EF In the Classroom
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Executive Functioning in the Classroom

Intro lesson

8/28/2013

10 Comments

 
This lesson introduces the series of lessons to the students.  

To view the lesson, click on this link 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B0xRdYV22AFmbXEzSDB6R3NVWk0

Please feel free to leave any questions or comments.  To leave a comment, click below on 'Comments'.  We ask that you do not identify any school, classroom, or student.  Thank you. 
10 Comments
Jeff
9/16/2013 09:56:50 pm

Overall the discussion went well and the students participated in the circle format. For next time around I would either change the use of the term "auto-pilot" in the first prompt or explain it better. There was definitely some confusion about what it meant. The students loved responding to the 3rd prompt. I will be reminding them this week to be "aware" of those teacher cues. In the future I will also do a better job of explaining how to do the CEFI. I explained what it was more than how to do it and suspect students didn't read directions. Hopefully it was self-explanatory enough that it doesn't impact results.

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Tim
9/16/2013 10:26:50 pm

I didn't have any issues with the term 'autopilot', but the video of the McGurk effect did not seem to have the impact I expected. It may be the overall type of conversation we were having was new--they may get more comfortable after they develop a better sense of where we are going with this. I think having the students familiar with the 'circle process' of Restorative Practices was helpful. Overall, I think this will make more sense to them next week when we start using the Learning Logs every day. The lesson ran about 40 minutes with a class of 16 with the pre-assessment taking another 15 minutes or so.

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Michelle
9/17/2013 01:27:43 am

My three classes had some difficulty with the term autopilot as well. I use some examples to guide them. They were shy at first, but as we moved through the questions, they opened up quite a lot to the last question. It was very concrete, so they didn't have to conceptualize what they hear teachers request of them. It took a total of 30 to 40 minutes with the CEFI. They needed help with differentiating between "often" and "very often". As far as the McGurk clip, it was interesting. However, if you speak a first language in which "v" is not said often, then the visual cue of the lips might be lost.

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Jack A Naglieri
9/18/2013 11:09:12 am

I attended Jeff's class on Monday (4th period) and all the points he made I agree with. I'd only add that he did a great job. Regarding 'autopilot' and the McGurk video- it seems to me that it is hard to connect the video to (a) thinking about thinking, (b) autopilot, and (c) as Jeff put it, the teachers' favorite F word (FOCUS). I'll give it some more thought but perhaps a video that had a theme "are you aware' of what you do and how you do it.

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Mark
10/11/2013 12:19:27 am

This lesson was pretty flawless for me and the students in my personal development classes. They liked the video. We watched it, then listened to it without projecting. In terms of the "autopilot" term, I told them that I often don't know by 7th period how I got to school. If students ask me "did you ride your motorcycle today" I often have no idea.
Question 1 responses commonly had students reporting that they spend only about 50% of their day on autopilot.
The only responds that really shocked me about question 2 was from a student who reported that they carefully think about where about they will sit in the cafeteria.
I had the students come up to the board and write their answers to question #3 on the board. I photographed them on my phone so we could revisit this in a few months.

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Linda link
12/10/2013 09:05:35 pm

I have 5 groups of special education students who are team taught their core academics. They are all in a sp.ed. program for emotional / behavioral concerns. Many of these students have EF deficits and I believe these lessons would work well with the population. The groups span elementary and middle school. We have weekly team meetings where we could discuss the phrases, cues, and logs... I am interested in gaining access to the videos and logs whenever possible. I would be happy to provide feedback throughout the process. Thanks!

Linda

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Tim
12/11/2013 11:45:23 pm

Hi Linda,

I will contact you at the email address you left when you posted your comment. As to the student log, I will be happy to send that to you, but we have found it is too unwieldy (too wordy) to be effective. We are in the process of paring it down now.

Tim

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Tim
2/25/2014 04:12:19 am

We started these lessons again yesterday. This is our second 'go around' this year. We are implementing these lessons in the following classes: Active Physics, Government, ESOL, Geometry, US/VA History, and Alg 2. I spent more time front-loading the term "Autopilot" and I think it made the lesson go more smoothly than the Intro lesson I did in September.

Today, I heard a student in an Alg 2 class in which we are running these lessons say to his teacher, "I guess I shouldn't be on autopilot" when answering a question. This is very exciting. He already is demonstrating cognitive awareness on the second day.

As this is the second time we have done these lessons, the other teachers are adapting the procedures to better fit their classrooms. These lessons are becoming much more integrated into the classroom as a whole, and the EF language is now an embedded part of the language of the class.

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Jeff
2/25/2014 08:38:14 am

I also spend more time at the beginning of the lesson talking about the word "autopilot" by giving examples from day to day life. Students were receptive and able to give plenty of examples of what teachers tell them often, which may be a sign of their autopilot moments. Feedback from observing teachers was positive. I'm looking forward to doing Friday mini-conferences with the students (instead of a whole class wrap-up) to discuss their awareness of teacher comments this week.

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Lori LeBrun
10/27/2015 10:08:14 am

I am doing an executive function group and classroom lessons at my middle school. I would like to use your introductory lesson with the videos showing examples of the EF skills. Do you have an answer key for the videos sheet?

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