Format
Workshop
First Presenter's Institution
Oklahoma Schools Advisory Council
First Presenter’s Email Address
kcoody@osac.us
First Presenter's Brief Biography
Dr. Kaylin Coody has over 40 years of experience in public schools, working as a Speech-Language Pathologist, Special Education Director, Assistant Superintendent and Superintendent. She currently provides training and consultation for public school across the state of Oklahoma.
Location
Session Three Breakouts
Strand #1
Head: Academic Achievement & Leadership
Strand #2
Heart: Social & Emotional Skills
Relevance
Executive function has long been a topic when working with adults, especially those with dementia and cognitive dysfunction. We now know how impactful a focus on executive function can be in the classroom. Teachers typically have little or no background in strategies to increase executive function practice in the classroom. This will be the bulk of this session.
Brief Program Description
Do you have students in your classroom who have difficulty with working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility? These are indicators of struggling with executive function. This session will cover the brain-implications and concrete strategies to work with students at all grade levels.
Summary
Increasingly classroom teachers are faced with students who struggle with the expected academic work while exhibiting appropriate socialization and self-control. This may be related to difficulty with executive function. School staff need to have understanding of the brain and how those skills work neurologically as well as age specific strategies and activities appropriate for varying ages of students. After this session, educators will leave with 40 concrete strategies to practice, strategies easily embed into classroom structures.
Evidence
We all use executive functions all day every day, from packing a backpack to planning an activity or doing our typical work. Executive function takes time to fully develop and, like most stages of development, develops at different rates in different children. In Helping Students Develop Executive Function Skills (2018) Gina DuTillio states that "The prefrontal cortex of the human brain is constantly growing and changing in in young children as well as adolescents. Because of the brain's plasticity and enormous capacity for learning, it is possible to improve the executive functions of students with deficits through classroom strategies and support." Rachel Ehmke states that executive function skills do not come naturally for all children. In Helping Kids with Executive Function, she discusses the need to teach a mix of specific strategies and alternative learning styles to complement or enhance executive function in children. Pascual, Munoz and Robres studied the relationship between executive functions and academic performance in primary education. The results shared in The Relationship Between Executive Functions and Academic Performance in Primary Education: Review & Meta-Analysis (2019) confirms that "...executive functions display greater predictive power at early ages and have a robust, specific capacity for predicting future academic performance." Schools have a unique ability to provide opportunities for school age children to practice and maintain improved executive function with direct instruction strategies.
Learning Objective 1
Have increased information on researched-based strategies, easy-to-embed ideas to enhance executive function in students.
Learning Objective 2
Immediately implement strategies to incorporate EF practices into their classroom routines.
Learning Objective 3
Have increased understanding of childhood development related to executive function.
Keyword Descriptors
Executive function, working memory, self-inhibition, cognitive flexibility
Presentation Year
2022
Start Date
3-7-2022 2:45 PM
End Date
3-7-2022 4:00 PM
Recommended Citation
Coody, Dr. Kaylin Coody, "Executive Function in the Classroom" (2022). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 23.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2022/2022/23
Included in
Cognition and Perception Commons, Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Disability Studies Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, Special Education and Teaching Commons
Executive Function in the Classroom
Session Three Breakouts
Do you have students in your classroom who have difficulty with working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility? These are indicators of struggling with executive function. This session will cover the brain-implications and concrete strategies to work with students at all grade levels.
