Link Lines – May 2024

Read Educator’s Article
“Ready for Takeoff?” Essential Tools for Teaching Executive Function and Self-Regulation
By Kara McCulloch, M.S.

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Inclusive school leaders have a lot on their plates every day. Managing multiple priorities in the school environment is a constant balancing act for adults and students. The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) and the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform (CEEDAR) center have provided 22 high leverage practices (HLPs) for students with disabilities to help school leaders facilitate success for all students. In this edition of Link Lines, the Educator’s Lesson, Ready for Takeoff? Essential Tools for Teaching Executive Function and Self-Regulation, and the Administrator’s Corner focus on the HLPs that support executive function and self-regulation.

“Executive function and self-regulation skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully” (Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, 2015, para. 1). According to the Center on the Developing Child, these skills are not innate and need to be explicitly taught. Inclusive school leaders can create an environment where these skills are explicitly taught by modeling practices and developing these skills in teachers. Too often, educators jump to student application before tending to their own needs. Given the current shortages in the field of education, school leaders need to devote time and effort to building successful educators who will stay in the profession and are equipped to develop confident and competent students.

The same executive function skills that students need to navigate their own learning and success in life are critical for educators. There are seven skills associated with executive function:

1. Adaptable Thinking
2. Planning
3. Self-Monitoring
4. Self-Control
5. Working Memory
6. Time Management
7. Organization

(Hill Learning Center, 2019)

Inclusive school leaders can have open conversations with staff about their own struggles to balance these seven critical skills in their professional and personal lives. Such conversations can lead to self-reflection for teachers and a readiness to develop these skills in students. There are four HLPs that support executive function and self-regulation:

1. HLP 7 Establish a consistent, organized, and respectful learning environment.
2. HLP 8 Provide positive and constructive feedback to guide students’ learning and behavior.
3. HLP 9 Teach social behaviors.
4. HLP 10 Conduct functional behavioral assessments to develop individual student behavior support plans.

(McLeskey et al., 2017)

School leaders cannot expect educators to engage in these four HLPs without training and support. The HLPs have recently been reorganized into domains, pillars, and embedded individual practices designed to wrap these practices together in order to maximize outcomes for students. The revised and updated HLPs can be accessed in the 2nd edition of High-Leverage Practices for Students with Disabilities (2024). Whether educators have come from educational backgrounds or other fields, school leaders need to understand that they may not come with the skills and knowledge required to create contexts where students develop executive function and self-regulation skills. Without these skills, students will struggle with academics and other important aspects of engaging as school community members such as extra-curricular activities and relationship building.

Inclusive school leaders can lead the learning (Fullan, 2020) in executive function and self-regulation by modeling skills and practices for educators and providing support and training that help professionals transfer these skills to their students. School communities where individuals are focused on supporting one another and practicing productive behaviors will increase professional satisfaction, retain confident and competent educators, and improve outcomes for all students.

We are collecting data on what type of support you may need for implementing the HLPs in your school/division. Please complete the survey below to help with this process.

Resources

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

TransformEd

Seven Ways Mindfulness Can Help Teachers

I’m Determined

References