WEBVTT
00:00:02.923 -->
00:00:04.466Welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge.
00:00:04.466 -->
00:00:11.535Come join the conversation with other curious teachers as they discover teaching strategies and resources to reach all of their learners.
00:00:11.535 -->
00:00:12.396I'm Shannon.
00:00:13.381 -->
00:00:19.974And I'm Mary, and together we bring an honest and experienced point of view to the topics we cover to shed light on best practices.
00:00:19.974 -->
00:00:28.975Whether you're a new teacher seeking guidance, a seasoned pro looking for fresh ideas or a curious parent, our community offers something for everyone.
00:00:28.975 -->
00:00:36.514So grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea and cozy up in the virtual lounge with us and eavesdrop on our professional conversations.
00:00:37.240 -->
00:00:41.210Listen, learn and immediately add to your bag of teaching tricks.
00:00:41.210 -->
00:00:45.210Find what works for your students with us in the Reading Teachers Lounge.
00:00:46.720 -->
00:00:49.609Hello and welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge.
00:00:49.609 -->
00:01:02.908I'm really excited today because we're going to be talking about that one big topic that's near and dear to my heart, which is executive functioning and how to best reach our students, and we have some great guests with us today.
00:01:02.908 -->
00:01:17.861We have Doug Fisher and we have Matt Strader, and we're really excited because they have long been in the field of literacy in many different areas, and so I know that they're going to bring a lot of insight into this conversation today.
00:01:17.861 -->
00:01:27.049I have a feeling this is going to be one that many of our listeners are going to want to bookmark, so, without further ado, I'm going to start introducing Matt Strader.
00:01:27.049 -->
00:01:28.433Thank you so much for joining us.
00:01:28.433 -->
00:01:32.269Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do within the world of literacy?
00:01:33.040 -->
00:01:33.643Absolutely Well.
00:01:33.643 -->
00:01:34.447Thank you for having me.
00:01:34.447 -->
00:01:39.188I'm Matt Strader and I was a literacy teacher and coach for just under a decade.
00:01:39.188 -->
00:02:00.085As well as being both a school and district administrator accountable for academics and specifically multiple literacy programs across buildings, I transitioned just under a decade ago into creating materials for schools and in that capacity I serve as the Director of Academic Design for Secondary Literacy at McGraw-Hill.
00:02:00.987 -->
00:02:17.733My personal research centers on self-efficacy and I'm particularly interested in the realm of digital education and what we do and don't know about self-efficacy as it relates to digital learning, and Doug actually recently released a book that compellingly brings the idea of self-efficacy into the science of reading.
00:02:17.733 -->
00:02:26.495And in a similar way, I just view motivational processes as being inextricably linked to the ways we teach literacy and to the way students learn.
00:02:26.495 -->
00:02:53.823So I'm really interested in how we do that, and my team and I at McGraw-Hill are just really focused on literacy education in the world of increasing technological adoption and advancement, the shifting priorities of schools and society society and then just also really thinking about how motivation and literacy play a role in the uncertain future of the workforce and what that will look like as our students today graduate and enter that realm.
00:02:53.823 -->
00:02:57.472So that's some of the things I'm interested in and working on at the moment.
00:02:59.060 -->
00:02:59.661Amazing.
00:02:59.661 -->
00:03:02.665And then we have Dr Doug Fisher with us too, too.
00:03:02.665 -->
00:03:09.055So, doug, would you mind sharing a little bit of information about yourself and your work in the world of literacy?
00:03:10.983 -->
00:03:21.526Sure Based on your when we were first planning this conversation and learning about some of your backgrounds, I think I'll say that I entered this profession in speech pathology.
00:03:21.526 -->
00:03:23.169That's where I wanted to be.
00:03:23.169 -->
00:03:25.252My degrees are in that.
00:03:25.252 -->
00:03:33.401Special ed, specifically around deaf ed and speech language development, was my originally like how I was going.
00:03:33.401 -->
00:03:37.270I was working in a pullout program in an elementary school.
00:03:37.270 -->
00:03:44.664Did not love it, did not feel like I was having an effect and Matt would tell me I did not have high self-efficacy in that job.
00:03:44.664 -->
00:03:48.512So I went to the director and said I don't love these pull-out programs.
00:03:48.512 -->
00:03:54.950I don't feel like I'm making a difference and I think kids are missing out from the core classes, so I want to do push-in.
00:03:54.950 -->
00:03:59.467He said no, so I quit and I became a classroom teacher.
00:03:59.508 -->
00:04:08.147There were not really very many jobs back then, so I had all these split assignments to try to put together something full-time and I didn't feel very effective.
00:04:08.147 -->
00:04:11.424So I went back to graduate school, which I never thought I was going to do.
00:04:11.424 -->
00:04:26.932I thought I was finished and I went back to graduate school, really liked it, met some amazing professors who kind of pushed me into deepening understanding about young people who have a hard time making sense of print, for whatever reasons.
00:04:26.932 -->
00:04:46.189So I had some people, some faculty in special ed, I had some people in general ed, I had leadership so this great experience of perspectives on what it takes to teach the world to read, and so I loved it and I ended up being recruited to be a faculty member.
00:04:46.189 -->
00:04:52.906So and I and I run a school with my colleagues in San Diego.
00:04:52.906 -->
00:04:57.661So I think about like how do we do all of these things and put them into practice every day?
00:05:01.586 -->
00:05:04.930I will personally just share that one of my assignments teaching.
00:05:04.930 -->
00:05:16.944I was working in a shared classroom for resource pullout and the other side of my classroom had deaf ed population and so they also did a pullout and push in.
00:05:16.944 -->
00:05:26.387But in every of our every one of our general ed classrooms we had interpreters and so I feel very familiar.
00:05:26.387 -->
00:05:28.512That was seven years that I was at that school.
00:05:28.512 -->
00:05:43.985You know working in that realm as well and I think when you have experience working with the deaf population, recognizing what print look is and reading print it is, it gives a different perspective and a different flavor.
00:05:43.985 -->
00:05:45.771So that's really interesting.
00:05:45.771 -->
00:05:49.629It took me on the path of learning more about children with dyslexia.
00:05:50.329 -->
00:05:50.410And.
00:05:50.471 -->
00:05:52.081I really I find it really interesting.
00:05:52.081 -->
00:05:59.081I have also shared on the podcast with our listeners that I love speech pathologists so much.
00:05:59.081 -->
00:06:20.343I have always found that they are my number one partner when I'm working with a child who's struggling with comprehension, because I'm trying to figure out if it is a language comprehension, if it is a receptive language issue, and so I love just kind of having that think partner with an SLP.
00:06:20.343 -->
00:06:24.132So it's really interesting that you share that we have similar kind of backgrounds.
00:06:32.225 -->
00:06:32.466I wonder.
00:06:32.466 -->
00:06:35.769I mean, as you say this, I wonder if I had actually been a deaf ed teacher.
00:06:35.769 -->
00:06:38.271So it's really interesting that you share that.
00:06:38.271 -->
00:06:58.312We have similar kind of backgrounds, network signed and you know, my, my social world was around deaf ed and or deaf deaf individuals and but my work was around speech, only, ieps, and so it was all put pull out to the boiler room and you know like blow a candle and fog a mirror, and those are not unimportant things.
00:06:58.312 -->
00:07:00.507I just didn't feel like I was making a difference.
00:07:02.040 -->
00:07:07.903Feeling overwhelmed about all the demands of your students, looking for more resources and strategies to help your readers.
00:07:09.367 -->
00:07:16.490Come join our Patreon community, where we'll support you in implementing all the best practice pieces in your reading instruction.
00:07:16.490 -->
00:07:24.925Depending on your level of support, you can meet with us bi-weekly or monthly for assistance with all aspects of your literacy teaching.
00:07:25.867 -->
00:07:28.663Watch us model effective strategies and techniques.
00:07:28.663 -->
00:07:33.742Reference the resource library to find curated sources for our favorite activities.
00:07:33.742 -->
00:07:42.302Learn from and participate in our deep dive topics where we share specifics about our instruction, such as classroom management assessment, introducing sight words.
00:07:42.302 -->
00:07:46.404Such as classroom management assessment, introducing sight words, teaching writing and so much more.
00:07:47.886 -->
00:07:53.949You'll have the confidence and tools to know that you're working smarter, not harder, to meet your students' needs.
00:07:53.949 -->
00:08:02.536Feel better about your teaching today by checking out the various levels of support offered through wwwpatreoncom.
00:08:02.536 -->
00:08:04.478Backslash readingteacherslounge.
00:08:07.321 -->
00:08:08.824We're here to help you and your students.
00:08:08.824 -->
00:08:17.071Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Mary, because you do always say you know, go make friends with your speech pathologist, because I'm very jealous of the coursework that y'all have.
00:08:17.071 -->
00:08:30.228I really wish that they would merge more of the coursework for reading teachers with the training that speech pathologists get in the undergrad, Because I never had linguistics or any of those classes.
00:08:30.790 -->
00:08:42.187Oh sorry, we had international phonetic code so we had to be able to transcribe phonetically long pieces of text and count morphemes and morphological units.
