Executive Functions - Keys to Success - Middle School

Focusing on skills for success that are often not taught in class, this course uses interactive games and activities to teach students the important role executive functions play in navigating school and life with success. Students explore each of the following Executive Functions:

• Organization
• Planning
• Prioritization
• Time Management
• Flexible Thinking
• Response Inhibition
• Stress Tolerance
• Working Memory
• Metacognition
• Emotional Regulation
• Sustained Attention

Students discover their own strengths and needs and learn to apply a wide variety of strategies and tools to support the development of their executive functions. Through SMART goal-setting and action planning, students are in the driver's seat of their own success, learning to self-advocate for their learning needs.

Students get excited to learn that executive functions help us even when we are playing board games, sports and other activities we enjoy doing in our spare time. Students leave the course understanding more about who they are as a learner and person, understanding that we all have challenges with some executive functions, and realizing that there are many supports that exist to help all of us. When students create their own unique toolkit of strategies, they hold their own recipe for success in school and in life.