7.16 Executive Functioning Demands

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Hello and welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge.
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I'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.
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We 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.
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I 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.
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Thank you so much for joining us.
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Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do within the world of literacy?
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Absolutely Well.
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Thank you for having me.
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I'm Matt Strader and I was a literacy teacher and coach for just under a decade.
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As 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.
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My 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.
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And 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.
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So 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.
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So that's some of the things I'm interested in and working on at the moment.
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Amazing.
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And then we have Dr Doug Fisher with us too, too.
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So, doug, would you mind sharing a little bit of information about yourself and your work in the world of literacy?
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Sure 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.
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That's where I wanted to be.
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My degrees are in that.
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Special ed, specifically around deaf ed and speech language development, was my originally like how I was going.
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I was working in a pullout program in an elementary school.
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Did 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.
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So I went to the director and said I don't love these pull-out programs.
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I 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.
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He said no, so I quit and I became a classroom teacher.
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There 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.
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So I went back to graduate school, which I never thought I was going to do.
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I 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.
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So 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.
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So and I and I run a school with my colleagues in San Diego.
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So I think about like how do we do all of these things and put them into practice every day?
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I will personally just share that one of my assignments teaching.
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I 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.
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But in every of our every one of our general ed classrooms we had interpreters and so I feel very familiar.
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That was seven years that I was at that school.
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You 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.
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So that's really interesting.
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It took me on the path of learning more about children with dyslexia.
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And.
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I really I find it really interesting.
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I have also shared on the podcast with our listeners that I love speech pathologists so much.
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I 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.
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So it's really interesting that you share that we have similar kind of backgrounds.
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I wonder.
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I mean, as you say this, I wonder if I had actually been a deaf ed teacher.
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So it's really interesting that you share that.
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We 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.
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I just didn't feel like I was making a difference.
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Well, 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.
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I 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.
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Oh 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.
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And 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.
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Exactly, and I'm just learning about morphemes.
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Like literally, like this year, 20 years into my career.
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Well, today we want to really kind of focus on executive functioning and motivation and efficacy.
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So 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.
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So 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.
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Why are we talking about this?
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So 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.
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So executive functioning is actually cognitive, neurological processes that involve three things that happen in the brain, mostly in the prefrontal cortex.
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So those are inhibitory control, working memory and mental flexibility.
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And 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.
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And 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.
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But 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.
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And I also started thinking about human behavior.
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And 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.
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So we're looking for actions to say do they have appropriate executive functioning?
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But 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?
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And how is that playing out in instruction in our classroom and how can we support those skills coming to life in the real world?
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So I'll pause there and I have a few thoughts about just ways we might conceptualize executive functioning.
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But you know, doug, did you want to add anything into that?
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Matt, as you were talking, I was thinking about one aspect of this.
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Executive functioning is when students get started on a task and then work through the task.
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And so students with challenges around executive functions are not the only ones who get started on a task and then don't finish it.
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But that's the challenge for a teacher If the learner doesn't have good learning strategies.
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If 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.
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That's not executive functioning.
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Some learners get started on a task and say this is not relevant, I don't need to do this.
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That's not executive functioning.
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Some 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.
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To make sense of what they're being asked to do Again, not executive functioning.
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So 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.
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Like students don't have a go-to strategy, then we need to go teach that.
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And 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.
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Now 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.
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So people will say kids who have challenging experiences around executive functioning get started on a task and then don't finish it.
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That is true, but other kids also do that for other reasons.
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So we got to become much more intentional and specific around was it the environment?
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Was it the relevance here?
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What is contributing to the kids not finishing the task?
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And if it is really around executive functioning, then, matt, like you were saying, then we go into the strategies.
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How do we actually teach that?
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But teaching that strategy is not all of a sudden going to make students say this is really important.
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I need to learn this.
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Yeah, I think Doug was describing several of the specific academic reasons that a student might not exhibit the behavior we're looking for.
