Today’s culture requires quite a few skills including organization, time management, and planning to be successful. These executive functioning skills do not come naturally for students and need to be taught. “A critical component of any student’s educational journey is learning how to be better organized, complete tasks independently and persevere when an assignment is difficult” (source). There are numerous ways to teach executive functioning skills and I have listed a few below.
Impulse Control is difficult for students to master. A lack of impulse control forces students to act without thinking. A strategy to help build impulse control in students is to provide “a “Wait 5” strategy–counting to five before verbally responding to an input in the classroom, and a “Wait 3” in personal conversations to think before speaking in pairs or groups” (source).
Planning is also a difficult task for students to master as it involves successfully implementing time management. Students lacking planning skills will not be able to know which parts of a project are the most important. A strategy to help build planning skills is for students to create “mock projects–video games, music albums, books, businesses, apps, etc.–and then map out how they could accomplish that goal, then pair-share that map to open for feedback from partners in the classroom” (source).
Task Initiation is another difficult task for students to master because they may lack the motivation to begin a project. A strategy to improve task initiation skills is to “create daily prompts of various tasks to complete, and have students brainstorm different “starting points,” then share out” (source).
Organization helps students keep track of things mentally and physically. Students lacking this skill often misplace items and easily forget due dates. A strategy to improve organizational skills is to implement checklist, apps, or planners. Different programs work for different students so “experiment, persist, and find what works to help students organize themselves” (source).
Next Steps
Interested in learning more? Check out the websites below for great information.
- 8 Strategies to Build Executive Functioning Skills
- How to Keep Students Organized and Striving in a Digital World
- Strategies for Teaching Executive Functioning Skills
References:
All sourced information is hyperlinked as applicable above.
TLDR (too long didn’t read):
Today’s culture requires quite a few skills including organization, time management, and planning to be successful. These executive functioning skills do not come naturally for students and need to be taught. “A critical component of any student’s educational journey is learning how to be better organized, complete tasks independently and persevere when an assignment is difficult” (source). There are numerous ways to teach executive functioning skills and I have listed a few below.
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