00:08:42.187 -->
00:08:56.652And so this is my undergraduate program from a really long time ago, and now I think about the world's knowledge on morphology now that we didn't have back then, but SLPs were doing morphological awareness way back when I was in school.
00:08:57.879 -->
00:09:00.063Exactly, and I'm just learning about morphemes.
00:09:00.063 -->
00:09:02.447Like literally, like this year, 20 years into my career.
00:09:04.910 -->
00:09:10.974Well, today we want to really kind of focus on executive functioning and motivation and efficacy.
00:09:10.974 -->
00:09:22.509So many of our listeners really do have a baseline understanding of executive functioning skills those small cognitive and connective tasks that we do to get things done throughout the day right.
00:09:22.509 -->
00:09:29.107So I want to just see if you can give us kind of a brief overview so that we're all kind of starting with the same.
00:09:29.107 -->
00:09:30.652Why are we talking about this?
00:09:30.652 -->
00:09:49.322So if you could just describe a little bit of the executive functioning skills that our students need to kind of get through the day in the elementary K through six setting, in the elementary K through six setting.
00:09:49.341 -->
00:09:54.681So executive functioning is actually cognitive, neurological processes that involve three things that happen in the brain, mostly in the prefrontal cortex.
00:09:54.681 -->
00:09:59.028So those are inhibitory control, working memory and mental flexibility.
00:09:59.028 -->
00:10:30.365And so I, when I was thinking about this topic, I found the phrase executive functioning skills to be very interesting, because executive functioning itself is actually cognitive processes, and so when we think of skills, we think of things that are observable, and the only way I can think of that cognitive processes would be observable, potentially in the classroom, would be, you know, if we had electrodes and things hooked up to our students so we could see where their brains were lining up.
00:10:30.365 -->
00:10:48.277And so, in terms of the brain beyond the prefrontal cortex, the areas of the brain that are involved in behavior control, error processing, reactions, responses, reason, decision-making, interpretation of rules and expectations, reason, decision-making, interpretation of rules and expectations those are involved.
00:10:48.277 -->
00:10:57.916But then that still left me a little short with the skills part, and so the skills that are related to executive functioning are often actually the skills of self-regulation.
00:10:58.859 -->
00:11:01.109And I also started thinking about human behavior.
00:11:01.109 -->
00:11:08.568And it's kind of interesting because what we're looking for as evidence of executive functioning for students is what they're doing in the real world.
00:11:08.568 -->
00:11:13.989So we're looking for actions to say do they have appropriate executive functioning?
00:11:13.989 -->
00:11:51.191But in my thinking and research there's a space that exists between thinking and action and lots of things happen in that space and so actually for the purposes of this conversation, I would like to kind of separate those words into executive functioning, the cognitive processes and the skills to think about what happens there and why might a student who has just fine cognitive processes not exhibit the behaviors that we would associate with strong executive functioning?
00:11:51.191 -->
00:11:58.243And how is that playing out in instruction in our classroom and how can we support those skills coming to life in the real world?
00:11:58.243 -->
00:12:04.044So I'll pause there and I have a few thoughts about just ways we might conceptualize executive functioning.
00:12:04.044 -->
00:12:06.471But you know, doug, did you want to add anything into that?
00:12:07.399 -->
00:12:10.044Matt, as you were talking, I was thinking about one aspect of this.
00:12:10.044 -->
00:12:15.934Executive functioning is when students get started on a task and then work through the task.
00:12:15.934 -->
00:12:25.331And so students with challenges around executive functions are not the only ones who get started on a task and then don't finish it.
00:12:25.331 -->
00:12:32.763But that's the challenge for a teacher If the learner doesn't have good learning strategies.
00:12:32.763 -->
00:12:45.028If you look at like a Chew and Churbin article on cognitive barriers to learning, their synthesis some learners get started on a task and then don't finish it because they don't have a learning strategy that is working.
00:12:45.028 -->
00:12:46.725That's not executive functioning.
00:12:46.725 -->
00:12:52.326Some learners get started on a task and say this is not relevant, I don't need to do this.
00:12:52.326 -->
00:12:54.245That's not executive functioning.
00:12:54.245 -->
00:13:03.780Some learners get started on a task and they realize they don't have enough prior knowledge to make sense of what they're being asked to do Again, not executive functioning.
00:13:03.780 -->
00:13:05.725To make sense of what they're being asked to do Again, not executive functioning.
00:13:05.725 -->
00:13:25.340So I think the first thing we have to look at is, when we see their behavior, what might be contributing and if it's relevance, prior knowledge, lack of strong instructional strategies like students don't have a go-to strategy, then we need to go teach that.
00:13:25.340 -->
00:13:27.903Like students don't have a go-to strategy, then we need to go teach that.
00:13:27.903 -->
00:13:36.251And if those are not the answers, then we need to start thinking about how are we supporting this kid who might be experiencing some executive functioning needs.
00:13:36.774 -->
00:13:48.905Now I would be really careful because if you're talking 15-year-olds versus five-year-olds, there is a developmentally appropriateness to perseverance in a task, for example, as one thing around executive functioning.
00:13:48.905 -->
00:13:56.629So people will say kids who have challenging experiences around executive functioning get started on a task and then don't finish it.
00:13:56.629 -->
00:14:01.668That is true, but other kids also do that for other reasons.
00:14:01.668 -->
00:14:07.722So we got to become much more intentional and specific around was it the environment?
00:14:07.722 -->
00:14:09.648Was it the relevance here?
00:14:09.648 -->
00:14:12.421What is contributing to the kids not finishing the task?
00:14:12.421 -->
00:14:17.982And if it is really around executive functioning, then, matt, like you were saying, then we go into the strategies.
00:14:17.982 -->
00:14:19.726How do we actually teach that?
00:14:19.726 -->
00:14:25.347But teaching that strategy is not all of a sudden going to make students say this is really important.
00:14:25.347 -->
00:14:26.692I need to learn this.
00:14:28.441 -->
00:14:38.395Yeah, I think Doug was describing several of the specific academic reasons that a student might not exhibit the behavior we're looking for.
00:14:38.395 -->
00:14:44.787That we might just assume is executive function, but I would zoom out even more and say there might be motivational processes.
00:14:44.787 -->
00:14:46.308So Doug mentioned relevance.
00:14:46.308 -->
00:14:48.913Relevance is key to any human behavior.
00:14:48.913 -->
00:15:00.129Outcome expectations Bandura talks a lot about these that we have to see the value in the completion of our work and how that's going to benefit us.
00:15:00.129 -->
00:15:01.793Otherwise we don't need to.
00:15:02.620 -->
00:15:07.163I also have a story from one of my colleagues that she talks about all the time.
00:15:07.163 -->
00:15:16.270Her son never completes his homework but he is, you know, just off the charts in terms of cognitive ability and is graduating high school this year.
00:15:16.270 -->
00:15:18.263And the teachers will say, well, why don't you do your homework?
00:15:18.263 -->
00:15:19.326You're such a wonderful student.
00:15:19.326 -->
00:15:22.907And he says, well, what is it you're trying to assess that I have mastery of?
00:15:22.907 -->
00:15:24.250And the teacher will tell him.
00:15:24.250 -->
00:15:34.383And then he will explain the concept to the teacher, perform a task and say I have a mastery at this and my time is better spent playing video games or hanging out with my girlfriend than completing my homework.
00:15:34.383 -->
00:15:37.833So I think that's just another example.
00:15:37.833 -->
00:15:49.769Beyond, do I have the academic strategies and skills and two other metaphors I found in my research that I thought were really interesting and might help us kind of start to understand this concept.
00:15:49.769 -->
00:15:57.423So Dr Deborah Phillips talks about executive sorry, executive functioning being kind of like the air traffic control.
00:15:57.423 -->
00:16:10.176There are tons of things bombarding students all the time, so social pressures, expectations, who they are, their interests, and then you know, for some students we could go all the way back to the hierarchy of needs.
00:16:10.176 -->
00:16:25.138Some students arrive at school hungry, hired, having to take care of the family while parents work multiple jobs, and so all of those things are competing for the runways of our students' thinking and cognitive capacity.
00:16:25.138 -->
00:16:38.004And so executive functioning is is what is kind of the traffic control there and says, okay, well, you can enter now and you can enter now, and obviously in the, in the pressures of today's society, I think students could be really overwhelmed with that.
00:16:38.686 -->
00:16:59.070The second analogy that I really liked was from Dr Lynn Meltzer, and she talks about this idea of being at the top of a mountain and having the panorama of all of the trees and the birds in the sky, and then at the foot of the mountain, before you summit it, you are actually just seeing a bunch of trees and you might not even be able to see the top of the mountain.
00:16:59.070 -->
00:17:01.760And I think both things are true for students.
00:17:01.760 -->
00:17:03.846They need to understand the big picture.
00:17:03.846 -->
00:17:06.692Doug talked about the why, the relevance.
00:17:06.692 -->
00:17:08.688So I think there's a big picture on multiple levels.
00:17:09.119 -->
00:17:13.865There's the big picture of why is this important today, why is this important in my education, why is this important for school?