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That we might just assume is executive function, but I would zoom out even more and say there might be motivational processes.
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So Doug mentioned relevance.
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Relevance is key to any human behavior.
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Outcome 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.
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Otherwise we don't need to.
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I also have a story from one of my colleagues that she talks about all the time.
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Her 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.
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And the teachers will say, well, why don't you do your homework?
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You're such a wonderful student.
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And he says, well, what is it you're trying to assess that I have mastery of?
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And the teacher will tell him.
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And 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.
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So I think that's just another example.
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Beyond, 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.
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So Dr Deborah Phillips talks about executive sorry, executive functioning being kind of like the air traffic control.
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There 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.
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Some 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.
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And 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.
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The 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.
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And I think both things are true for students.
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They need to understand the big picture.
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Doug talked about the why, the relevance.
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So I think there's a big picture on multiple levels.
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There's the big picture of why is this important today, why is this important in my education, why is this important for school?
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But why is this important for my life?
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And, 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.
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You 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.
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And so you know, the scholarship includes and excludes things that belong in executive functioning, depending on who you're reading.
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And so I thought that those two metaphors, just kind of as guideposts, were really helpful for me.
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I 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.
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Taught them this.
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I 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.
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I 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.
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So I guess what we want to talk about, then, is that we're hoping to understand a little bit more about what.
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Can 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.
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Tell me how you think that explaining some of these motivational pieces can kind of benefit our teachers.
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Let me jump in there.
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Amy Berry, back in March of 2020, put out an article on teachers' perspectives on engagement, and she argues that engagement is not a dichotomy.
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Yes, students are engaged.
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No, they're not.
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But it actually occurs across a continuum.
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And when I read her article, I said why aren't we teaching this to students as part of their self-regulation?
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Why aren't we showing students that there's a range of engagement?
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It's passive in the middle, it goes active in both directions.
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You can be actively disengaged or you can be actively engaged.
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So I really appreciate this idea of a continuum and teaching about engagement versus teaching for engagement.
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And 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?
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Now, in terms of academics, we would not assess something that we didn't teach.
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That would be unfair.
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But in terms of self-regulation, we expect things that we didn't teach.
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And so I started working with teams to say let's teach about engagement Whole class lessons, small group lessons, individual support lessons.
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How do we have students understand the cognitive and behavioral aspects of what it means to engage.
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What are the things you should be doing?
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How do you then learn to set your intention for the lesson and then reflect on it?
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Now, this was something we were doing like school-wide, class-wide, et cetera, and what I noticed?
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I 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.
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Let him in on, quote what he says the secret that all the other kids knew, that he didn't know.
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And this fourth grader talks about how come no one told me this?
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These are the things you're supposed to try to do for when you're in class.
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He 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.
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And he used all the language out of Amy's continuum.
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And I talked to his teacher, fourth grade teacher, and she said it wasn't a one-day lesson.
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It 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.
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That'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.
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I'm going to have a consequence if you don't do this.
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This was just part of the natural flow of this fourth grade class.
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I love that.
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I'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.
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And 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 --> 00:23:48.750
I 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 --> 00:23:57.467
You 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 --> 00:24:04.011
This 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 --> 00:24:19.911
So 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 --> 00:24:20.692
That's really cool.
00:24:21.601 --> 00:24:22.943
That's what I was going to share too.
00:24:22.943 --> 00:24:41.869
We 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 --> 00:24:48.714
But really talking through, does this make you feel sure about your answer or unsure about your answer?
00:24:48.714 --> 00:24:58.586
And 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 --> 00:25:07.030
Sometimes 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 --> 00:25:15.289
The 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 --> 00:25:29.273
But 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 --> 00:25:36.185
I 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 --> 00:25:45.233
But 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 --> 00:25:47.715
Right, okay, I'm going to let you guys keep continuing.
00:25:47.736 --> 00:25:58.424
You're doing a fantastic job so I would say I think of things similarly.
