18 Strategies to Boost Executive Function at the Middle-Level

By Katy Kennedy

“I don’t know” is a typical response from middle school students when they are asked:

• Where are your basketball shoes?
• Where did you put your math homework?
• Do you want to type or handwrite your assignment?
• How can I help right now?
• What did we go over in class yesterday?
• Where do we keep the extra paper in the classroom?

When a middle schooler responds “I don’t know” in situations like this, it is most likely because they don’t know.

Executive function is a set of skills that needs to be explicitly taught, like math and science. Some students have families with strong skills in executive functioning, experienced modeling, and been explicitly taught. Some students have not.

What Is Executive Functioning?

Executive functioning is:

• “Executive functioning describes how well individuals access and use a set of brain-based skills that are essential for adaptive living in their day-to-day settings. Individuals with executive functioning deficits may display difficulties with planning, getting started and completing activities, staying organized, self-monitoring their work and behavior, adapting to changes, and controlling impulses,” as stated by the University of Colorado Medicine.
• “Executive function skills are the attention-regulation skills that make it possible to sustain attention, keep goals and information in mind, refrain from responding immediately, resist distraction, tolerate frustration, consider the consequences of different behaviors, reflect on past experiences, and play for the future,” said author Philip Zelazo.

Simply put, it is the skills an individual needs to have to function successfully in their day-to-day life.

Brain Growth in the Middle Level

You might wonder why middle schoolers often respond “I don’t know” when asked questions involving executive functioning skills. As David Vawter, author of “Mining the Middle School Mind,” says frankly: “Scientifically it is because their brains don’t work.”

Middle school is the second most crucial time of brain growth in human development. Let’s think about what happens during brain growth. Connections previously made are broken so that new connections can be made. This also means that sometimes students cannot access an area of the brain to retrieve information as a connection has been broken, according to Vawter. This is why “I don’t know” is a typical response from our students—because they truly don’t know.

Executive Function Teaching Strategies

So what does this all mean? We need to reteach our middle-level students executive functioning skills so that they can build connections even stronger than before.

Here are some ways to help teach executive function:

1. Use technology to create schedules, set goals, and track progress.
2. Give no more than two directions at a time.
3. Have students repeat directions to each other.
4. Record steps and directions visually.
5. Use a pointer or move around the room when tasks involve different areas to retrieve materials.
6. Model the mental process auditorily with think-alouds.
7. Highlight one skill per week or month.
8. Have students create mini deadlines for long-term projects.
9. Build organization time into your classroom routines.
10. Create executive functioning task cards.
11. Incorporate role-playing activities.
12. Play games to boost cognitive flexibility.
13. Help students develop questioning techniques.
14. Model organization strategies.
15. Use literature to discuss executive functioning skills through character analysis.
16. Get students actively involved in the learning process.
17. Make time to clean out lockers and backpacks.
18. Teach students how to use binders and folders to organize.

Think about the steps your brain goes through to accomplish a task from start to finish. Our students need these steps to be broken down for them as their brains are rebuilding these connections.

As adults, it can be easy to get frustrated when students respond with “I don’t know” in situations such as these. However, if we take a step back and remember that their brains are rebuilding these connections, we are critical in helping them do so.

So the next time you hear “I don’t know,” help by asking questions to trace back to where they last knew or to help them figure out what they do know.

Katy Kennedy is principal at Washington Middle School in Glendive, Montana.

https://www.naesp.org/blog/18-strategies-to-boost-executive-function-at-the-middle-level/