00:17:13.865 -->
00:17:15.467But why is this important for my life?
00:17:15.467 -->
00:17:28.628And, as Doug said, a 15-year-old is going to be a lot more interested in how is this going to benefit me in the long term, versus a five-year-old might be more oriented to making sure the adult in the room is validating me.
00:17:28.628 -->
00:17:45.910You know and so Dr Meltzer talks about executive functioning is not actually the top of the mountain all the time that it is the conscious effort and ability to switch between those two views to understand the tree when I need to see the tree, but to understand the panorama when I need to see that.
00:17:45.910 -->
00:17:54.548And so you know, the scholarship includes and excludes things that belong in executive functioning, depending on who you're reading.
00:17:54.548 -->
00:17:59.008And so I thought that those two metaphors, just kind of as guideposts, were really helpful for me.
00:18:31.141 -->
00:18:49.292I really appreciate that, that really solid base, because one of the things that I'm not seeing as much of in many classrooms anymore, or really even hearing from teachers, is that, like defensiveness, that teachers often kind of fall back on.
00:18:49.673 -->
00:18:50.373Taught them this.
00:18:51.374 -->
00:19:14.846I can't explain why they don't do it, or the awful L lazy word, but I think that what you have just covered is exactly all of these skills that we as teachers are responsible for understanding and knowing about the developmental nature of our students, and it is very complex, so I'm grateful for that really strong overview.
00:19:15.709 -->
00:19:40.695I think that what we need to do is really know our students and we have talked about that many times on our podcast here is really get to know your students so that you understand those motivating pieces, but also what are those underlying things that may be detracting from getting a runway that's clear for learning and all of the expectations that we have for our students in the class.
00:19:40.695 -->
00:19:51.191So I guess what we want to talk about, then, is that we're hoping to understand a little bit more about what.
00:19:51.191 -->
00:20:01.913Can you recommend that teachers do to really recognize some of these for our students, or maybe we can talk about it as an example in a reading lesson.
00:20:01.913 -->
00:20:09.020Tell me how you think that explaining some of these motivational pieces can kind of benefit our teachers.
00:20:10.083 -->
00:20:10.903Let me jump in there.
00:20:10.903 -->
00:20:20.727Amy Berry, back in March of 2020, put out an article on teachers' perspectives on engagement, and she argues that engagement is not a dichotomy.
00:20:20.727 -->
00:20:22.089Yes, students are engaged.
00:20:22.089 -->
00:20:22.652No, they're not.
00:20:22.652 -->
00:20:24.742But it actually occurs across a continuum.
00:20:24.742 -->
00:20:31.934And when I read her article, I said why aren't we teaching this to students as part of their self-regulation?
00:20:31.934 -->
00:20:35.983Why aren't we showing students that there's a range of engagement?
00:20:35.983 -->
00:20:38.651It's passive in the middle, it goes active in both directions.
00:20:38.651 -->
00:20:42.111You can be actively disengaged or you can be actively engaged.
00:20:42.111 -->
00:20:50.711So I really appreciate this idea of a continuum and teaching about engagement versus teaching for engagement.
00:20:51.492 -->
00:21:08.652And so, when I think about our conversation, we make assumptions that students know what it means to engage in this class at this age level, and the question we should be asking ourselves is did we teach what it means to engage or do we simply expect it?
00:21:08.652 -->
00:21:12.903Now, in terms of academics, we would not assess something that we didn't teach.
00:21:12.903 -->
00:21:14.003That would be unfair.
00:21:14.003 -->
00:21:19.508But in terms of self-regulation, we expect things that we didn't teach.
00:21:19.508 -->
00:21:30.156And so I started working with teams to say let's teach about engagement Whole class lessons, small group lessons, individual support lessons.
00:21:30.156 -->
00:21:38.768How do we have students understand the cognitive and behavioral aspects of what it means to engage.
00:21:38.768 -->
00:21:39.711What are the things you should be doing?
00:21:39.711 -->
00:21:45.125How do you then learn to set your intention for the lesson and then reflect on it?
00:21:45.125 -->
00:21:52.367Now, this was something we were doing like school-wide, class-wide, et cetera, and what I noticed?
00:21:52.387 -->
00:22:04.308I have this video of this fourth grader who would be identified and his parents allow me to say this as having some very challenging executive function function experiences, this teaching of the engagement continuum.
00:22:04.308 -->
00:22:11.047Let him in on, quote what he says the secret that all the other kids knew, that he didn't know.
00:22:11.047 -->
00:22:16.454And this fourth grader talks about how come no one told me this?
00:22:16.454 -->
00:22:21.230These are the things you're supposed to try to do for when you're in class.
00:22:21.230 -->
00:22:31.045He said it's hard for me and sometimes I slip back to avoiding my learning, but I know I have to put my brain over here to go to investing in my learning.
00:22:31.045 -->
00:22:34.592And he used all the language out of Amy's continuum.
00:22:35.452 -->
00:22:40.250And I talked to his teacher, fourth grade teacher, and she said it wasn't a one-day lesson.
00:22:40.250 -->
00:22:59.010It was days and days and days of having this learner set his intention and then reflect, not her telling him Now what you heard about setting your intention, what you heard about reflecting, about being very explicit about what we mean by these actions and behaviors, both cognitively and behaviorally.
00:22:59.010 -->
00:23:11.605That's all supports for kids who experience challenges around executive functions, but it was embedded in the whole class so it wasn't pulling out this kid and saying, okay, you're bad at this, you have to get better at this.
00:23:11.605 -->
00:23:14.368I'm going to have a consequence if you don't do this.
00:23:14.368 -->
00:23:18.347This was just part of the natural flow of this fourth grade class.
00:23:19.529 -->
00:23:20.211I love that.
00:23:20.271 -->
00:23:28.202I'm reminded of when I was teaching second grade as a homeroom teacher and I had a culture of like this phrase every turn learns.
00:23:29.085 -->
00:23:37.753And during the first month of school, when we were teaching rituals and routines and procedures, I taught all of those on task behaviors.
00:23:37.753 -->
00:23:48.750I didn't know anything about the continuum I've just heard about it when you mentioned it but I just realized it made my classroom very efficient and also orderly, and so that's what I was doing, it and I would teach students.
00:23:48.750 -->
00:23:57.467You know this is how to track me as a teacher or any of the other kids when they were speaking and answering questions or when I was teaching the mini lesson or writing the anchor chart.
00:23:57.467 -->
00:24:04.011This is how to take notes, this is how to follow the conversation, and I also had them set intentions every day on sticky notes.
00:24:04.011 -->
00:24:19.911So I didn't even realize I was doing those things to benefit executive function, but it did help and I really like how you just shared how that student, that fourth grade student, was able to explain the metacognition around what he learned about it.
00:24:19.911 -->
00:24:20.692That's really cool.
00:24:21.601 -->
00:24:22.943That's what I was going to share too.
00:24:22.943 -->
00:24:41.869We often talk a lot about metacognition and I think for Shannon and I this year in our career, since we're both privately tutoring, it's a big impact when you're working one-on-one with a student and you're able to really recognize what their strengths and needs are.
00:24:41.869 -->
00:24:48.714But really talking through, does this make you feel sure about your answer or unsure about your answer?
00:24:48.714 -->
00:24:58.586And I have found that there are a lot of kids who do not have that, that gauge of what is sureness, or I feel solid in this understanding.
00:24:59.146 -->
00:25:07.030Sometimes I wonder too, if the pace of our lessons go so quickly or our the way that we're chatting through a lesson goes so quickly.
00:25:07.030 -->
00:25:15.289The kids aren't able to formulate the questions that they're looking for, and questioning is a higher, you know, skill for students to be able to do.
00:25:15.289 -->
00:25:29.273But I think that starting right in kindergarten, in a traditional school setting, being able to help kids gauge this, set their intention and then also reflect on it is so essential.
00:25:29.273 -->
00:25:36.185I often find that the big question I think that teachers will have is when am I going to fit this in?
00:25:36.185 -->
00:25:45.233But I think what we can do and I hear what you're saying is it has to be a layered approach and it has to be part of your routines and procedures.
00:25:45.233 -->
00:25:47.715Right, okay, I'm going to let you guys keep continuing.
00:25:47.736 -->
00:25:58.424You're doing a fantastic job so I would say I think of things similarly.
00:25:58.424 -->
00:26:07.490And, at the risk of repeating a trick, when you said reading lesson, I divided the two words and so there's reading, and then the idea of lesson conjured for me that there is actually a way that we do school.
00:26:07.490 -->
00:26:22.942The the industrial model of education that happens in the classroom is not, I would guess, by and large does not match the lived experience of students at home, and so some areas I could think of were some that were already mentioned.
00:26:22.942 -->
00:26:27.169So routines and expectations.
00:26:27.169 -->
00:26:29.192So how do we do things?
00:26:29.192 -->
00:26:30.454How often do we do things?
00:26:30.454 -->
00:26:32.383Is there an expected way to do things?
00:26:32.383 -->
00:26:41.182And I'll touch on this a little bit more when we think about you know what, what, what might it be like for a student who struggles with these things, but what teachers could do?
