Today host Lori Boll speaks with Mitch Weathers, creator of The Organized Binder. Mitch created this binder to empower teachers with a simple but research-backed strategy to teach students executive functioning skills while protecting the time needed for content instruction. Lori & Mitch discuss how establishing a predictable learning routine for our students serves to foster safer learning spaces and how shared routines throughout an entire school helps create collective efficacy.

Mitch became a gifted teacher because he was a mediocre student.

Mitch rarely felt comfortable in the classroom. In fact, it took him 7 years for him to graduate from college.

Choosing to become a teacher, Mitch was fortunate enough to experience school as if it was happening all around him. He was unsure how to jump into his learning with confidence. There is a loneliness to experiencing your education as a passive object as opposed to an active subject.

From the moment he entered the classroom Mitch relied on his personal experiences as a learner. He recognized that what we teach, the content or curriculum, is secondary. We must first lay the foundation for learning before we can get to teaching.

Mitch designed Organized Binder to empower teachers with a simple but research-backed strategy to teach students executive functioning skills while protecting the time needed for content instruction. The secret is found in establishing a predictable learning routine that serves to foster safer learning spaces. When students get practice with executive functions by virtue we set them up for success.