Lend Me Your Frontal Lobe Session II Lend Me Your Frontal Lobe Session Two

Identify your own executive functioning strengths and weaknesses Learn strategies to teach or enhance: Planning/organization skills Organization of materials Shifting and initiating Outcomes

Session 1 Review Self assessment of executive skills What are your executive skill strengths? What are your executive skill weaknesses? How do you compensate for your weaknesses? How would you teach a student who has the same weaknesses as you?

The Cookie Problem Work independently to solve the problem. You have 5 min.

Debriefing In table groups discuss: How did you feel as you attempted to solve the problem? Was it easy? Hard? What processes did you use? What interferred with your planning/organization to approach the task? What would have helped?

Executive Function: Planning/Organization Definition: Anticipates future events or consequences, uses goals or instructions to guide behavior in context, develops or implements appropriate steps ahead of time to carry out a task

Executive Function: Planning/Organization Impact: Difficulty planning for long term assignments, organizing timelines, prioritizing, getting started, procrastinating, finishing tasks before starting another

Strategy Review How do I teach Planning/Organization skills?

Executive Function: Organization of Materials Definition: Keeps home and school materials organized, able to organize belongings and materials needed for work

Executive Function: Organization of Materials Impact: difficulty organizing study area and binders, lack of structure in place to keep areas neat (bookcase, toy boxes, hampers), does not place belongings or equipment in proper places, misplaces permission slips, homework, materials

Organization of Materials To Do List Refrigerator Calendar In Basket Address Book Desk Calendar Datebook Crisis Pile Black Hole of Disorganization

Strategy Review How do I teach Organization of Materials skills?

Let’s Play Ready. Set. Write! Directions: Each person has a sentence starter and will have 30 seconds to read the sentence starter and finish or add a sentence. When the bell goes off, each person passes their paper to the right. This will be repeated until everyone has added to each paper.

Process the activity, Ready. Set. Write! What executive function skills did you have to use in this activity? What did you find difficult? What emotions did you experience? How did you cope with yourself and with others? How did you handle these executive function demands?

Executive Function: Shifting Definition: freely moves from one situation, activity, or aspect of a problem to another as the situation demands.

Executive Function: Shifting Impact: gets stuck on a topic or tends to perseverate. Now what?

Executive Function: Initiation Definition: beginning a task or activity. What am I supposed to be doing?

Executive Function: Initiation Impact: trouble getting started on classwork, homework or chores. I have NO idea where to begin!

Strategy Review How do I teach Shifting and Initiation skills?

Next Steps Before the next session... Select one or two of the executive function strategies and think about what you have in place in your classroom. What might you do differently to support students with weaknesses in these areas? Be prepared to share at our next session, module #3.