Please note: These live learning blogs are posted on the fly, and I am more concerned with capturing information rather than perfecting my writing/proofreading skills. So yes, there might be mistakes, and no, it’s not the next great American novel. We’ll live!

Presenter: Lori Boll – Executive Director SENIA International

TriConference 2024, Mexico City, Mexico

Book Recs:

• Smart but Scattered Teens
• Inside the Teenage Brain (Frontline)
• Lost at School – Dr. Ross Green
• The Explosive Child – Dr. Ross Green
• Great Strategies to Support Executive Functioning Skills – Mitch Weathers

Two statements: Kids do well when they can do well / Kids do well when they want to do well. Two completely different philosophies.

Dr. Ross Green – https://youtu.be/jvzQQDfAL-Q?si=nvlI2GHFEBKSNdn0

If you have a “kids do well if they wanna” philosophy, and a kid isn’t doing well, you’re gonna think they just don’t wanna. And you are going to see your role as making kids wanna. Reward behaviors you like and punish the behaviors you don’t.

If you have a “kids do well if they can” philosophy, your role has changed. It’s a lot harder – your role now is to make a kid can. Figure out what’s getting in the way and get that out of the way. If the kid is still challenging, no one has figured it out yet.

These philosophies are what help with behavior management.

Philosophy that will drive our work today = kids do well when they can.

Hank Green video – https://youtu.be/hiduiTq1ei8?si=Cj710IFeSz4KcPKf

synaptic pruning – this is when brain connections fade as we don’t use them – this is why you should do things, to help those synapses keep firing.

Teens react quickly from the emotional part of their brain. Things aren’t hooked up yet, so it makes it hard to make good decisions and handle emotions. Their brains are more attuned to reward centers (pleasure and reward zone develops very early). Of course this doesn’t always result in great judgment and does result in risky behaviors. But it also means the brain is more adaptable because it’s not solidified yet.

Prefrontal cortex = our brain’s CEO (chief executive officer, which goes along with the fact that it controls executive functioning)

Executive functioning = a set of mental skills used to manage daily life

Thinking skills

• response inhibition – the capacity to think before you act
• emotional control – manage emotions to achieve goals and control behavior
• flexibility – the ability to revise plans in the face of obstacles, new info, or mistakes
• task initiation – ability to begin tasks or projects without undue procrastination
• goal directed persistence – the capacity to have a goal and follow through with it
• sustained attention – the ability to continue to pay attention in spite of distractibility

Doing Skills

• organization – the ability to create and maintain a system to keep track of information or materials
• time management –
• planning/prioritizing – the ability to create a road map to complete a task
• working memory – the ability to hold information in the memory while performing complex tasks
• stress tolerance – the ability to thrive in stressful situation and cope with uncertainty, change, and demand
• metacognition

If kids struggle with executive function, giving zeros will not really help them learn. All the research shows that using zeros to motivate students doesn’t work.

What happens between elementary and MS? Why do kids manage fine in elementary but then they start to struggle in MS?

In elementary, the teacher manages the world and there is only one classroom. In MS, every classroom has different expectations and the student has to manage their own world.

MS teachers always say “they should be able to do this” but really are they being taught? Who is explicitly teaching these skills?

Suggestions to help – start practicing the skills they will need in middle school -opening lockers, etc. Teaching executive function skills as a whole school, starting in elementary (can implement in advisory).

It’s important to set those boundaries, but we can’t set them until we teach them.

Article rec: Give the student a pencil. https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/give-the-kid-a-pencil

How does executive functioning with ADHD?

ADHD is developmental and is an impairment of the brain’s executive functioning. ADHD is lifelong.

All students with ADHD have executive functioning challenges, but not all people with executive functioning challenges have ADHD.

Can depression/anxiety/trauma impact executive functioning? Yes of course!

Polyvagal Theory

• ventral vagal parasympathetic activation – feeling at ease and safe; can manage whatever comes your way (this helps you access your prefrontal cortex and executive function)
• sympathetic activation – getting overwhelmed, feeling anxious or irritated (fight or flight mode)
• dorsal vagal activation – they cannot access executive function skills because they are not in a safe space, brain wise (buried under a huge load; alone in my despair) example – a kid sleeping in class. Maybe they’re just bored or tired, but maybe they’re in dorsal vagal activation, which means there is some sort of trauma

Executive function self-assessment: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I9KVu4IiNlDn9bQkl2MxuyMK2eMaznsrztVnt9Lvunw/copy – lots of organizations have this survey with strategies to help with these challenges

Taking away barriers doesn’t just help some students; it helps all students. Universal design for learning.

Tiered support

• Tier 1 – majority of students (75-90%)
• Tier 2 – Small groups of students (10-25%)
• Tier 3 – individual students (<10%) (individualized support students)

Strategies to support doing skills

• When students first enter your classroom, what is their expected routine?
  • Routine for setting up work?
  • Routine for turning in work?

We have to remember that expectations can differ from class to class. If a student has working memory challenges, they won’t remember all the different expectations from all the classes. It will be very difficult for that student. One simple way around different expectations is to be sure the expectations are written on the board.

If a student is coming to your class with their bag packed with everything they need for the day, it’s because they are frantic and don’t know how to manage it all, so that’s the system they developed.

• Develop predictable shared routines.
• Shared calendar
• Color coded notebooks
• Do not let kids carry loose papers around – make them put it in notebooks or binders. Tell kids where the papers go. Give them handouts already punched or use sheet protectors.
• Regular locker cleanouts
• Written planners and visuals – schoolwide planner – students who will benefit from it really will. Those who don’t need it, that’s ok too.
• Make things visual – helps lots of different EFs (tier 1 strategy)
• Make executive planning a school-wide priority (use advisory)
• Visual timers
• Scaffold long-term projects
  • Anchor charts
  • Clear expectations
  • Sentence starters
  • Organization sheets
  • Rubric
  • Give exemplars
• Graphic organizers
• List of homework, estimate how long it will take, put it into a brain frame and build in breaks along the way.
• Get ready, Do, Done
  • Get ready- what materials do I need to get started?
  • What steps do I need to take to get “done”?
  • What does it look like when I am done?
• Self Control – to block websites while they are working

Strategies to support thinking skills

• Michelle Garcias-Winner – creator of Social Thinking
• Brain & Body in the Group – shows that you will listening
  • A lot of times kids will sit outside the group, and they don’t realize that their group sees them as not contributing. (Reminds me of Rob’s activity with pictures of the groups).
• zones of regulation – it’s ok to be in all zones but look for ways to get into the green zone (google it)
• Stop and read the room
• Expected and unexpected behaviors – instead of saying it was inappropriate, say it’s unexpected. Makes the student feel less judged
• Look up social behavior mapping

SENIA happy hour podcast with Mitch Weathers

Website for executive functioning materials: efintheclassroom.net