00:26:41.182 -->
00:26:48.214As far as routines, shannon, just some of the things you just said was making those routines explicit, practicing them.
00:26:48.214 -->
00:26:50.325You said the first month of school.
00:26:50.444 -->
00:26:53.853You know a lot of us think about how much time we need to spend on instruction.
00:26:53.853 -->
00:27:02.005Let's get right into text, and it's not that these things need to be taught separately.
00:27:02.005 -->
00:27:09.240I remember when I was teaching night in seventh grade, I wanted my kids to really discuss the book and think about what they were reading, what it meant to them, and I needed them to be in small groups.
00:27:09.240 -->
00:27:10.501So my desks were in rows.
00:27:10.501 -->
00:27:15.048So if you even think of that, rows is not the natural organization of things usually.
00:27:15.048 -->
00:27:26.234And then we had this routine where we would turn the desks and we got it down from about a minute and a half to five seconds to get into your group.
00:27:26.234 -->
00:27:32.807So if you think about, you know we spent about four or so weeks in this novel.
00:27:32.807 -->
00:27:38.821How many minutes were saved by spending 10 minutes really focusing on that routine.
00:27:38.821 -->
00:27:42.234So, making it explicit, teaching your students step-by-step.
00:27:42.234 -->
00:27:46.311And to what Doug mentioned earlier developmentally, what do those steps look like?
00:27:46.311 -->
00:27:56.390They might be larger steps for older students, smaller steps for younger students, making sure that we know that feedback is the number one impact for student improvement.
00:27:56.390 -->
00:28:09.661So don't just have them, do the routines, provide them feedback on the routines and make sure Doug loves to say success is a more powerful teacher than failure Make sure that you're giving feedback on the success that they're having, not just the ways that they can improve that.
00:28:09.981 -->
00:28:13.445I'm going to talk about this quite a bit probably in this conversation but values.
00:28:13.445 -->
00:28:31.273So there are expectations and rules that stem from values that may or may not be shared in the school environment and the home environment, and so, thinking about values of respect, that might mean two things in two different places.
00:28:31.273 -->
00:28:48.006So in school, respect looks like raising your hand, not blurting out, taking turns, and we might have to actually educate students that the version of respect that works for them outside of the building doesn't necessarily work here, and that's part of doing school, as is following directions.
00:28:48.006 -->
00:28:50.853I also just thought about relationships.
00:28:50.853 -->
00:29:08.145Students have different ways of relating to adults outside of school, but school is really hierarchical for students, in terms of authority often, and in terms of what is owed to different constituencies in the school building, and that may or may not be the same inside and out.
00:29:08.646 -->
00:29:12.986So, with the question being you know what is the demand in a reading lesson?
00:29:12.986 -->
00:29:19.411Well, for the lesson part, I would say those are some of the demands, and then, if we were to get to the reading part, I would say sustained focus.
00:29:19.411 -->
00:29:27.213So, going back to those runways, you know what happens when there's a new demand or aircraft entering the space.
00:29:27.213 -->
00:29:29.340How do I deal with that?
00:29:29.340 -->
00:29:33.903And especially in reading, when we're asking students to read or write for a sustained period of time.
00:29:33.903 -->
00:29:37.146How do we teach them to ignore distractions, process that with them?
00:29:37.146 -->
00:29:38.827And part of that goes back to relevancy.
00:29:38.827 -->
00:29:43.551Do they see the sustained task as being more important than the thing that's interrupting them?
00:29:43.551 -->
00:29:44.992And we have to evaluate that.
00:29:44.992 -->
00:30:00.542We have to prioritize ideas Not all ideas in a text are equal, not all ideas in writing are equal and which ones are most important?
00:30:00.542 -->
00:30:01.928And how do we think through those and help students process that?
00:30:01.948 -->
00:30:05.059Cognitive flexibility so that's one of the three big neurological processes that goes on with executive functioning is massive in reading.
00:30:05.059 -->
00:30:06.843And so some examples I can think about.
00:30:06.843 -->
00:30:12.984For younger students, what happens when a decoding pattern veers from the rule I was taught?
00:30:12.984 -->
00:30:19.491I have to deal with that, you know, I have to actually sit and think about it for a second and I have to try out some strategies.
00:30:19.491 -->
00:30:30.986And for older students, what happens when there's a flashback or something that's, you know, really popular sometimes is, all of a sudden the story shifts to the perspective of a new character and we may have a word or a chapter break.
00:30:30.986 -->
00:30:32.848That is the only clue to that.
00:30:32.848 -->
00:30:45.134So that cognitive flexibility of saying I was on this path in my reading or writing, and now I need to choose a different path is something that we can teach students and really work through with them.
00:30:45.174 -->
00:30:56.882Working memory, so acquiring new information and thinking about how do I use what I know and I have automaticity with to then enable those skills and then finally process work.
00:30:56.882 -->
00:31:04.335You know it takes a while to read a novel, especially if you're digging into every sentence sometimes, and it also takes a while to write a piece or to do a project.
00:31:04.335 -->
00:31:21.663So teaching students to break down that larger goal of I want to complete my project into smaller goals along the way, and then teaching them those self-regulatory skills of monitoring your goal, reflecting on it and creating time for that, just as you would create time for teaching the routines and processes.
00:31:21.663 -->
00:31:39.009And so I'll also mention Tim Shanahan wrote a great blog on executive functioning in 2022, in which he says that there is no agreed-upon set of skills or lessons outside of the text and the reading instruction that will support students' executive functioning.
00:31:39.009 -->
00:31:48.707So it's really about inside the text how do I attend to these things as part of the lesson, not thinking about it as a separate curriculum from what you're teaching in your reading?
00:31:50.520 -->
00:31:52.205He was explaining that during our discussion.
00:31:52.205 -->
00:31:54.751The text cohesion and paying attention to all that.
00:31:58.800 -->
00:32:08.391Yes, I think too, when you are noticing that students are really struggling with it, if you can help them maybe build a routine within.
00:32:08.391 -->
00:32:13.037I noticed that all of a sudden the text has changed.
00:32:13.037 -->
00:32:15.025Do I need you know?
00:32:15.025 -->
00:32:19.111Maybe I have a sticker on my chart or something like that.
00:32:19.111 -->
00:32:34.738So I'm thinking about maybe like a fifth grade student where all of a sudden they're reading some texts and maybe there's a point of view that shifts, explicitly teaching students that and mentioning it and calling it out several times, not just a one-time deal.
00:32:34.738 -->
00:32:37.123I think that that is really crucial.
00:32:37.123 -->
00:32:48.292I also know too that a lot of times those students who have this it might be a diagnosed thing or it might just be the way that their brain is processing.
00:32:48.292 -->
00:32:56.663They're probably performing below their peers, even if they have really strong cognitive abilities in many other levels.
00:32:56.663 -->
00:33:05.951So what we're talking about are kind of these like unique skills and at times, as long as there's a routine built in, then they can independently perform that.
00:33:06.310 -->
00:33:15.914You might need some extra support, and so what I always saw my job is as a special education teacher was to identify those and create those scaffolds.
00:33:15.914 -->
00:33:36.354So maybe it is a list of the procedure for if it's a reading task or a math test or something, don't hesitate to write it down and keep it on their desk, or show them where that resource can be and let them know that utilizing a resource is not anything bad.
00:33:36.354 -->
00:33:51.925Some people are able to do it readily, some people aren't able to call it to mind, but many of us have already determined as adults probably by the age of 30, that, oh, I'm going to need to recall that information, I'm going to have to have a resource.
00:33:51.925 -->
00:34:06.472Maybe it's something saved in your phone or something like that, but it's not anything negative if you're giving them that opportunity to find an easier or more efficient way for their own brain to process it.
00:34:06.472 -->
00:34:13.711And I think that that's where many teachers are struggling, because they don't know how to provide that support.
00:34:13.711 -->
00:34:16.034That's what I'm really seeing.
00:34:16.255 -->
00:34:40.436All of these are specific to all of our learners, but then we need to also identify the individual needs of each of the students in our class, specifically the ones that are struggling, and I think, like Doug had mentioned with the fourth grade student, giving them some language to identify what's going on and allowing them to express something that maybe they never recognized before.
00:34:40.436 -->
00:34:49.166If it's happening inside your brain, you're not able to really visualize or see it or understand that other people might be having differentiated thoughts.
00:34:49.166 -->
00:35:02.452So I think that that part is really crucial and I think that it's probably a topic for another discussion that we can have, but I think opening up this big conversation is really important.
00:35:02.452 -->
00:35:05.610I know that parents are also very curious about this too.
00:35:05.610 -->
00:35:15.708So what are some of these like do's that teachers can do to make this a little bit more helpful for their students?
00:35:17.701 -->
00:35:22.460I'll add something that's on my mind, as you were just talking, and connecting to something Matt said earlier.
00:35:22.460 -->
00:35:25.706All of us have a success-failure ratio.
00:35:25.706 -->
00:35:31.585All of us experience, across our content, our academic learning, some successes and some failures.
00:35:31.585 -->
00:35:40.592Interesting research is you have to experience success way more frequently than failure to persevere.
