Metacognition (Executive Functioning Skills) - metacognition is an awareness of your own thoughts. But how do you teach students to be aware of this? You provide them structure to be able to think about their thinking. This is anything from gaining a greater awareness of oneself by figuring out how you learn best, to seeing your thought process by showing your work, reflecting upon work you have already done to determine what went well and what could have been improved.

Perseverance/Grit (Executive Functioning Skills) - perseverance is the ability to follow through or to push through when faced with obstacles. This is something we would like all of our students to have when coming to the classroom, but how deliberate are we about teaching such skills. This tutorial provides some very specific strategies or activities on how to be purposeful in creating a classroom culture where grit is encouraged and fostered.

Planning (Executive Functioning Skills) - We always expect students to have a plan, but do we always show them how to do it? What if we were more deliberate about teaching students how you plan out a long term project, or a study schedule for an upcoming test, or even their workload for the current day? Tools and strategies are shared here for teaching to help students understand what goes into planning and why there is value in it.

Organization (Executive Functioning Skills) - there are many aspects to organization for a student at school. There is their schoolwork, their materials, their personal belongings, their time, and their thoughts. We explore several strategies for how a students might go about organizing these things so that they can effectively work on what it is there are supposed to be which is learning.

Task initiation (Executive Functioning Skills) - you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Similarly, you can give a student a task, but it doesn't mean they are going to get started on it. How do we teach kids to avoid procrastination and to get started on their work in a timely manner? These ten strategies are ways you might consider deliberately teaching this skill to your students.

Time Management (Executive Functioning Skills) - you can plan and organize yourself all you want, but if you are unable to manage the time you are allotted, nothing is going to get done. Teachers either micromanage a student's time so much that the students do not learn to do this for themselves, or we give them a big block of time with no guidance for how to manage it. What if instead we gave them some guidance for how to manage their time and then the space to do so?

Focus (Executive Functioning Skills) - none of the other executive functioning skills work effectively if a student is not able to focus. Developing this skill through setting the environment, having teacher clarity, and being aware of mindfulness are just some of the strategies shared in order to build the focus endurance of your students.

Self Control/Regulation (Executive Functioning Skills) - are you unable to keep your emotions in check? Can you not resist the urge to do something when it tempts you? Do you find yourself blurting out answers the second they pop into your head? If the answer is yes to any of these you might have a self-control/self-regulation issues. This is either not giving in when something distracts your focus or being able to deescalate yourself when you are getting emotionally worked up. Some think this has to do with maturity, but self-control/regulation are skills that can be taught if they are deliberate in the classroom. Shared are 10 strategies for doing just that.

Flexibility (Executive Functioning Skills) - all of the other executive functioning skills do not really work if you are not flexible with your thinking. Your plans change, the time management is wrecked by an assembly, and trying to keep your focus might be affected by circumstances beyond your control. You have to adapt and be flexible when things do not go how you intended them to. This is not just the classroom, this is life. How then do you purposefully teach children to have flexibility? Strategies, activities, and tips abound in this unfiltered and unedited Todd Talk tries to demonstrate how one must me flexible.

Overview of Executive Functioning Skills - Executive functioning skills are the things that successful people do on a daily basis which leads to their achievement. It includes skills such as task initiation, planning, attention, and time management. These are skills we expect many of our students to possess, but how deliberately do we teach them? This will give you a basic overview of 10 executive functioning skills and how they might be taught in the classroom. This introduces a series of Todd Talks which will dive into each one of these in more detail.