00:25:58.424 --> 00:26:07.490
And, 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 --> 00:26:22.942
The 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 --> 00:26:27.169
So routines and expectations.
00:26:27.169 --> 00:26:29.192
So how do we do things?
00:26:29.192 --> 00:26:30.454
How often do we do things?
00:26:30.454 --> 00:26:32.383
Is there an expected way to do things?
00:26:32.383 --> 00:26:41.182
And 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 --> 00:26:48.214
As far as routines, shannon, just some of the things you just said was making those routines explicit, practicing them.
00:26:48.214 --> 00:26:50.325
You said the first month of school.
00:26:50.444 --> 00:26:53.853
You know a lot of us think about how much time we need to spend on instruction.
00:26:53.853 --> 00:27:02.005
Let's get right into text, and it's not that these things need to be taught separately.
00:27:02.005 --> 00:27:09.240
I 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 --> 00:27:10.501
So my desks were in rows.
00:27:10.501 --> 00:27:15.048
So if you even think of that, rows is not the natural organization of things usually.
00:27:15.048 --> 00:27:26.234
And 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 --> 00:27:32.807
So if you think about, you know we spent about four or so weeks in this novel.
00:27:32.807 --> 00:27:38.821
How many minutes were saved by spending 10 minutes really focusing on that routine.
00:27:38.821 --> 00:27:42.234
So, making it explicit, teaching your students step-by-step.
00:27:42.234 --> 00:27:46.311
And to what Doug mentioned earlier developmentally, what do those steps look like?
00:27:46.311 --> 00:27:56.390
They 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 --> 00:28:09.661
So 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 --> 00:28:13.445
I'm going to talk about this quite a bit probably in this conversation but values.
00:28:13.445 --> 00:28:31.273
So 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 --> 00:28:48.006
So 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 --> 00:28:50.853
I also just thought about relationships.
00:28:50.853 --> 00:29:08.145
Students 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 --> 00:29:12.986
So, with the question being you know what is the demand in a reading lesson?
00:29:12.986 --> 00:29:19.411
Well, 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 --> 00:29:27.213
So, going back to those runways, you know what happens when there's a new demand or aircraft entering the space.
00:29:27.213 --> 00:29:29.340
How do I deal with that?
00:29:29.340 --> 00:29:33.903
And especially in reading, when we're asking students to read or write for a sustained period of time.
00:29:33.903 --> 00:29:37.146
How do we teach them to ignore distractions, process that with them?
00:29:37.146 --> 00:29:38.827
And part of that goes back to relevancy.
00:29:38.827 --> 00:29:43.551
Do they see the sustained task as being more important than the thing that's interrupting them?
00:29:43.551 --> 00:29:44.992
And we have to evaluate that.
00:29:44.992 --> 00:30:00.542
We 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 --> 00:30:01.928
And how do we think through those and help students process that?
00:30:01.948 --> 00:30:05.059
Cognitive 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 --> 00:30:06.843
And so some examples I can think about.
00:30:06.843 --> 00:30:12.984
For younger students, what happens when a decoding pattern veers from the rule I was taught?
00:30:12.984 --> 00:30:19.491
I 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 --> 00:30:30.986
And 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 --> 00:30:32.848
That is the only clue to that.
00:30:32.848 --> 00:30:45.134
So 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 --> 00:30:56.882
Working 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 --> 00:31:04.335
You 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 --> 00:31:21.663
So 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 --> 00:31:39.009
And 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 --> 00:31:48.707
So 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 --> 00:31:52.205
He was explaining that during our discussion.
00:31:52.205 --> 00:31:54.751
The text cohesion and paying attention to all that.
00:31:58.800 --> 00:32:08.391
Yes, 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 --> 00:32:13.037
I noticed that all of a sudden the text has changed.
00:32:13.037 --> 00:32:15.025
Do I need you know?
00:32:15.025 --> 00:32:19.111
Maybe I have a sticker on my chart or something like that.
00:32:19.111 --> 00:32:34.738
So 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 --> 00:32:37.123
I think that that is really crucial.
