by Colleen Dischiave, Middle School Counselor and High School Placement Coordinator

 
The transition from Lower School to Middle School can be a tough one. After a two-month break during the carefree summer, students are suddenly expected to move from one room to another every hour, organize their school supplies in their own locker, meet and work with multiple teachers each day, keep their schedule straight from one day to the next, plan out long-term assignments, and still have time to act like adolescents. As you can imagine, that’s a lot to ask of 10-year-olds! Harder still is that we sometimes expect students to figure this out on their own without explicit instructions; can you imagine learning to complete quadratic equations without the guidance of your math teacher? Or learning MLA formatting without an example and instructions? The same applies to the skills needed for self-regulation and self-direction, otherwise known as executive function skills. These are the advanced skills needed for organization, time management, and task planning.

 
Recognizing that executive function skills are not easily acquired by all students, the ISB Middle School Team partnered with experts from NYU’s Child Study Center to help teach and develop these skills in Middle School students. We reached out to Dr. Elana Spira and Dr. Richard Gallagher, who have researched the effects of behavioral interventions to improve organization, time management, and planning (OTMP) in adolescents. These interventions showed reductions in homework-related problems, improvement in homework management, along with increased academic proficiency.

 
After professional development sessions with Dr. Spira and Dr. Gallagher, a system of organization and a set of lessons were developed for our students, based on the results of their research. Each Monday in advisory, all Middle School students learn about and practice OTMP skills through a series of lessons created by the NYU team. With these lessons, students are also given new tools to promote the OTMP skills they are developing through the lessons. An accordion file, rather than a three-ring binder, helps students keep track of their assignments and materials for each class. In addition, all students have a new planner with a daily assignment record for recording homework assignments and materials needed, as well as a long-term planning calendar to map out their upcoming assessments and events. The daily assignment record provides enough space to write down all the details of their homework, and the calendar provides a visual tool to remember assignments, and plan out students’ workload.   These small changes promote organization by eliminating cumbersome steps: when a student only has to slip a worksheet into a file slot, the likelihood that it will be lost is reduced. Our faculty has made changes to their practice as well. Teachers make sure to allow time and space for students to use their planners, write all homework assignments in a designated space in the classroom, and use additional tools and strategies to promote executive function skills in the classroom. These changes together help students learn the necessary skills to perform their best academically.

 
Our Middle School students are now more organized and are working toward better management of their time and plans for their formative and summative assessments.  As a school, we’ve recognized how important it is to teach these skills to our students and have worked hard to partner with leaders in the field to make sure we are able to do so effectively. If you have questions about executive function skills in adolescents, or would like to find out more information on how to promote these skills at home, please consult the recommended resources list at the bottom of this post, or reach out to our Middle School Counselor, Colleen Dischiave.

Resources:

Organizational Skills Training for Children with ADHD: An Empirically Supported Treatment Gallagher, Abikoff, Spira (2014)

Remediating Organizational Functioning in Children with ADHD: Immediate and Long-Term Effects from a Randomized Controlled Trial Abikoff, Gallagher, et al (2013)

Smart but Scattered Teens Guare, Dawson, Guare (2013)

Executive Function 101 Prepared by The National Center for Learning Disabilities