Susan Dachenhausen's Personalized Learning Portfolio

Do you have thousands of thoughts running through your mind and not sure how to direct those thoughts to make them have productive outcomes? A computer can have many different open files working at the same time, but you as the driver of the computer can only work on one task on the computer at a time. Your brain works the same way as it may have many thoughts running through your brain, but your executive functioning skills can help focus and prioritize those tasks. Executive functioning skills are important at helping your brain decide what is important and needs to take priority, what can be put into a checklist for later. Harvard University's Center on the Developing Child states that "executive function and self-regulation skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully." (Harvard Developing Child, 2015).

Executive Function Skills are broken into three main categories. They are cognitive flexibility, working memory, and self-control. These skills help your brain manage functions to be able to goal set, plan out tasks, and complete those tasks. If executive functioning skills are weak, it will impact your everyday life. (Belsky, 2022)

STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING EXECUTIVE FUNCTION

CHECKLISTS

Organization is a main function of executive functioning. When given a project, or a rubric in class, there are many different components and requirements to achieving the 100 grade. Creating a checklist can help organize the tasks and help you prioritize what is most pressing or important and needs the most focus, to what can be saved for later. Checklists and prioritizing can also improve our executive functioning skills by knowing the full expectations of each task.

ROUTINES

Creating routines in the classroom can be beneficial to improving executive function skills. Routines can be taught for beginning of the day or end of the day routines. It is important to not only teach the routines, but for students to know the reasoning for each routine. Routines help students by using their working memory, flexibility, and planning skills so they can improve their executive functioning skills to be successful in the classroom and in the future.

REFLECTIONS

Reflections are important in executive function skills. Weekly reflections and checkins are vital to helping students learn about themselves, what makes them happy, and what can trigger them. Academic reflections help with student's self-control to know what is allowing them to be understand material and content, and what needs to be revised so they can become successful in and out of the classroom. This helps students to learn self-control in and out of the classroom.

EXAMPLES IN THE CLASSROOM

Human Harnessed Electricity Infographic Checklist:

Students for end of topic or unit wrap ups are asked to complete a show what you know task. Each student is given a rubric to know the expectations for the project. Before the students can complete the tasks, they are to create their own checklist on what is needed to complete the assignment. The students prioritize what is important based on the rubric and then prioritize it in their checklist. To the left are student samples from the unit on Electricity and Magnetism. The assignment was specifically on Human Harnessed Electricity. Students were able to choose between different formats to showcase their learned knowledge, but were given the same rubric for the material that was contained in the showcase.

Morning Slide Routine:

Using Google Slides or Canva, each morning the students come in to the classroom, a welcome slide is displayed on the board. This welcome slide is the same slide each morning so that the students develop a morning routine. They are greeted with a message from the teacher and then a set tasks to complete. To establish the routine, these morning tasks are the same tasks each day so students can help improve their executive function skills by developing routines.

Morning and Math Slide

Math Slide

Small Group Math Routine:

For math small groups, students are given a Task 1 and a Task 2 each day. Task 1 is consistently the same for each day. This allows students to develop the small group instruction routine to help maximize instructional time. With having the same format each day, students know the expectations and are able to focus attention and complete the assignments.

Weekly Check In Reflections:

Using Google Forms, students in class complete weekly checkins to self-reflect over the past week. This allows students to voice concerns, items of praise, and request more support if needed. By having students reflect each week on their prior week, the teacher can conference with students to make sure their needs are being met, but also encourage students and support students in areas of growth or concern.

Personalized Learning Plan Reflections:

Using Google Docs to construct their personalized learning plans for math class, students are given different links and activities to complete for their individual personalized math plan. However, it is most crucial for students to complete the Final Reflection and Revision portion of their learning plan.

When students complete the final reflection of their personalized learning plan, they are able use their executive functioning skills of self-control. Reflecting upon their previous work will allow them to dig deeper into if the plan worked for helping the themselves master the content. Students can reflect if the delivery of the content was appropriate for them, or if there need to be revisions made for the next personalized learning plan.

References:
Executive Function & Self Regulation. (2015, March 19). Retrieved from
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/executive-function/

Belsky, Gail. What is Executive Function. Retrieved September 6, 2022 from
https://www.understood.org/en/articles/what-is-executive-function

Dawson, P. and Guare, R. (2018). Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents: A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention.

Edutopia. (2019, August 15). What’s Executive Function—and Why Does It Matter?
https://www.edutopia.org/video/whats-executive-function-and-why-does-it-matter

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