00:32:37.123 --> 00:32:48.292
I 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 --> 00:32:56.663
They're probably performing below their peers, even if they have really strong cognitive abilities in many other levels.
00:32:56.663 --> 00:33:05.951
So 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 --> 00:33:15.914
You 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 --> 00:33:36.354
So 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 --> 00:33:51.925
Some 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 --> 00:34:06.472
Maybe 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 --> 00:34:13.711
And I think that that's where many teachers are struggling, because they don't know how to provide that support.
00:34:13.711 --> 00:34:16.034
That's what I'm really seeing.
00:34:16.255 --> 00:34:40.436
All 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 --> 00:34:49.166
If 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 --> 00:35:02.452
So 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 --> 00:35:05.610
I know that parents are also very curious about this too.
00:35:05.610 --> 00:35:15.708
So 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 --> 00:35:22.460
I'll add something that's on my mind, as you were just talking, and connecting to something Matt said earlier.
00:35:22.460 --> 00:35:25.706
All of us have a success-failure ratio.
00:35:25.706 --> 00:35:31.585
All of us experience, across our content, our academic learning, some successes and some failures.
00:35:31.585 --> 00:35:40.592
Interesting research is you have to experience success way more frequently than failure to persevere.
00:35:40.592 --> 00:35:43.440
And so we talk about kids with executive functioning.
00:35:43.440 --> 00:35:51.405
If 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 --> 00:35:55.414
And why try if you're going to just fail again and again and again?
00:35:55.414 --> 00:36:05.150
When 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 --> 00:36:12.954
The teacher can structure experiences to increase the frequency that students experience success.
00:36:12.954 --> 00:36:27.922
Chunking 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 --> 00:36:29.204
That doesn't make me feel good.
00:36:29.204 --> 00:36:46.791
They 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 --> 00:36:51.422
Our job is not to tell them they failed all the time and we say it all the time Failure.
00:36:51.461 --> 00:36:52.326
You learn from failure.
00:36:52.326 --> 00:36:53.806
You don't learn from failure.
00:36:53.806 --> 00:36:54.922
It's not true.
00:36:54.922 --> 00:36:58.489
You learn from what happens after the failure.
00:36:58.489 --> 00:37:09.731
If 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 --> 00:37:22.487
But 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 --> 00:37:35.018
But 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 --> 00:37:41.376
And I will happily dive into that self-efficacy piece in a little bit.
00:37:41.376 --> 00:37:45.246
But there was one thought I wanted to offer here as far as what teachers can do.
00:37:45.246 --> 00:37:55.621
I'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 --> 00:38:07.112
And 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 --> 00:38:23.853
So 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 --> 00:38:34.652
Those were the values of my grandparents' house, the values of play, the values of childhood and of spontaneity and engagement.
00:38:34.652 --> 00:38:37.882
But then I go to school and I'm told go to the rug for reading.
00:38:37.882 --> 00:39:07.925
There'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 --> 00:39:09.490
And then told me why.
00:39:09.490 --> 00:39:11.057
Why do we want to do that?
00:39:11.057 --> 00:39:12.541
We want to preserve our time for learning.
00:39:12.541 --> 00:39:23.215
We 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 --> 00:39:38.041
If 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 --> 00:39:50.117
So 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 --> 00:39:52.764
The same as students and I would also like to offer.
00:39:52.764 --> 00:40:04.907
I 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 --> 00:40:23.943
If 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 --> 00:40:25.284
Thank you for mentioning that.
00:40:25.284 --> 00:40:26.927
Thank you, um.
00:40:26.927 --> 00:40:32.563
You said we would circle back to um what the day feels like for students.
00:40:32.563 --> 00:40:43.443
Um, 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 --> 00:40:49.425
So 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 --> 00:40:51.757
Yeah.
00:40:51.757 --> 00:41:00.657
So 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 --> 00:41:11.621
And 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 --> 00:41:26.128
And 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 --> 00:41:32.407
How confusing would that be for a student day to day and so something.
