Beliefs About Learning « learntolearn

Executive Function: Starting with a Definition

by Fran

Executive Function has been defined in various ways by a range of authors/researchers. Here is a brief chart of some of those “definitions:”

My construction of an Executive Function Skills Chart several years ago included the following :

Promoting Executive Function in the Classroom, Meltzer, 2010	Boosting Executive Skills in the Classroom, Cooper/Kahn, 2013	Smart but Scattered Dawson and Guare, 2009
Goal Setting, Planning & Prioritizing	Planning and Organizing Initiating	Planning/prioritizing Task Initiation Goal Directed Persistence
Organizing	Organizing	Organization
Remembering	Working Memory	Working Memory
Shifting and Flexible Problem Solving	Shifting	Flexibility
Self-Monitoring and Checking	Task Monitoring Self-Monitoring	Metacognition

Emotional Self-Regulation	Inhibition	Response Inhibition Emotional Control
		Sustained Attention
		Time Management

Description of the Concept of Executive Function

Metacognition, Motivation and Understanding, Weinert and Kluwe, 1987, LEA	Metacognition, Strategy Use and Instruction, Waters and Schneider, 2010

Flavell (1979) Metacognitive Knowledge Person Variable Task Variables *Strategy Variables	Schneider, Chapter 3: Metacognition and Memory Development Changes in the Meta Model From Flavell (1979) Declarative Meta Knowledge: knowledge of human mind and its doings Meta Experiences: Awareness and feeling elicited in a problem solving situations (feelings of knowing) Meta Skills: playing a role I many types of cognitive activity (language, reading, attention, memory) To More Recent Declarative Knowledge – Knowing That Procedural Knowledge – Knowing How Conditional Knowledge – Knowing Why
Chi Domain Knowledge Declarative Knowledge (what) Procedural Knowledge (how) Strategies (general) Metaknowledge Meta Declarative Knowledge Meta Procedural Knowledge Meta Strategies

Beliefs About Learning Executive Function Learning How to Learn

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What Do We Know About Executive Function and Struggling Learner

by Fran

Here are some questions I plan to address over the next several weeks.

How early in their school life can we/do we identify struggling learners?

Do we know the relationship between struggling as a learner and Executive Function skill?

How do we/could we define Executive Function skills?

What role do learning practices of “voice,” “feedback,” “self-assessment,” “choice”….play in developing and using Executive Function skills.

Who are the co-developers of Executive Function?

Beliefs About Learning Executive Function Learning How to Learn Metacognition

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Student to Student Feedback

by Fran

Developing Students’ Ability to Give and Take Effective Feedback By Katrina Schwartz OCTOBER 15, 2017

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/10/15/developing-students-ability-to-give-and-take-effective-feedback/

An Excerpt:

“Training kids to give effective critique is one of those teaching strategies that takes some time on the front end, but can save a lot of time once students get good at it. It’s common for students to give unhelpful, general or unkind feedback that doesn’t do much to advance a peer’s goals for the work, but Lukas found when she carefully trained students on some conversational “commandments” and attitudes around peer critique, 12-year-olds could give feedback as well as any adult. Even better, when kids got feedback from peers, she found they internalized it more.”

Beliefs About Learning Classrooms and Context Collaborative Learning Executive Function Feedback

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Connecting Executive Function (Metacognition) to Learning

by Fran

In conversations with students about their learning, we need to understand what they know about the “topic” of learning. We need to ask where they acquired their knowledge of the topic of “learning.” Ideally we hope they will compare their beliefs against their experiences as learners.

I believe that there is an expectation that teachers in their preparation (training) were required to “take” a course on learning. What do teachers take away from such a course and apply to their teaching? How does a teacher’s knowledge base about “learning” change over time? Do teachers and students believe the same things about learning? Do they talk about those beliefs?

As a starting place, I have researched recent articles on the topic of learning. Over the next few weeks, I will blog about a few of these.

I start with a series of videos about learning featuring Linda Darling-Hammond and published by the Annenberg Foundation. Here is the link:

https://www.learner.org/resources/series172.html

This is a series of 13 videos about learning covering a range of topics

The first is “How People Learn – Introduction to Leaning Theory and focuses on a discussion with teachers.

https://www.learner.org/courses/learningclassroom/session_overviews/intro_home1.html

Beliefs About Learning Dialogue Executive Function Feedback Frameworks/Research Learning How to Learn Metacognition Student Voices

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Feedback and Learning How to Learn

by Fran

Feedback pp from Fran Toomey

Beliefs About Learning Executive Function Feedback Learning How to Learn Metacognition Student Voices

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Many Ways to Look at Feedback and Executive Function

by Fran

Addressing Executive Function in and Across the subject areas

Example 1: Reading, Reading Comprehension

EXECUTIVE SKILLS AND READING COMPREHENSION

by Joan Sedita | 1 April 12, 2017 | 0 Comments

https://keystoliteracy.com/blog/executive-skills-and-reading-comprehension/

From Joan Sedita, commenting on a book by Kelly Cartwright

“Executive skills involve regulating one’s own thinking to achieve desired goals…. Sedita goes on to quote from the text 9Guilford, 2015)

“Here is a summary of how these core skills affect reading comprehension (p. 8-9):”

Cognitive Flexibility: is the ability to shift attention from one activity to another or to actively switch back and forth between important components of a task….
When reading, skilled comprehenders actively shift focus between many things….

Working Memory: is the capacity for holding information in mind while working with part of that information
Inhibition: is the ability to resist engaging in a habitual response as well as the ability to ignore distracting information – i.e., to think before acting..

