Executive Functions--Lessons 1-4

Hey teachers of 9th graders,

I just wanted to update you all about what students are learning in Executive Functions and how we, as classroom teachers, might be able to support this learning in our classrooms every week. 

1. Internal/External locus of control: I have already found many opportunities in my classroom to review this concept with students. Whether it be a student who comes late to school and blames CTA or a student who blames their group's project on one person in the group, I use these moments to remind students that they are giving away their power to make changes in their own lives. While that may serve them in the short term to help them feel less guilty or less accountable, that they are not using and applying the skill of having an internal locus of control to help them make better decisions in the future. 

2. Delaying gratification: Students learned about the Marshmallow Test (reading attached if you are interested) which studied the different life paths of children who had developed this skill versus children who had not. When I stop to review homework, I talk about all the ways they are often distracted while they are doing homework and what delaying gratification might look like at home (i.e. turning off facebook, putting phone away, turning off the TV, etc). I also talk to them about what that looks like in the classroom (i.e. choosing to talk about the football game this weekend instead of helping each other complete the work and reflecting on their own understanding). 

3. Resilience: The ability to bounce back after failure or early struggles is something I see as critically important to teach our students. We have already given them the "grit scale" (I attached that as well and I plan to look over my students' answers more closely this weekend), but this lesson goes a little further to talk about the importance of failure in learning and the characteristics of a resilient student (also attached). I have already started discussing the importance of struggle in learning. One of my high school teachers had a sign above his board that said: "A pupil who is never asked that which he cannot do, never does all he can." I believe it was Alfred North Whitehead who said it. When students are shutting down or giving up...I plan to remind them of the importance of this moment and how they are choosing to respond.

4. Goal setting: Each week students set goals for the week that are related to the long term goals they made on the first day of Executive Functions. Please help students know what kind of goals they might make for your class. Many students have said some version of the following on their goal sheets: "Pass my algebra quiz" or "study for Chinese" or "compete all my work for Human Geography," but, when I ask them to explain what that means or what they would do specifically when they got home, they didn't really have an answer. Let's try to help students by giving them concrete examples of what they can do at home to help them make their goals more specific. 

Please let me know if you have any comments or questions about this information or about what you see as major issues with this group of freshmen that we might be able to address in EF. 

Executive Functions Weeks One through Four

Here is the first (of hopefully many) installments of the Freshman Academy blog. This site is meant for parents and teachers of freshman students to learn what we are studying in Executive Functions and help build off the lessons both in their regular classes and at home. 

For EF teachers: 

1. I have updated the lesson plan #2 for this week to include the scenarios and grit scale (see LMSA Executive Functions page)

2. Please review the goal maps students made last week as well as the goals they make this week and let the house teams know if you see issues we should address with the student or our classes as a whole. 

If you are interested, here is my thinking behind the first four lessons that I created. 

Belief #1: All our students want to be successful in school.

Belief #2: Most (maybe all) our students have a sense of self deeply wrapped up in the belief that they are smart.

What I have begun to see (but not feel like I have adequately addressed in the past) is that some students are far more resilient than others when they are confronted with the new challenges of high school (or academic center). Some students redouble their efforts and seek out help while others redefine themselves as "not as smart as they thought they were" or redefine school as "stupid" and "irrelevant." Both of these latter responses lead to students who no longer feel in control of their own learning and, therefore, no longer in control of their own success. They have a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset (see resources to better understand this idea)

So...

Inspired by a talk given by Chris Lehmann, principal of Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, I realized that if we want our students to know and be able to do something, we must fit it purposefully into our curriculum (this also applies to empathy, good citizenship, communicating productively, etc). In the past we have started the EF curriculum without giving students the framework of understanding why we are doing what we are doing to help them override the parts of their brain that are not developed enough to help them achieve long-term goals. 

Lesson one was meant as an introduction (but can't be the last time we say it) to what teenage cognitive development. It was meant to connect them to their long-term goals but also explain why their brains may undermine their ability to achieve those goals if they do not work to overcome their brain's limitations. 

Lesson two is meant to talk about efficacy in relation to academic (and other forms of) resilience. Students begin by participating in a challenging team building exercise called "traffic jam" where they might get frustrated and quit, start yelling at their teammates, or take on leadership roles to help the team meet the goals of the game. It is meant to simulate our level of resilience when faced with a challenge. Then students take the grit scale test and score it. This will help students understand the connection between their responses to challenges on the way to achieving their goals. Finally, students will learn about the concept of internal vs external locus of control and identify both in written (hopefully relevant) scenarios that I created to help them see how they take the power to change, adapt, and respond away from themselves. Finally, students will set three goals for the week that are always related in some way to the long-terms goals they made in lesson one. 

Lesson three will build off both of the prior lessons in terms of showing the benefits of delaying gratification to achieve a goal. Students will read the excerpt from Daniel Goleman's book Emotional Intelligence about the Marshmallow Test and discuss the long-term implications of being able to delay gratification in order to achieve one's goals. (see the Judy Willis webinar for more about this idea and how critical it is to student success)

Lesson four will return to the idea of resiliency. While some of you may see this as redundant, I believe that repetition to the point where students are slightly annoyed is the first sign that our message is becoming more than just words. I would love to see resiliency being discussed all over school. I can't think of a better gift to give a child than the development of academic resiliency. Our students show resilience in so many other ways that it is easy to see they can develop the same characteristic when it comes to school. 

Resources: 

Carol Dweck's book Mindset is a great look at the fixed vs growth mindset and how we can promote and sustain the latter. 

How to give praise to support a growth mindset 

How can resisting immediate gratification and long-term goal setting be developed in students (webinar by Judy Willis...she's amazing)