00:35:40.592 -->
00:35:43.440And so we talk about kids with executive functioning.
00:35:43.440 -->
00:35:51.405If they experience failure repeatedly and their success failure ratio tips to failure on a regular basis, they come to expect failure.
00:35:51.405 -->
00:35:55.414And why try if you're going to just fail again and again and again?
00:35:55.414 -->
00:36:05.150When their success failure ratio tips to success, they come to expect success and they see mistakes and errors as temporary, transient and unimportant.
00:36:06.541 -->
00:36:12.954The teacher can structure experiences to increase the frequency that students experience success.
00:36:12.954 -->
00:36:27.922Chunking makes a difference and you are tutors and so you know in your work you got to get them to feel successful with you or they're not coming back because they vote with their feet and they say to their parents I'm not going to that tutor anymore.
00:36:27.922 -->
00:36:29.204That doesn't make me feel good.
00:36:29.204 -->
00:36:46.791They don't say it exactly that way, but I think we underplay the success-failure ratios and the ways in which we structure classes, learning experiences to increase the frequency of learner success.
00:36:46.791 -->
00:36:51.422Our job is not to tell them they failed all the time and we say it all the time Failure.
00:36:51.461 -->
00:36:52.326You learn from failure.
00:36:52.326 -->
00:36:53.806You don't learn from failure.
00:36:53.806 -->
00:36:54.922It's not true.
00:36:54.922 -->
00:36:58.489You learn from what happens after the failure.
00:36:58.489 -->
00:37:09.731If I gave you a calculus test right now and you failed it and I gave it to you again tomorrow, it is unlikely you're going to change unless you do something after experiencing the failure.
00:37:09.731 -->
00:37:22.487But cumulative failure in academics is very demoralizing and, as Matt will make a connection to this, it compromises our efficacy, our belief that we can put forth effort and make anything good happen.
00:37:22.487 -->
00:37:35.018But efficacy I want to separate efficacy from our individual personal success, failure ratios and what teachers can do to increase the likelihood that students experience success.
00:37:37.601 -->
00:37:41.376And I will happily dive into that self-efficacy piece in a little bit.
00:37:41.376 -->
00:37:45.246But there was one thought I wanted to offer here as far as what teachers can do.
00:37:45.246 -->
00:37:55.621I've trained a lot of teachers and I think the key to successful practitioners is self-reflection and then having that reflection change the ways you interact with students.
00:37:55.621 -->
00:38:07.112And so I would say one thing you can do is reflect specifically on the values and culture of school and particularly how students may or may not share those values outside of school.
00:38:07.112 -->
00:38:23.853So I'll offer an example of when I was a rambunctious little kid annoying my grandfather and he tells me to go to the other room and so I go singing and skipping and I jump off the hearth of the fireplace and I do a cartwheel and I talk to grandma and I jump on the couch and then I turn the TV up as much as I can.
00:38:23.853 -->
00:38:34.652Those were the values of my grandparents' house, the values of play, the values of childhood and of spontaneity and engagement.
00:38:34.652 -->
00:38:37.882But then I go to school and I'm told go to the rug for reading.
00:38:37.882 -->
00:39:07.925There's a whole different set of values there the values of intentionality, the values of expeditiousness if that's a word, I might've made it up but the playfulness that exists as a value elsewhere wasn't meant to exist in that moment Now, as a child, if an adult hadn't told me that and also hadn't just told me go to the rug silently in a straight line, with your hands by your side, not talking to your neighbor, don't stop, make sure you get to your seat and then sit in this way.
00:39:07.925 -->
00:39:09.490And then told me why.
00:39:09.490 -->
00:39:11.057Why do we want to do that?
00:39:11.057 -->
00:39:12.541We want to preserve our time for learning.
00:39:12.541 -->
00:39:23.215We want to make sure that we are able to go safely and not harm anybody else who might be walking, and make sure that it's predictable and it's safe and that we get to the story, because that's the fun part of today.
00:39:24.139 -->
00:39:38.041If that weren't made explicitly clear to me as a child, I would be very, very confused about the delta between the values of the place where I feel safe and school, and then I might start to think school is not a safe place.
00:39:38.041 -->
00:39:50.117So that is one do I would offer to teachers is to step back and evaluate the values of school and how that may or may not be.
00:39:50.117 -->
00:39:52.764The same as students and I would also like to offer.
00:39:52.764 -->
00:40:04.907I taught primarily in schools that had students of color and the values of American society, the research shows, are traditionally white, middle-class values.
00:40:04.907 -->
00:40:23.943If that is not your student population, then you have even more reflection to do about what are the values of your students in their communities and how do you bring those values to life in the classroom while meeting the values of school that is a really important do.
00:40:23.983 -->
00:40:25.284Thank you for mentioning that.
00:40:25.284 -->
00:40:26.927Thank you, um.
00:40:26.927 -->
00:40:32.563You said we would circle back to um what the day feels like for students.
00:40:32.563 -->
00:40:43.443Um, especially the literacy period, um, if they have struggles with executive functioning, and I think, as we circle back to that, we're going to come up with some more dues that teachers can do as well.
00:40:43.443 -->
00:40:49.425So can you shed some light into that of what the reading period might feel like for a student, or the writing period?
00:40:51.496 -->
00:40:51.757Yeah.
00:40:51.757 -->
00:41:00.657So I had a lot of thoughts here and I actually connected with Tim Shanahan before this conversation, and one of the things I thought of was the thing he thought was the most important, and that is confusion.
00:41:00.657 -->
00:41:11.621And what he said to me was imagine someone told you you had to play a game and you had to win it, but you couldn't know the rules and you couldn't know the objectives, you just knew you had to win.
00:41:11.621 -->
00:41:26.128And so, going back to those values that I just talked about, you know that you have to get to the rug, but nobody taught you how or why, and you know that if you don't get to the rug, you are going to get some sort of punishment.
00:41:26.128 -->
00:41:32.407How confusing would that be for a student day to day and so something.
00:41:32.407 -->
00:41:57.204I'm going to return to this in a moment but we as humans evolved to be part of the tribe and so, with very, very rare exception, every single human brain on this planet is working to be a part of the tribe, meaning that they are acting in ways that are fully logical and supportive of their tribe, in the ways that the world appears to them.
00:41:57.204 -->
00:42:03.922Now, the world appears to a six-year-old differently than it does to people our age, so we have to take that into account.
00:42:03.922 -->
00:42:12.539But I would be very confused as well if the way I saw the world at my age all of a sudden, I was just hitting walls all the time.
00:42:13.240 -->
00:42:23.420A couple of things I could also just think about about the experience of a student is we see students increasingly becoming depressed and full of anxiety and other things like that.
00:42:23.420 -->
00:42:27.753I think a lot of that is relative to how much information is available to students.
00:42:27.753 -->
00:42:37.226I believe the average age of a student having a cell phone is somewhere between 11 and 13 now, and you know, none of our brains were meant to have access to that much information, much less young brains.
00:42:37.226 -->
00:42:45.789And so some students may externalize that failure that they have and have this experience of being angry at everyone.
00:42:45.789 -->
00:42:52.918But some students may internalize it and think that there is something wrong with them or the way that they're going about living life.
00:42:52.918 -->
00:43:01.342So I think that those are two potential possibilities, but it really depends on the student.
00:43:01.342 -->
00:43:03.246You can't monolithically say you know.
00:43:03.246 -->
00:43:04.896Depends on the student.
00:43:04.896 -->
00:43:05.277It's really.
00:43:05.277 -->
00:43:07.541You can't monolithically say you know students experience things this way.
00:43:07.541 -->
00:43:09.425So those are two potential ways.
00:43:09.425 -->
00:43:13.376I would think about that in terms of what the experience might be like.
00:43:14.360 -->
00:43:55.755I saw two in my experience as a push-in resource teacher and I mentioned this a little bit for the discussion but I want to bring it up for the listeners is I would come into like a fourth or fifth or sixth grade classroom at the beginning of the reading period and at the start of the period there might be about 10 minutes where they were reviewing the previous day's concepts by going over the homework and just in that 10 minute period there was a lot of movement of like space and materials and things, because the teachers, the students, had to get out a certain color pen from their pencil bag and then they had to get out their homework folder, which might be in their book bag or might be on their desk, and then they had to dig for the paper and then they had to get it out in the time and then they had to like be listening and following along as the teacher went through all those things.
00:43:56.257 -->
00:44:17.561And then they had to get out their planner to be able to write the next day's, that night's, homework down, and then they had to put all that away and then get out all the resources that were needed for the actual reading block of the skill or strategy that they were learning that day and I would walk in and I knew which class students to kind of go around because they were three steps behind everybody else in the in the class.
00:44:17.661 -->
00:45:00.157And I saw that after having conversations with Mary as executive functioning problems of like, like they were struggling to um, I don't know if it was you can help me understand, if it was working memory, if it was time management, if it was some other things but they just couldn't keep up with the pace and I was struggling to like provide enough scaffold and support to get them to be like okay, and sometimes I was having to do it for them, basically to just keep them paced with the class because otherwise they seemed already worn out by the time the mini lesson came about just from that homework review time and then switching the materials that then they were like their brain was tired and they weren't even ready to learn the new material.