Cartwright also addresses additional, more complex executive skills:

Planning: involves setting and working toward a goal

Organizing: involves ordering and sequencing information or subtasks in ways that support a common goal”

I am also attaching a Metacognitive Interview/Questionnaire I designed for middle school students:

http://explorience.pbworks.com/w/page/19411540/Metacognitive%20Interview

Beliefs About Learning Dialogue Feedback Learning How to Learn Metacognition

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Growth Mindset (4M’s) that goes beyond “effort”

by Fran

One of the best Growth Mindset postings I’ve read!

Four Teaching Moves That Promote A Growth Mindset In All Readers

By Katrina SchwartzAPRIL 3, 2017Mind Shift

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/04/03/four-strategies-that-promote-a-growth-mindset-in-struggling-readers/

Some short excerpts:

“Most often teachers spend their time assigning what students should read and how they should show what they read, monitoring to make sure students have done what was asked, and making decisions about what students will do and how they will do it. Those roles make the teacher the main driver of the learning. In order to step back from those traditional roles, teachers have to replace them with new strategies.

“There’s a place for those three, but when that’s our main role there isn’t space for ownership and to develop that growth mindset,” Goldberg said. She coaches teachers to think of themselves in four very different roles, and to step back from constantly stepping in when students struggle. A big part of that is making it clear that struggle is part of reading, not a unique experience to students learning to read. It’s common to start a book and be confused, or to read a passage and miss something, but teachers don’t often make it clear how universal that experience is, no matter one’s reading level. Rather than being assignors, monitors and managers, Goldberg coaches teachers to see themselves as miners, mirrors, models and mentors”

I encourage you to watch the 7 minute video where Goldberg teaches us how to be miners, mirrors, models and mentors. The article continues with a description of these 4M roles.

Beliefs About Learning Executive Function Feedback Meta Teachers Student Voices Teacher Suggestions, Stories, Qs

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Recommendation: A Book on Feedback

by Fran

I don’t usually recommend buying a book, but I think this is worth the investment.

How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students, 2nd Edition

by Susan M. Brookhart

Table of Contents
Select a link to read sample content.

Chapter 6. Feedback: The Long View—Does Feedback Improve Learning?

A Short Excerpt:

“Feedback can lead to learning only if the students have opportunities to use it. One of the best ways you can help students learn to use feedback is to make sure you build in opportunities for students to use it fairly soon after they receive it. The “long view” of feedback, using the metaphor of a telescope lens, helps us remember to focus on the consequences of feedback. Did the feedback improve student learning?”

Model giving and using feedback yourself.
Teach students where feedback comes from.
Teach students self- and peer-assessment skills.
Increase students’ interest in feedback because they own

Beliefs About Learning Feedback

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Student Voice and Choice: A Few Teacher/Learner Considerations

by Fran

Here is an excerpt from a teacher’s point of view about student voice. For me, this raises a lot of questions:

How do age/grade level impact student voice/choice?

How are choice and teacher mandates (CCSS, for example) related?

How does knowing “what it means to learn” influence student voice/choice.

Here is one starting place – from a high school teacher’s point of view:

Do We Give Students Too Much Choice? By Brian Field

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/08/24/do-we-give-students-too-much-choice.html

August 23, 2016

A few brief excerpts:

There is an increased focus on student choice in K-12 education today. This focus has created more student-centered classrooms that use problem-based learning and differentiation of instruction to give students agency in what and how they learn. As a high school teacher, I understand why teachers feel the necessity to cater to all of their students’ strengths by providing opportunities for student choice. But, as schools try to incorporate student-centered initiatives into the classroom, there is often a lack of critical consideration for the potentially negative effects increased choice may have on student learning…..

The new question now becomes: What degree of choice should we have? Though these studies apply to retail, they have grounds in the field of education regarding student choice. As these studies help to show, the current debate surrounding this classroom strategy is not whether students should have choice, but to what degree student choice is effective…..

I have learned in my own experiences that effective feedback takes copious amounts of time when all students complete the same assignment—and the greater variety of student choice only increases that time. There needs to be a balance between an appropriate amount of student choice and the ability of the teacher to impart the feedback necessary to reach maximum student growth in a timely manner….

Beliefs About Learning Collaborative Learning Dialogue Executive Function Individual Differences Learning How to Learn Meta Teachers Student Voices Voices and Choices

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Connecting Student Voice, Thinking and Learning

by Fran

A few more of the links from the Reading Sage post on Oracy

http://reading-sage.blogspot.com/2017/02/developing-oracy-with-daily-dialogue.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ReadingSageReviews+%28Reading+Sage+Reviews%29

Just a few of many links on oracy from the Reading Sage posting

Oracy in the Classroom: Strategies for Effective Talk | Edutopia Oracy in the Classroom: Strategies for Effective Talk | Edutopia
Teaching oracy means putting more intention behind how you guide and organize your students’ talk. When they gather for group work or …

Oracy: The Literacy of the Spoken Word | Edutopia
Teaching oracy is instrumental to better reading and, in particular, writing. In developmental terms, humans acquire oral language first — a …

Oracy Assessment Toolkit : Faculty of Education
In recent years, there has been a growing recognition of the need to help young people develop their abilities to use spoken language effectively. Employers …
Teaching oracy means putting more intention behind how you guide and organize your students’ talk. When they gather for group work or …

Beliefs About Learning Collaborative Learning Dialogue Executive Function Learning How to Learn Student Voices

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