Executive Function in the Personalized Classroom
Hey Coach,
Sometimes I wonder if my students are mature enough for personalized learning. I feel like I can’t completely commit to personalized learning because my students won’t get anything done in a less controlled environment.
Sincerely,
Functionally Fatigued
Dear FF,
Ah… This is the 7- 10 split of personalized learning! You are exactly right. This is why executive functioning is so important in a personalized learning environment - We even say it's the single most important skill set students need to be successful. On one side you recognize the importance of personalized learning, but on the other side you have the practicalities of implementing it.
Executive functioning skills impact every aspect of a student’s education from the first day of kindergarten all the way to graduating college. We have found that many teachers resist personalized learning because of classroom behavior. Executive functioning is the skillset that students need to create a learning space in which their behaviors allow for learning - in other words, students need these skills so the classroom isn’t uncontrolled chaos.
Skills like prioritizing work, following class rules, and refocusing when a distraction pops up are critical for all learners to be able to learn. Often, these are skills we assume the student already has, or we assume they will develop them in the natural course of maturing. The truth is executive functioning skills need to be explicitly taught, incorporated into a routine, and rehearsed until students develop automaticity and they can do it without thinking about it! As Dr. Anissa Lokey-Vega and Stephanee Stephens explain in A Vision for Personalized Learning in Georgia K-12 Schools, “Without this learner skillset, personalized learning is too large a burden for an educator.” The context here is important, as it is to see how to explicitly go about teaching executive function.
“In personalized learning… learners must have the skills and complex cognitive processes to direct their own learning and reach their own unique goals. Without this learner skillset, personalized learning is too large a burden for an educator.”
Executive function is the exact opposite of learned helplessness, “a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed” (Nolen, 2017). Students must learn that they can and will succeed on their own, given we provide them with the structure. The first thing to help prioritize executive function is to encourage a growth mindset. In a classroom that prioritizes executive function, failure is part of success, and educators must acknowledge it as such. Failure throughout life, and therefore in school, is common and persistent. It will always happen in a situation, our job in life is to figure out our way past or through it. When students “fail,” in our classes, we should teach problem solving by treating that failure as a learning opportunity for metacognition: where did I go wrong, and how can I alter my initial plan? By helping students understand that failure is not an end point, we can promote positivity around the experience.
Inasmuch as failure is not an end point, it is a deterrent, and we want students to ultimately succeed. While we have built one framework for dealing with it, building supports to help students succor themselves is just as important. Building a culture of expectations is a fantastic way to help students see the invisible constructs to support them. If students are in one area of the room, for instance, they may only be allowed to use the resources in that area. Those should provide context and solutions for them to find answers for given problems. In a math class that might be a calculator corner, where students are allowed to use those calculators to find large solutions, versus other parts of class where they might have to use paper and pencil.
The best way to teach executive functioning is to build skills and strategies into your classroom routine. For example, you may establish a routine for how class beings: sit down, take out your materials/computer, and log on to the class website. I’m willing to bet you already incorporate some executive functioning strategies and don’t even know it. If you have class rules, if you have a set procedures, and if you incorporate metacognition activities, such as reflection, you are already apply some of the skills with your students. For more strategies to help students build their skills, check out Dimensions of Executive Functioning Handbook and our Technology Tools to Support Executive Function infographic.
Allow students to order their thinking, along with yours. As teachers, we should model good executive function skills. Help students develop a schema for problem solving and goal setting, such as our Goal Setting Guide and Problem Solving Guide. In a grand metaphor, students are bowling balls aimed at the ultimate goal of scoring a strike! Teachers should provide the environment to help them do that, providing bumpers, slickening the lane, or stopping the ball and redirecting it to the pins if it jumps onto another lane. Executive function is helping students build their own lane to knock down the pins they see in front of them.
All the Best,
Coach