00:45:01.358 -->
00:45:05.626Yeah, so I would put that in the working memory category to begin with.
00:45:05.626 -->
00:45:10.585So I tell educators all the time our brains are like computers that have a certain amount of RAM.
00:45:10.585 -->
00:45:40.327I'm a video gamer and if I try and play a video game that is more demanding on RAM than my machine has, all of a sudden the screen stutters and tears or maybe even just shuts down, and so some of the things you were just mentioning around materials organization I tend to see in the literature under self-regulation skills and, as we said at the beginning, those are not unrelated and in fact most of the time when I see executive functioning skills, the skills are actually self-regulation skills.
00:45:40.327 -->
00:45:47.648But one thing the literature also tells us is that self-efficacy is prerequisite to self-regulation.
00:45:47.648 -->
00:45:57.898So that might be one of the things that's existing in that little gap that I was talking about before between the thinking and the action, I think also on the reverse side.
00:45:57.938 -->
00:46:11.760You were also talking a little bit about your experience as an educator, as you're running around the classroom and you're just trying to keep kids afloat, and so yes, there's the experience of what those kids are going through, probably related to their working memory.
00:46:12.121 -->
00:46:24.224They're also potentially their cognitive flexibility Some students, and in a moment I'd really like to advocate for students who have, you know, neurodiverse diagnoses in particular.
00:46:24.224 -->
00:46:47.726But some of those students may have decided that they really wanted to write in red today, not blue or whatever it was, and you are changing the script on them, and so now they're having to use their inhibitory control, they're having to use this behavior modification portion of their brain and you might have actually stimulated the amygdala, which will shut down the prefrontal cortex, meaning they have no ability to do anything anyway.
00:46:47.726 -->
00:46:56.197So, you know, I would encourage teachers to not speculate on what's happening in the brain, because we can't see at that moment.
00:46:56.197 -->
00:47:05.487What you can see and react to are the behaviors, and then what you can build is empathy for whatever it is that is unseen, that you don't understand.
00:47:07.615 -->
00:47:32.985Thank you for saying that, because that's the kind of conversations I was trying to have with the teachers post lesson it's, you know, do you see, because I don't even know if the teachers you know they were so busy like teaching, you know that they couldn't even see like how I was running around trying to keep the kids on pace and I was wondering, the days I wasn't there, how the kids were even possible to keep on pace or if they were even aware, you know, cause sometimes teachers can also get just caught up in that.
00:47:32.985 -->
00:47:36.369You know well, a couple of kids keep raising their hand and seem to get the right answer.
00:47:36.369 -->
00:47:38.175So the whole class must be getting it, you know.
00:47:39.757 -->
00:47:56.731Yeah, I was going to mention too that you know sometimes the piece that you were speaking to about the self-reflection that the teachers have trying to figure out how can I take away, you know, some of the busyness of me racing around the room?
00:47:56.731 -->
00:47:58.914Can that be provided with a visual?
00:47:58.914 -->
00:48:09.126I think we don't use enough visuals because we think it's going to be a big task to create a new visual, but it might even just be writing the materials on the board.
00:48:09.126 -->
00:48:28.010If you have a student who has trouble seeing it, giving them a partner to give them that extra reminder, because working memory, I think, is a complicated task and especially when you have 20 to 40 minds in one classroom, you can't be responsible for all of that.
00:48:28.010 -->
00:48:37.507So you have to learn to be able to delegate that in other ways, and so I think part of this self-reflection can be oh, how can I lighten the load a little bit this way?
00:48:38.976 -->
00:48:51.677But it's the actual act of doing that reflection, and I think that in this very busy world we're constantly moving to the next task, because there's more information and more information that we have to give to our kids.
00:48:51.677 -->
00:48:56.509We all feel it as adults as well, and so all of this is connected.
00:48:56.509 -->
00:49:01.672But, but I think that the best piece of advice really is this self-reflection.
00:49:01.672 -->
00:49:04.208So I really appreciate you, you know sharing that perspective.
00:49:04.208 -->
00:49:04.849And then the self-reflection.
00:49:04.849 -->
00:49:05.501So I really appreciate you, you know sharing that perspective.
00:49:05.661 -->
00:49:06.764And then the self-reflection.
00:49:06.764 -->
00:49:11.786Then the teacher can decide okay, well, what, which direction do I want to do to help lighten that load?
00:49:11.786 -->
00:49:20.056I was remembering you were talking about visuals and I was remembering I had a picture on the front of my classroom, really big, about how the desk should be organized.
00:49:20.056 -->
00:49:28.516And yeah, that does take away some freedom, but it really did help the students to have all their textbooks on the left side of the desk and all the folders and softbooks on the right side.
00:49:29.378 -->
00:49:36.643And then I taught them they did not know because they were in second grade, but even like older kids don't know how to pull a book out from a stack.
00:49:36.643 -->
00:49:48.264So I would, we would practice the first week of school of like, okay, if it's the fourth one in the stack, then you pick up with one hand the top three and pull out the fourth one, and then it's like then the stack stays neat.
00:49:48.264 -->
00:49:56.157And they were like, wow, it's almost like magic, but that's a routine that you can teach to then make that those routine.
00:49:56.157 -->
00:50:00.998You know that swapping of the pulling out the folder and swapping out the books and everything go a lot easier.
00:50:00.998 -->
00:50:06.088And same thing lift up the books to put the other one back in when you're switching them out again.
00:50:07.110 -->
00:50:08.211And I would share that.
00:50:08.211 -->
00:50:12.804Once you have that success like the students saying, wow, that's success.
00:50:12.804 -->
00:50:24.623That's what Doug was mentioning back to showing them how to feel and be successful, especially within the culture of the classroom that we're talking about, nobody wants to be the one who spills all the books.
00:50:24.623 -->
00:50:40.097That's super embarrassing, and especially if you're the kid who is always spilling the books, or you're always the kid who's dropping your pencil on the ground because for some reason, you just are busy with your hands and your hands and your mind are not coordinated at that point.
00:50:40.097 -->
00:50:41.603So I appreciate.
00:50:41.824 -->
00:50:43.009Can we add to that?
00:50:43.009 -->
00:50:54.206If you're a teacher and you're reflecting and you're like, I wonder which of my students are like this peek in their desks at the end of the day and that will give you a clue of at least who to start watching.
00:50:54.206 -->
00:50:55.088Am I right?
00:50:57.077 -->
00:50:57.199Yes.
00:50:57.239 -->
00:50:57.960And their book bags.
00:50:58.862 -->
00:51:06.007Yeah, and their notebooks, depending on their age group, their laptop desktop screen and how organized that is.
00:51:06.054 -->
00:51:07.201There's a lot of indicators.
00:51:07.201 -->
00:51:18.085One of the things that's on my mind about this is around shame, and I think we didn't hit on this that a lot of students that we are talking about experience shame.
00:51:18.085 -->
00:51:19.067For what?
00:51:19.067 -->
00:51:33.586The way they experience the world and in a trusting classroom where kids are respected and we all know that's just the way so-and-so lives the world and they're learning new behaviors that they're acquiring.
00:51:33.586 -->
00:51:44.882It's different than everyone turning their attention when the kid spills the pencils or whatever we just said earlier, or can't find the paper because the notebook is so disorganized.
00:51:44.882 -->
00:51:49.309And when you experience shame and humiliation, it really shuts down that learning.
00:51:49.309 -->
00:52:02.844And so I think it's the trusting, growth-producing, humane classroom environment that allows kids to try on these new strategies and say did this work for me?
00:52:02.844 -->
00:52:05.306Did this help me?
00:52:05.306 -->
00:52:08.115Oh look, I feel really good about this.
00:52:08.115 -->
00:52:09.282I'm going to practice again.
00:52:09.282 -->
00:52:15.922I might make a mistake next Tuesday, but right now I'm really practicing this new thing that my teacher and my peers are helping me with.
00:52:17.706 -->
00:52:25.438Something that's coming to mind and I wanted to talk about briefly was we just talked about what are the indicators that these are the kids that need support.
00:52:25.438 -->
00:52:40.896We also talked about how do I, as a teacher, make some sort of evaluation that there's an executive functioning issue here, and I want to advocate for students who may be neurodivergent, and that might be part of the reason that they're dealing with some of these issues.
00:52:40.896 -->
00:52:48.985So I think that the number one indicator, at least as an educator, I looked for as far as students who might need additional supports, was a 504 or an IEP.
00:52:48.985 -->
00:53:00.563But I want to say that, especially in this realm, that executive functioning can be highly impacted by neurodivergence, particularly for students with autism or ADHD.
00:53:00.563 -->
00:53:04.105And many of these students are undiagnosed.
00:53:04.105 -->
00:53:10.467And we hear a lot right now about the rising rate of autistic diagnosis, and part of that is due to the history of autism.
00:53:10.467 -->
00:53:22.518And you know, for a while we didn't even think female students could have autism, because the behaviors exhibited by most autistic individuals are societally desirable in females, and so that's why it was considered a male disease.