00:41:32.407 --> 00:41:57.204
I'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 --> 00:42:03.922
Now, 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 --> 00:42:12.539
But 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 --> 00:42:23.420
A 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 --> 00:42:27.753
I think a lot of that is relative to how much information is available to students.
00:42:27.753 --> 00:42:37.226
I 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 --> 00:42:45.789
And so some students may externalize that failure that they have and have this experience of being angry at everyone.
00:42:45.789 --> 00:42:52.918
But 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 --> 00:43:01.342
So I think that those are two potential possibilities, but it really depends on the student.
00:43:01.342 --> 00:43:03.246
You can't monolithically say you know.
00:43:03.246 --> 00:43:04.896
Depends on the student.
00:43:04.896 --> 00:43:05.277
It's really.
00:43:05.277 --> 00:43:07.541
You can't monolithically say you know students experience things this way.
00:43:07.541 --> 00:43:09.425
So those are two potential ways.
00:43:09.425 --> 00:43:13.376
I would think about that in terms of what the experience might be like.
00:43:14.360 --> 00:43:55.755
I 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 --> 00:44:17.561
And 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 --> 00:45:00.157
And 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 --> 00:45:05.626
Yeah, so I would put that in the working memory category to begin with.
00:45:05.626 --> 00:45:10.585
So I tell educators all the time our brains are like computers that have a certain amount of RAM.
00:45:10.585 --> 00:45:40.327
I'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 --> 00:45:47.648
But one thing the literature also tells us is that self-efficacy is prerequisite to self-regulation.
00:45:47.648 --> 00:45:57.898
So 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 --> 00:46:11.760
You 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 --> 00:46:24.224
They'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 --> 00:46:47.726
But 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 --> 00:46:56.197
So, 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 --> 00:47:05.487
What 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 --> 00:47:32.985
Thank 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 --> 00:47:36.369
You know well, a couple of kids keep raising their hand and seem to get the right answer.
00:47:36.369 --> 00:47:38.175
So the whole class must be getting it, you know.
00:47:39.757 --> 00:47:56.731
Yeah, 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 --> 00:47:58.914
Can that be provided with a visual?
00:47:58.914 --> 00:48:09.126
I 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 --> 00:48:28.010
If 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 --> 00:48:37.507
So 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 --> 00:48:51.677
But 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 --> 00:48:56.509
We all feel it as adults as well, and so all of this is connected.
00:48:56.509 --> 00:49:01.672
But, but I think that the best piece of advice really is this self-reflection.
00:49:01.672 --> 00:49:04.208
So I really appreciate you, you know sharing that perspective.
00:49:04.208 --> 00:49:04.849
And then the self-reflection.
00:49:04.849 --> 00:49:05.501
So I really appreciate you, you know sharing that perspective.
00:49:05.661 --> 00:49:06.764
And then the self-reflection.
00:49:06.764 --> 00:49:11.786
Then the teacher can decide okay, well, what, which direction do I want to do to help lighten that load?
00:49:11.786 --> 00:49:20.056
I 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 --> 00:49:28.516
And 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 --> 00:49:36.643
And 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 --> 00:49:48.264
So 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 --> 00:49:56.157
And 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 --> 00:50:00.998
You know that swapping of the pulling out the folder and swapping out the books and everything go a lot easier.
00:50:00.998 --> 00:50:06.088
And same thing lift up the books to put the other one back in when you're switching them out again.
00:50:07.110 --> 00:50:08.211
And I would share that.
00:50:08.211 --> 00:50:12.804
Once you have that success like the students saying, wow, that's success.
00:50:12.804 --> 00:50:24.623
That'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 --> 00:50:40.097
That'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 --> 00:50:41.603
So I appreciate.
00:50:41.824 --> 00:50:43.009
Can we add to that?
00:50:43.009 --> 00:50:54.206
If 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 --> 00:50:55.088
Am I right?
