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West Winging it

10/29/2014

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My wife Rheanne and I were binge-watching The West Wing on the weekend when one of the characters was directed to set up a regular chess match with the President in order to monitor his executive functioning skills. I immediately paused the computer - they were talking about the importance of executive function in 2004? Why had it taken almost 10 years for it to work its way into the regular lexicon for educators?

While studies into executive functioning and working memory have been around since the 70s and 80s, it was in the first decade of this century that the research really took off and by 2008 the National Centre for Learning Disabilities in the United States was highlighting EF issues in its publications. 


"Executive Function" is a term used to describe a set of mental processes that helps us connect past experience with present action. We use executive function when we perform such activities as planning, organizing, strategizing and paying attention to and remembering details. People with executive function problems have difficulty with planning, organizing and managing time and space. They also show weakness with "working memory" (or "seeing in your mind's eye"), which is an important tool in guiding one's actions...Problems can be seen at any age but tend to be increasingly apparent as children move through the early elementary grades; the demands of completing schoolwork independently can often trigger signs that there are difficulties in this area.

Educators are now starting to catch up and recognize the warning signs that executive function might be an issue for individual students. They see such indicators as: time management, especially the ability to predict how much time a particular task might take; the inability to tell a story or recount events in an organized, sequential manner; retrieving information from their memory; or, retaining information while doing something with it at the same time. Students with EF challenges appear scattered or distracted or anxious and are often incapable of getting started on an assigned task. 

At KGMS/Maplewood we have designated the first 10-15 minutes of each morning as our Executive Functioning block. Teachers and students start the academic day by reviewing a common, visual schedule or outline of the day ahead. This is often posted with picture cues to reinforce the words (a basketball for PE; a calculator for math; etc.) and is affixed somewhere at the front of the room where it will be visible all day. A schedule projected on the SmartBoard or written and then later erased on a white board has little value. To be effective it has to be available for constant viewing and reinforcement. With some students, a mini print version is taped to their desks for handy reference at any time. Other on-going reinforcements include: providing both verbal and visual instructions for each task; giving "early warning" signals when transitions are approaching or plans change; or projecting countdown timers on the Board to help students to pace themselves. Our teachers are experts at chunking assignments into manageable segments; using agendas or online software for managing time and tasks; and being very clear on expectations and the duration of every activity.
In addition, for many of our students, both at home and at school, an organized, clutter-free workspace is essential - eliminating distractions and ensuring that all necessary materials are close at hand. Getting organized and set up for a successful day is a key component of our EF block.

Often when educators think about executive function, this is where they stop. They focus on organizational skill development such as time management, developing organizational systems or planning and prioritizing. While this works for many students, there are clear barriers that prevent some children from easily mastering these skills. For them, this traditional approach does not work. A key EF challenge can be a product of  working memory, which is the ability to hold information in memory while performing complex tasks. It incorporates the ability to "draw on past learning or experience to apply to the situation at hand or to project it into the future". 

You can think of working memory as the active part of your memory system. It’s like mental juggling, says H. Lee Swanson, PhD, distinguished professor of education with the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. “As information comes in, you’re processing it at the same time as you store it,” he says. "A child uses this skill when doing math calculations or listening to a story, for example. She has to hold onto the numbers while working with them. Or, she needs to remember the sequence of events and also think of what the story is about" .

Other executive functioning skills include: response inhibition which is the ability to think before you act including the ability to resist the urge to say or do something before you take the time to evaluate what impact your behaviour might have on a given situation; emotional control, that is, the ability to manage emotions, controlling and directing your behaviour in order to achieve goals and complete tasks; and, sustained attention which is the capacity to maintain attention to a situation or task in spite of distractibility, fatigue or boredom. Working on these skills with students is obviously a key part of our Social Emotional Learning programme (SEL).


Needless to say, we have spent a lot of time as a school exploring these ideas and implementing strategies for our students. But maybe we just should have been watching old episodes of The West Wing instead!

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Learning by Design

10/16/2014

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Decades ago, when I was a young teacher, there was a great deal of emphasis placed upon understanding students' "learning styles". At the time there was considerable professional development centred around how teachers could reach a diverse population of learners in their classrooms by varying their methods, and balancing the types of teaching and learning strategies being used, so that the preferences of each category of student were honoured on a fairly regular basis. The theory was that a variety of approaches meant that you had a chance of effectively engaging each student at least some of the time. Over time, some of this thinking was co-opted by the proponents of single-gender education who argued that certain learning environments that worked for one sex would be disengaging or even "hostile" to the needs and preferences of the other. It has made for an interesting (if only loosely researched!) debate among educators of all stripes.

Coming up the middle of this discussion is the approach that we use at KGMS/Maplewood. It is called Universal Design for Learning (UDL). UDL is an educational framework based on research in the learning sciences, including cognitive neuroscience, that guides the development of flexible learning environments that can accommodate individual learning differences. Recognizing that the way individuals learn can be unique, the UDL framework, first defined in the 1990s by the  Centre for Applied Special Technology, calls for designing and implementing a curriculum that provides:
  • Multiple means of representation to give learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge,
  • Multiple means of expression to provide learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know, and
  • Multiple means of engagement to tap into learners' interests, challenge them appropriately, and motivate them to learn.

As the National Center on Universal Design states:
UDL is intended to increase access to learning by reducing physical, cognitive, intellectual, and organizational barriers to learning, as well as other obstacles. UDL principles also lend themselves to implementing inclusionary practices in the classroom...
UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs.

In other words, rather than vary our methods from time to time, educators need to offer multiple approaches concurrently. You start with the concept, or the assessment, or the teaching strategy and offer a variety of strategies or options for students to pursue. UDL starts with the premise that everyone is capable of understanding a concept; or demonstrating mastery; or being engaged in learning; the role of the teacher is to find the pathway that will make it work for each of her or his students. For a class novel study for example, that might mean using a combination of a regular print copy; a digital book with adjustable font; an audio-book; or even speech to text software on a laptop or SmartBoard. Additionally, some creative strategies for challenging learners, inspired by a universal design approach, can often prove to be more effective for all students - even those who would normally succeed in a traditional classroom. As has often been noted, automatic doors may have originally been conceived as a device to serve people in wheelchairs (or on starships!) but are now in universal use providing ease of access for parents with strollers, shoppers with packages, or just people in a hurry.

Another area where Universal Design can be critically important is in helping students to develop the skills of self-regulation.  Typical schools and classrooms rely on extrinsic motivation (grades, graduation, university entrance requirements;etc.) to get students to attend, learn and even graduate. However "if we want students to understand how they learn, recognize and deal with their emotions in a way that helps them cope and flourish and build intrinsic motivation, then as educators we need to strategically support students and help them develop these skills. While some students learn self-regulation on their own, many more need support and guidance. UDL asks teachers to explicitly teach self-regulation skills. By promoting positive expectations, demonstrating coping strategies and building in self-assessment and reflection, we help students begin to take on the responsibility for recognizing and managing their own emotions, building up a series of strategies to help them become successful, metacognitive learners." 

In the second decade of the 21st century, advances in technology have made UDL more practical and more effective at the classroom level. Universal Design, is not about class size or even class composition. Well-resourced schools, with skilled teachers in place, have an excellent chance of meeting the needs of all learners in their care. It's all in their design for learning.



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    Dr. Jim Christopher is recently retired Head of Kenneth Gordon Maplewood School and Maplewood Alternative High School in North Vancouver. A parent, author and long-time teacher, and educational administrator across Canada, he has been actively involved in the drive to differentiate learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

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