused, sustained, selective, alternating attention. Then you can have divided attention.
Again, think about how often in school you ask students to do this.
Perhaps listen to a story while they write the answer. Or write in their planner while you discuss the day’s lesson plans.
All About Flexibility
Things change.
Regardless of our best intentions, there are always changes to our plans.
Cognitive Flexibility is a person’s ability to take in information (for school, think auditory and visual) and make sense of it.
Processing speed varies from student to student, and adult to adult.
Students who struggle with cognitive flexibility will often struggle with the ability to manage time and switch from one task to the next.
Cognitive flexibility also takes into account motor planning.
Think of a friend or family member that can play ball better than you ever could. They always seem to be quick on their feet and know the direction of the ball before you even realized it moved.
This type of cognitive flexibility relies on motor planning.
Their executive functioning system can take in stimuli and respond to it physically.
Classroom- Next Steps to Improving Executive Functioning
After so much information, teachers may begin to get that glassy, I’m watching the lawnmower, look on their faces.
All of this information provides background. But what to do with it all?
Consider these steps to get started:
Sit down and think about your students. Where do you see them struggling? What motivates your students?
Step back and look at your routines. Do you have them? Are they clear and consistent?
Take an honest look at your lesson plans. How often do you require divided-attention?
Become an interior designer. Sit at your student’s desk and notice what draws your attention. How can you eliminate some distractions?
Visuals, Visuals, Visuals. Buy them, make them, bribe the teacher next door, but find a way to get visual supports for directions, reminders, routines, etc.
Teach! Take the time to practice routines and the strategies below like you would reading or math.
Be the Teacher
Before you can get to the lesson you want to teach, you first need to make sure your students are ready to be a learner.
Your clean whiteboard isn’t going to get much use until your students have supports in place to master attention, organization, and memory.
Here are some ideas to get started:
Binder Systems
Think binders with color-coded folders & pencil pouches to hold those wayward pencils.
Color Code
All materials for the same class are the same color
Organizational Systems
High or Low Tech- doesn’t matter. Just practice and model their use. Frequently
Highlight
Demonstrate important information and model for students
Self Advocacy
Provide a quiet workspace and encourage students to request it
Routines
Consistency makes the brain happy. How to turn in papers, line up, how to name a file, where to sit.
Visuals
Provide visuals and encourage students to make their own as well.
Assistive Technology for Executive Functioning
Once you have a classroom that offers an environment that supports memory, time management, organization, and attention, you may want to consider additional support for students who need an additional layer of support. These tools may be considered assistive technology if they are necessary for the student to be successful. Learn more about assistive technology for executive functioning and how it can help students.
With these supports, you will be well on your way to a classroom environment where students can all make it to the final level of the video game.
And when you walk in, the sun can shine, the whiteboard can be clean, and you can get excited about grading all of the homework turned in on time!
Download Your Free Printable
To help you master executive functioning, I made a simple checklist you can fill out as you review your classroom procedures.
Follow these steps to make sure your next lesson has the supports in place to support your students:
Download the worksheet. You will get the free printable and will join my mailing list full of timely executive function tips and printables. Just click HERE.
Print a few copies. Leave them sitting on your desk, in your classroom, any place you stop to reflect.
When you are planning a lesson or reflecting on a previous period, pick up the Executive Functioning Inventory. Pick up a fun pen and fill out the worksheet to identify areas that can be adjusted, adapted, or supported.
Teach. With confidence, knowing you are supporting all students.