00:50:57.077 --> 00:50:57.199
Yes.
00:50:57.239 --> 00:50:57.960
And their book bags.
00:50:58.862 --> 00:51:06.007
Yeah, and their notebooks, depending on their age group, their laptop desktop screen and how organized that is.
00:51:06.054 --> 00:51:07.201
There's a lot of indicators.
00:51:07.201 --> 00:51:18.085
One 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 --> 00:51:19.067
For what?
00:51:19.067 --> 00:51:33.586
The 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 --> 00:51:44.882
It'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 --> 00:51:49.309
And when you experience shame and humiliation, it really shuts down that learning.
00:51:49.309 --> 00:52:02.844
And 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 --> 00:52:05.306
Did this help me?
00:52:05.306 --> 00:52:08.115
Oh look, I feel really good about this.
00:52:08.115 --> 00:52:09.282
I'm going to practice again.
00:52:09.282 --> 00:52:15.922
I 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 --> 00:52:25.438
Something 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 --> 00:52:40.896
We 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 --> 00:52:48.985
So 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 --> 00:53:00.563
But 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 --> 00:53:04.105
And many of these students are undiagnosed.
00:53:04.105 --> 00:53:10.467
And 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 --> 00:53:22.518
And 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 --> 00:53:28.800
So we might have students who are undiagnosed who need these supports.
00:53:28.800 --> 00:53:37.996
And 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 --> 00:53:45.028
Dr Devin Price wrote a book titled Unmasking Autism that I'm currently reading and it's a fabulous work.
00:53:45.028 --> 00:53:55.905
But 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 --> 00:54:03.065
They take trained professionals that certain communities, particularly around socioeconomic lines, may not have access to.
00:54:03.065 --> 00:54:18.456
They 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 --> 00:54:33.565
So, 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 --> 00:55:04.201
Similarly, 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 --> 00:55:20.755
Something 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 --> 00:55:32.275
And 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 --> 00:55:37.856
I'd so appreciate that.
00:55:37.856 --> 00:55:44.820
I 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 --> 00:55:51.541
And 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 --> 00:55:55.516
Just allowing them to be able to see over the fences is critical.
00:55:55.516 --> 00:56:04.608
That is a very easy piece to start introducing and also to build empathy within the classroom.
00:56:04.608 --> 00:56:32.547
I 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 --> 00:56:59.275
Because 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 --> 00:57:05.440
We know that neurodivergence can also lead to a lack of theory of mind.
00:57:06.521 --> 00:57:29.612
It 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 --> 00:57:40.146
And 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 --> 00:57:49.844
But 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 --> 00:57:54.338
Medication is another realm where you know we've.
00:57:54.338 --> 00:58:06.268
I 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 --> 00:58:21.170
That 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 --> 00:59:01.898
I 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 --> 00:59:14.335
You 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 --> 00:59:27.143
Of 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 --> 00:59:32.121
So this one was a little fraught for me.
00:59:32.121 --> 00:59:38.864
I won't lie, yes, students need to be able to self-advocate.
00:59:38.864 --> 00:59:41.063
I think that's a beautiful example you just gave.
00:59:41.063 --> 00:59:44.360
But 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 --> 00:59:46.706
But 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 --> 00:59:51.052
And there's a whole world that exists in that.
00:59:51.052 --> 00:59:55.507
So the first is I would tie back we've lightly mentioned my research on self-efficacy.
00:59:55.507 --> 00:59:58.885
We have to support our students in building self-efficacy.
00:59:59.728 --> 01:00:06.840
The literature does not establish a conclusive relationship between self-evocacy and self-advocacy and those are two very different things.
01:00:06.840 --> 01:00:10.695
If you're not familiar, I would suggest reading about them and the differences.
01:00:10.695 --> 01:00:19.769
But the general accepted relationship in the literature is that self-advocacy is prerequisite to self-advocacy.
01:00:19.769 --> 01:00:29.043
So 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 --> 01:00:32.568
And so that goes back to what Doug was talking about, about the success failure ratio.