00:53:22.518 -->
00:53:28.800So we might have students who are undiagnosed who need these supports.
00:53:28.800 -->
00:53:37.996And one thing I'd point out talking, you know earlier, when I was talking about equity and about the values between communities, particularly the demographics of communities.
00:53:38.516 -->
00:53:45.028Dr Devin Price wrote a book titled Unmasking Autism that I'm currently reading and it's a fabulous work.
00:53:45.028 -->
00:53:55.905But one of the things that Dr Price talks about is that these diagnoses for neurodiversity or neurodivergence rather are highly expensive.
00:53:55.905 -->
00:54:03.065They take trained professionals that certain communities, particularly around socioeconomic lines, may not have access to.
00:54:03.065 -->
00:54:18.456They require a level of acceptance of disabilities that may be stigmatized in the community, and so you may have students who, for one reason or another, are not diagnosed in your classrooms but have the needs that Doug was just talking about.
00:54:18.456 -->
00:54:33.565So, for example, a student with ADHD might need those directions written out, might need it written that at 5.04, you are going to need that blue pin, and having that written out for them it means that they're going to have that blue pin ready.
00:54:34.155 -->
00:55:04.201Similarly, a hyposensitive, autistic student may need the ability to get up and jump up and down for a few moments or perhaps have a plushie for texture, and those are actually what those students need to function in the classroom, and if we don't talk about everyone having the equity to get what they need, that makes that plushie acceptable for one person and the other person doesn't need a plushie right now, like we have to be talking about this, and then I would just encourage us as educators.
00:55:04.201 -->
00:55:20.755Something we can do, or as a must do, is just having some level of knowledge about neurodiversity and what these students need in terms of strategies, and then building into the cultures of our classroom that these strategies are critical for their support.
00:55:20.755 -->
00:55:32.275And just because one person gets strategies that another person doesn't, that is okay and then we remove some of that shame.
00:55:37.295 -->
00:55:37.856I'd so appreciate that.
00:55:37.856 -->
00:55:44.820I think a really easy way to introduce this to students is to give a visual of a fence, and some students may be shorter than others and they need to have a taller box to be able to see over the fence.
00:55:44.820 -->
00:55:51.541And there might be a student who's actually tall enough to see over the fence and there might be a medium one who needs a shorter type of box.
00:55:51.541 -->
00:55:55.516Just allowing them to be able to see over the fences is critical.
00:55:55.516 -->
00:56:04.608That is a very easy piece to start introducing and also to build empathy within the classroom.
00:56:04.608 -->
00:56:32.547I also think that there are a number of people, especially in the online social media community, that are really trying to push and understand what empathy looks like, especially in a neurodivergent community, and so, if you happen to have a person in your life who doesn't quite understand, just sharing some personal stories goes such a long way.
00:56:32.547 -->
00:56:59.275Because I work in this realm and space, where I am often helping students and their families navigate a new diagnosis, I find that sharing credible books sources, not just social media, but making sure that they really see themselves and see that there are other people that are like them.
00:57:00.157 -->
00:57:05.440We know that neurodivergence can also lead to a lack of theory of mind.
00:57:06.521 -->
00:57:29.612It often means that people are not as able to take the perspective of another person she to help them feel comfortable can be such a validating experience for a person who's truly experiencing that or a person who needs just something to play with their hands.
00:57:29.612 -->
00:57:40.146And allowing that to be something that's allowable in the culture of your classroom makes a huge difference, and I know that this is something that is very common in most classrooms.
00:57:40.146 -->
00:57:49.844But I think that in family dynamics they haven't understood because it wasn't maybe a part of the parent school experience about what would be allowed.
00:57:49.844 -->
00:57:54.338Medication is another realm where you know we've.
00:57:54.338 -->
00:58:06.268I find that there are a lot of parents who are really resistant to medication but also lack a lot of knowledge about how that can be helpful for some students who are really experiencing some difficulties.
00:58:06.268 -->
00:58:21.170That is a very personal family decision but at the same time, sharing to make sure that students are getting what they need I think is still part of what we do as educators, not just for our students but also for their families.
00:58:21.775 -->
00:59:01.898I want to ask both of you and I'm thinking about my own son, who has a 504, and we were writing it in between third and fourth grade and I asked him for input of like what accommodations he wanted, and he added one that none of the teachers and I had thought of, which is that he wanted erasable pens, because he struggles with pushing too hard on the pencil, you know, and then his writing is like really light, because he has some dysgraphia, as well as some of the other beauty of his neurodiverse mosaic brain, and he will remind the teachers that that's in his 504 and that he needs those pens.
00:59:01.898 -->
00:59:14.335You know he needs those pens, and so what can we do to encourage students to advocate for themselves, for their needs, and what could the parents say to advocate for their children?
00:59:14.335 -->
00:59:27.143Of course, we're talking to the teachers mostly and we want them to self-reflect and to, you know, have empathy and provide equity to the students, but also have them you know, the other stakeholders advocate for what they need.
00:59:30.496 -->
00:59:32.121So this one was a little fraught for me.
00:59:32.121 -->
00:59:38.864I won't lie, yes, students need to be able to self-advocate.
00:59:38.864 -->
00:59:41.063I think that's a beautiful example you just gave.
00:59:41.063 -->
00:59:44.360But I would go back to what you said before you talked about your son's response, which was you just gave.
00:59:44.360 -->
00:59:46.706But I would go back to what you said before you talked about your son's response, which was you asked him.
00:59:46.706 -->
00:59:51.052And there's a whole world that exists in that.
00:59:51.052 -->
00:59:55.507So the first is I would tie back we've lightly mentioned my research on self-efficacy.
00:59:55.507 -->
00:59:58.885We have to support our students in building self-efficacy.
00:59:59.728 -->
01:00:06.840The literature does not establish a conclusive relationship between self-evocacy and self-advocacy and those are two very different things.
01:00:06.840 -->
01:00:10.695If you're not familiar, I would suggest reading about them and the differences.
01:00:10.695 -->
01:00:19.769But the general accepted relationship in the literature is that self-advocacy is prerequisite to self-advocacy.
01:00:19.769 -->
01:00:29.043So how we do that is mastery experiences, being successful on similar things in the past and recalling them in the present is the most powerful way to do that.
01:00:29.043 -->
01:00:32.568And so that goes back to what Doug was talking about, about the success failure ratio.
01:00:32.568 -->
01:00:36.382And these have to be meaningful successes, not just asking a student what color is the sky.
01:00:36.382 -->
01:00:38.657Okay, you were successful, now go write a five paragraph essay.
01:00:38.657 -->
01:00:39.920That's not how that works.
01:00:40.523 -->
01:00:43.329So we need to have students be continually successful.
01:00:43.329 -->
01:00:53.876We need to build relationships with students, because if they're struggling, if they don't have that relationship to you, they might not reveal the frustrations or what I was talking about earlier about the way the world occurs for them.
01:00:53.876 -->
01:00:57.896They need to trust that you're their advocate and you're going to show up in that space for them.
01:00:57.896 -->
01:01:04.280By building those relationships, we can offer what's called verbal persuasion, which is just gentle, verbal encouragement.
01:01:04.280 -->
01:01:10.344I believe in you, you can do it, and because the students trust us, they can begin to trust themselves and that will build their self-efficacy.
01:01:10.344 -->
01:01:20.157And then, finally, modeling and we talked about this when we were talking about routines that it's not just saying move to the carpet, it's modeling how to move towards the carpet.
01:01:20.157 -->
01:01:25.445And those are called vicarious experiences, where students see somebody else do something and they believe they can do it.
01:01:25.965 -->
01:01:29.090The final way to improve the example and non-example.
01:01:29.090 -->
01:01:33.126It's always really fun to show them what not to do, but that's also a very teachable moment.
01:01:33.655 -->
01:01:36.201Yes, and there's tons of resources about how to model.
01:01:36.201 -->
01:01:41.862Well, out there, I think one of the things that is most skipped is the durability of the model.
01:01:41.862 -->
01:01:45.978So if you model how to do and not to do, that's a temporal thing that disappears.
01:01:45.978 -->
01:01:47.481And we're talking about working memory.
01:01:47.481 -->
01:01:51.041If students don't have a lot of working memory, then that model has also disappeared.
01:01:51.041 -->
01:01:53.246So how are you making that model durable?
01:01:53.246 -->
01:01:57.103Through a visual and anchor chart, a video, something where students can think about it?
01:01:57.704 -->
01:02:02.217The final thing is affective states, and when I began to think about self-advocacy, which is very different.
01:02:02.217 -->
01:02:13.364And when I began to think about self-advocacy, which is very different, I thought what does it take for me, just as an adult in life who is, you know, I'm living and not struggling too much.
01:02:13.364 -->
01:02:15.385So what does it take for me to self-advocate?
01:02:15.385 -->
01:02:35.144And here's the list I came up with I have to be self-efficacious, I have to have psychological safety, I have to have a feeling of belongingness in the community I'm advocating in, I have to be in a culture of vulnerability, I have to be able to self-monitor, to understand that I need to advocate and I have to have the vocabulary to advocate.