01:00:32.568 --> 01:00:36.382
And these have to be meaningful successes, not just asking a student what color is the sky.
01:00:36.382 --> 01:00:38.657
Okay, you were successful, now go write a five paragraph essay.
01:00:38.657 --> 01:00:39.920
That's not how that works.
01:00:40.523 --> 01:00:43.329
So we need to have students be continually successful.
01:00:43.329 --> 01:00:53.876
We 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 --> 01:00:57.896
They need to trust that you're their advocate and you're going to show up in that space for them.
01:00:57.896 --> 01:01:04.280
By building those relationships, we can offer what's called verbal persuasion, which is just gentle, verbal encouragement.
01:01:04.280 --> 01:01:10.344
I 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 --> 01:01:20.157
And 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 --> 01:01:25.445
And those are called vicarious experiences, where students see somebody else do something and they believe they can do it.
01:01:25.965 --> 01:01:29.090
The final way to improve the example and non-example.
01:01:29.090 --> 01:01:33.126
It's always really fun to show them what not to do, but that's also a very teachable moment.
01:01:33.655 --> 01:01:36.201
Yes, and there's tons of resources about how to model.
01:01:36.201 --> 01:01:41.862
Well, out there, I think one of the things that is most skipped is the durability of the model.
01:01:41.862 --> 01:01:45.978
So if you model how to do and not to do, that's a temporal thing that disappears.
01:01:45.978 --> 01:01:47.481
And we're talking about working memory.
01:01:47.481 --> 01:01:51.041
If students don't have a lot of working memory, then that model has also disappeared.
01:01:51.041 --> 01:01:53.246
So how are you making that model durable?
01:01:53.246 --> 01:01:57.103
Through a visual and anchor chart, a video, something where students can think about it?
01:01:57.704 --> 01:02:02.217
The final thing is affective states, and when I began to think about self-advocacy, which is very different.
01:02:02.217 --> 01:02:13.364
And 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 --> 01:02:15.385
So what does it take for me to self-advocate?
01:02:15.385 --> 01:02:35.144
And 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 --> 01:02:39.605
If all of those things aren't true, I as an adult can't advocate.
01:02:39.605 --> 01:02:49.005
And 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 --> 01:02:51.643
That's not their job, it's not their responsibility.
01:02:51.643 --> 01:02:59.045
And 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 --> 01:03:07.606
So 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 --> 01:03:10.469
And what's our reaction to that as teachers?
01:03:10.469 --> 01:03:17.322
But when was the first time the student demonstrated that they're on that track?
01:03:17.322 --> 01:03:19.190
And what I would say is at that time, say hey, did you know you're off track?
01:03:19.190 --> 01:03:21.523
What could you do to keep it on track?
01:03:21.523 --> 01:03:24.603
How could you get back now to where you need to be?
01:03:24.603 --> 01:03:26.922
Do you have all the things you need to do that?
01:03:26.922 --> 01:03:35.327
If 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 --> 01:03:52.260
And 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 --> 01:04:00.166
I 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 --> 01:04:15.237
I 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 --> 01:04:17.887
Well, let me do some self-reflection.
01:04:17.887 --> 01:04:19.954
Let me see what I need to do as an adult.
01:04:19.954 --> 01:04:23.025
Let me chunk down about five different ways.
01:04:23.025 --> 01:04:26.777
You know that I can express and explain this concept.
01:04:26.777 --> 01:04:42.782
That'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 --> 01:04:46.509
I think that's the key of explaining it.
01:04:46.509 --> 01:05:20.155
So 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 --> 01:05:22.704
We've established all of our routines.
01:05:22.704 --> 01:05:23.860
We've established everything.
01:05:23.860 --> 01:05:37.757
What 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 --> 01:05:41.005
We are all going to support you and help you through that.
01:05:41.005 --> 01:05:50.465
That 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 --> 01:06:00.835
There 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 --> 01:06:13.163
To 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 --> 01:06:18.021
I noticed that he was really good at reading words, the whole word.
01:06:18.021 --> 01:06:23.298
If he memorized the entire word, he often will write his letters backwards.
01:06:23.298 --> 01:06:24.083
He will often.
01:06:24.083 --> 01:06:30.025
He wasn't able to write the alphabet in a straight, linear line, and so that was kind of unique.
01:06:30.025 --> 01:06:33.802
So when I went back, we were working on an alphabet arc for our other learners.
01:06:33.802 --> 01:06:36.588
That's a great FCRR resource.
01:06:36.588 --> 01:06:41.724
The second piece of the alphabet arc is to fill in the rest of the alphabet.
01:06:41.724 --> 01:06:44.405
So 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 --> 01:06:50.152
So 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 --> 01:06:56.146
Before we started it, I showed him what the whole task was and I said this is going to be hard.
01:06:56.146 --> 01:07:00.521
Your 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 --> 01:07:05.396
But 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 --> 01:07:07.981
And I said I want you to say I believe in me.
01:07:07.981 --> 01:07:17.396
And 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 --> 01:07:32.983
This 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 --> 01:07:37.340
We want them to be extended learners, so I so appreciate this conversation.
01:07:37.340 --> 01:07:39.706
It has been so helpful and enlightening.
01:07:40.695 --> 01:07:54.478
Mary, 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 --> 01:07:56.163
I can just picture that student.
01:07:56.163 --> 01:07:58.778
I can picture that lesson happening with that kindergarten student.
01:07:58.778 --> 01:07:59.682
So thank you for that.
01:08:00.606 --> 01:08:02.976
I'd like to just take that back to self-efficacy for a moment.
01:08:02.976 --> 01:08:04.239
You built a trusting relationship.
01:08:04.239 --> 01:08:05.641
You provided verbal persuasion.
01:08:05.641 --> 01:08:15.788
Self-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 --> 01:08:22.480
So 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 --> 01:08:25.244
There's a gap between executive functioning and skills.
01:08:25.244 --> 01:08:37.260
What exists in that gap is self-efficacy, motivation, relevance, instructional strategies, teacher support, climate and values.
01:08:37.260 --> 01:08:42.859
All 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 --> 01:08:45.085
Wonderful summary.
01:08:45.085 --> 01:08:46.395
I think we should end it there.
01:08:46.395 --> 01:08:49.663
So, matt, where could people find you online?
01:08:49.663 --> 01:08:51.855
And we're also going to link to Doug's website.
01:08:52.457 --> 01:08:54.922
Yeah, so I am most active on LinkedIn.
01:08:54.922 --> 01:08:59.721
You can either search Dr Matt Strader or linkedincom backslash Matt Strader one.
01:08:59.721 --> 01:09:04.465
And, 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 --> 01:09:06.150
And 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 --> 01:09:09.051
And then I'll just also audio plug Doug here.
01:09:09.051 --> 01:09:11.716
He is also very active on LinkedIn.
01:09:11.716 --> 01:09:18.948
You can search Doug Fisher or his URL is backslash Douglas Fisher, s-d-s-u.
01:09:18.948 --> 01:09:24.002
And then also he and Nancy have their website Fisher and Fry Learning by Design.
01:09:25.284 --> 01:09:26.667
We appreciate having you both here.
01:09:26.667 --> 01:09:31.551
Doug had to slip out of the reading teacher's lounge for another meeting, but we really.
01:09:31.551 --> 01:09:33.261
I learned so much from this discussion.
01:09:33.261 --> 01:09:37.065
This is exactly I don't know.
01:09:37.065 --> 01:09:42.545
I pictured this discussion going well, but it's above even what my visions of this chat were.
01:09:42.545 --> 01:09:43.346
So thank you so much.
01:09:44.595 --> 01:09:45.619
Thank you so much for having us.
01:09:45.619 --> 01:09:46.341
It's a pleasure to be here.