01:02:35.144 -->
01:02:39.605If all of those things aren't true, I as an adult can't advocate.
01:02:39.605 -->
01:02:49.005And as I looked at those things, I think that those are things that the adults set for the students, that the students aren't building a culture of vulnerability on their own.
01:02:49.005 -->
01:02:51.643That's not their job, it's not their responsibility.
01:02:51.643 -->
01:02:59.045And then the final thing I would say is as students get older, those things remain true, but obviously we want our older students to take on that self-advocacy a little bit.
01:02:59.454 -->
01:03:07.606So the number one thing I see is that famous end of the semester email that says hey, hey, mister, I'm failing, can you pass me Question mark?
01:03:08.186 -->
01:03:10.469And what's our reaction to that as teachers?
01:03:10.469 -->
01:03:17.322But when was the first time the student demonstrated that they're on that track?
01:03:17.322 -->
01:03:19.190And what I would say is at that time, say hey, did you know you're off track?
01:03:19.190 -->
01:03:21.523What could you do to keep it on track?
01:03:21.523 -->
01:03:24.603How could you get back now to where you need to be?
01:03:24.603 -->
01:03:26.922Do you have all the things you need to do that?
01:03:26.922 -->
01:03:35.327If you look at the Gallup research in management, the number one thing that prevents people from staying in jobs is that they don't have what they need to do to do the job.
01:03:35.327 -->
01:03:52.260And then, finally, why don't you try out what you think you need to do and I'm going to provide you feedback on how that went and if you need to try it again, you can try it again and I'll still be here.
01:03:52.260 -->
01:04:00.166I think that's how we get our students to self-advocate and to begin to think in this realm, and I would re-voice the question because I think students self-advocating is really a function of adults providing the supports needed to get them there.
01:04:02.916 -->
01:04:15.237I would like to commend you for chunking and breaking down that really complex topic, because it's such a perfect example of how do we help people understand this really complex topic.
01:04:15.237 -->
01:04:17.887Well, let me do some self-reflection.
01:04:17.887 -->
01:04:19.954Let me see what I need to do as an adult.
01:04:19.954 -->
01:04:23.025Let me chunk down about five different ways.
01:04:23.025 -->
01:04:26.777You know that I can express and explain this concept.
01:04:26.777 -->
01:04:42.782That's exactly what we need to be doing for our students, and the way that you just expressed how students can develop that self-efficacy first, and then also how you can then begin to allow for a climate that allows for advocacy.
01:04:42.782 -->
01:04:46.509I think that's the key of explaining it.
01:04:46.509 -->
01:05:20.155So I think, our listeners, you might want to pause, rewind and go back and reflect on a lot of those points, because I think that that's really helpful one in a lesson on how to chunk something that's complex and complicated, and two, what we're speaking to, which is really to try to develop these learners to their full potential, and part of a learner's full potential is recognizing their pain points, recognizing when they do need some assistance and some help, and one of the things that I have always preached, especially when I'm sitting at the small group.
01:05:20.155 -->
01:05:22.704We've established all of our routines.
01:05:22.704 -->
01:05:23.860We've established everything.
01:05:23.860 -->
01:05:37.757What I often share is the smartest people in the room ask the best questions and allowing that vulnerability, allowing a moment that you know you're going to fail safely, you're not going to be left alone in this.
01:05:37.757 -->
01:05:41.005We are all going to support you and help you through that.
01:05:41.005 -->
01:05:50.465That creates such a big culture of safety, acceptance, vulnerability all of the things that we really need to work to establish this.
01:05:50.465 -->
01:06:00.835There was one other thing that I reflected on, and that is really helping students to identify what they're doing well and helping build their confidence at the very beginning.
01:06:01.036 -->
01:06:13.163To start the efficacy process, and because I know that we'd like to share these stories so that people can kind of take them in, I'm going to share a brief story about a kindergartner that I was working with yesterday.
01:06:13.163 -->
01:06:18.021I noticed that he was really good at reading words, the whole word.
01:06:18.021 -->
01:06:23.298If he memorized the entire word, he often will write his letters backwards.
01:06:23.298 -->
01:06:24.083He will often.
01:06:24.083 -->
01:06:30.025He wasn't able to write the alphabet in a straight, linear line, and so that was kind of unique.
01:06:30.025 -->
01:06:33.802So when I went back, we were working on an alphabet arc for our other learners.
01:06:33.802 -->
01:06:36.588That's a great FCRR resource.
01:06:36.588 -->
01:06:41.724The second piece of the alphabet arc is to fill in the rest of the alphabet.
01:06:41.724 -->
01:06:44.405So they give you the A in the center, they have an M and an N and then the Z at the very end, and his job was to fill in the rest of the alphabet.
01:06:44.405 -->
01:06:50.152So they give you the A in the center, they have an M and an N and then the Z at the very end, and his job was to fill in all those letters.
01:06:50.634 -->
01:06:56.146Before we started it, I showed him what the whole task was and I said this is going to be hard.
01:06:56.146 -->
01:07:00.521Your brain is going to say, oh no, I don't know if I can do all of this on my own.
01:07:00.521 -->
01:07:05.396But I said I put the paper down and I said I believe in you and I'm going to help you.
01:07:05.396 -->
01:07:07.981And I said I want you to say I believe in me.
01:07:07.981 -->
01:07:17.396And he did and, like at a beautiful, you know, moment, existed in that, and I don't think that that has to happen just on a one-on-one tutoring session.
01:07:17.396 -->
01:07:32.983This is something that we can kind of like establish and let our students know, and when they know that they have already accomplished something, that's hard, just as Doug has has reiterated, that success is the medicine that keeps them coming back for more, and that's what we want.
01:07:32.983 -->
01:07:37.340We want them to be extended learners, so I so appreciate this conversation.
01:07:37.340 -->
01:07:39.706It has been so helpful and enlightening.
01:07:40.695 -->
01:07:54.478Mary, thank you for that story because I think that really models how to differentiate for executive functioning supports at different grade levels, because we have mentioned a lot of above grade level examples, you know, like older grade level examples in this conversation, but that's.
01:07:54.478 -->
01:07:56.163I can just picture that student.
01:07:56.163 -->
01:07:58.778I can picture that lesson happening with that kindergarten student.
01:07:58.778 -->
01:07:59.682So thank you for that.
01:08:00.606 -->
01:08:02.976I'd like to just take that back to self-efficacy for a moment.
01:08:02.976 -->
01:08:04.239You built a trusting relationship.
01:08:04.239 -->
01:08:05.641You provided verbal persuasion.
01:08:05.641 -->
01:08:15.788Self-efficacy is predictive of achievement, so their student was able to achieve the task and now has a mastery experience the next time they're doing that and you can refer to that and build their self-efficacy.
01:08:15.788 -->
01:08:22.480So it becomes a virtuous cycle, and I think that kind of summarizes a little bit what we were talking about today.
01:08:22.480 -->
01:08:25.244There's a gap between executive functioning and skills.
01:08:25.244 -->
01:08:37.260What exists in that gap is self-efficacy, motivation, relevance, instructional strategies, teacher support, climate and values.
01:08:37.260 -->
01:08:42.859All of that is what we're really looking for, between the demonstration of what we're hoping to see our students do and the cognitive processes in the brain.
01:08:44.181 -->
01:08:45.085Wonderful summary.
01:08:45.085 -->
01:08:46.395I think we should end it there.
01:08:46.395 -->
01:08:49.663So, matt, where could people find you online?
01:08:49.663 -->
01:08:51.855And we're also going to link to Doug's website.
01:08:52.457 -->
01:08:54.922Yeah, so I am most active on LinkedIn.
01:08:54.922 -->
01:08:59.721You can either search Dr Matt Strader or linkedincom backslash Matt Strader one.
01:08:59.721 -->
01:09:04.465And, as I said, my expertise is in self-efficacy and I tend to offer a lot of resources there as well as engagements.
01:09:04.465 -->
01:09:06.150And then I said, my expertise is in self-efficacy and I tend to offer a lot of resources there as well as engagements.
01:09:06.150 -->
01:09:09.051And then I'll just also audio plug Doug here.
01:09:09.051 -->
01:09:11.716He is also very active on LinkedIn.
01:09:11.716 -->
01:09:18.948You can search Doug Fisher or his URL is backslash Douglas Fisher, s-d-s-u.
01:09:18.948 -->
01:09:24.002And then also he and Nancy have their website Fisher and Fry Learning by Design.
01:09:25.284 -->
01:09:26.667We appreciate having you both here.
01:09:26.667 -->
01:09:31.551Doug had to slip out of the reading teacher's lounge for another meeting, but we really.
01:09:31.551 -->
01:09:33.261I learned so much from this discussion.
01:09:33.261 -->
01:09:37.065This is exactly I don't know.
01:09:37.065 -->
01:09:42.545I pictured this discussion going well, but it's above even what my visions of this chat were.
01:09:42.545 -->
01:09:43.346So thank you so much.
01:09:44.595 -->
01:09:45.619Thank you so much for having us.
01:09:45.619 -->
01:09:46.341It's a pleasure to be here.
