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ADHD and Executive Function: The Power of Positive Routines

October 15, 2019 Leave a Comment

Most parents and educators are already aware that an ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) diagnosis can correlate to significant academic challenges for students of all ages. From mindfulness to medication, there are lots of solutions out there for families looking to support their students’ success at school. But for kids with ADHD diagnoses to really shine, strategies at home are just as important as classroom strategies. Executive function techniques are a great way to build at-home supports for students dealing with ADHD, and it can be particularly helpful to focus on developing positive routines that make students’ lives more predictable. Here are three kinds of positive routines to consider if your child has an ADHD diagnosis:

1. Take charge of tools

Binders, backpacks, and plain old stuff can be enormous stumbling blocks for children with ADHD. Homework gets buried under sports gear; permission slips get crumpled into instrument cases; bags fill up with unneeded books until they’re too heavy to lift. Building positive routines around backpacks, binders, and anything else your student carries to and from school can be a powerful way to corral all the mess and minimize distractions from actual schoolwork. Make a daily rundown of these items part of your child’s routine; the idea is to glance—quickly!—at each item in each container and practice making decisions about where each one belongs. In general, it’s helpful for kids to think in terms of three categories:

Stays where it is;
Goes somewhere else (like a storage bin at home, back to the school library, or into the laundry);
Gets thrown away (or recycled).

Even just sorting into these simple categories can go a long way toward helping students with ADHD learn basic executive function skills. What’s more, there’s lots of room here for students to customize this routine. Some students might want to do this right after school; some might prefer after dinner. Some students might want to keep pencils in a fancy case, while others are happy stowing them all in a backpack pocket. Some students might want to carry a book to read for fun with them at all times (never mind the extra weight!), and some will enjoy the challenge of keeping their bags as light as possible. There’s no one right way for students with ADHD to decide what to with all their stuff; rather, the important thing is that they do decide, and that doing so becomes a positive routine with an outcome that they value.

2. Make homework predictable

For many students who have ADHD diagnoses, the issue with homework isn’t academic content; it’s figuring out how to tackle the homework process itself. Staring down a pile of assignments and a packed planner can leave even strong students feeling anxious. One great solution for this issue is to work with your student on building a personalized, positive routine to structure the homework process. This kind of positive routine will be different for different kids, but no matter the specifics, an effective homework routine should help students answer three key questions:

Where do I start?
What comes next?
How do I know when I’m done?

Accordingly, a positive routine for homework should always start the same way. For most students, part of this starting phase will be looking over assignments and gathering up stray materials, but it will also include different components for different students. For example, it could mean getting a favorite snack or drink, settling into a familiar workspace, or turning on a white noise playlist. The more consistent, the better, but again, this kind of positive routine works best when the student has a real say in shaping it—that is, forcing a student to sit at a desk when they’d rather work on the floor usually won’t do much good. Then, the homework routine should also include a predicable way to organize assignments: Should the hardest assignment come first? The easiest? Or maybe the math assignment? For students with ADHD, knowing how to tackle assignments is as important as mastering content. Finally, be sure that the routine ends on a positive, consistent note; this could be as simple as putting a sticker on the date in the student’s planner. Again, the idea is to reduce stress and demands on the the student’s attention by making homework as predictable as possible.

3. Expect the unexpected

Daily routines are great for students with ADHD, but it’s just as important to build positive routines into your student’s long-term planning. ADHD can sometimes cause students to get caught up in day-to-day concerns, which only creates more stress when they realize they’ve forgotten to plan for a big project or event. Try picking a time once a week to guide your student in thinking through the big picture of the coming weeks and even months. As with the positive routines described above, it’s helpful to do this at a consistent time and place—Monday evenings after dinner, for example. During this conversation, you and your student (along with other members of the family as necessary) will want to look over the following resources:

The student’s personal planner;
The school’s calendar and online schedule tool (be sure your student is familiar with how their school’s web resources work!);
The family’s overall calendar.

By checking each of these resources (and any others that serve similar purposes) on a regular basis, your student won’t be unpleasantly surprised by that science project, basketball tournament, or long weekend out of town. What’s more, this positive routine gives students a chance to plan out necessary steps ahead of time (like buying supplies for the project)—which can in turn give them an increased sense of mastery over their lives. Planning is empowering, and with practice, most students will learn to stick with this positive routine even without guidance from parents.

School can be daunting for students with ADHD, but by building these simple, positive routines outside the classroom, they’ll have another valuable tool for reducing stress and increasing focus.

Hannah Sheldon-Dean, MSW, is a private tutor and executive functions coach for My Learning Springboard.

Annotate Digital Texts Successfully

June 19, 2019 Leave a Comment

The Future of Reading

Taking notes is important when reading academic material whether the text is digital or analog. There is a growing group of young minds, particularly generation Z (born between 1995 and 2012) who prefer consuming content exclusively on digital devices. Not all of these students annotate digital texts efficiently. This generation is the first born completely immersed in the internet and its associated channels and devices. The phone, tablet, and e-reader have become integrated with their lifestyles choices, almost like extensions of their bodies. Paper and pen is now often optional. For a student and parent, there are immense benefits in consuming content on digital devices. Textbooks are usually cheaper if downloaded and also extremely portable. I remember the days when I had to carry ten pounds worth of textbooks in my school bag. Now more and more academic institutions are even switching over to tablets and laptops for content consumption. When I see students consuming content digitally, for some students there are challenges with new information being easily retained and accessed. This becomes very important when writing research papers when items in the text may need to be annotated. Fortunately, with a little planning (and a piece of paper) it’s not too difficult to ensure students annotate digital texts efficiently and access the information they need.

Annotation Tips and Tricks on Kindle and other Tablet devices

E-readers such as the Kindle allow students to annotate digital texts through the highlighting feature and type in a note on the device. It’s later centrally stored and easy to access. However, this not always enough. When reading a print book, you can underline text, write some comments in the margin and even stick a small post-it note on the page. This ensures that the essence of the underline is remembered and immediately accessible. On a digital device, even though highlighting is possible, it can become time-consuming to type notes.

Kindle’s on-screen keyboard may be cumbersome to type notes for some students.

Recently I worked with two students reading the same book for class. One had the print version and the other had the Kindle. The first student was able to quickly use his pencil to underline text and write notes in the margin. The second student had to do a variety of swipes and presses and then carefully type in his notes in the rather clunky digital interface. However, there is a workaround to inputting text into the kindle device. Amazon has a digital notebook you can access on your computer with all the books downloaded and synced. All the student’s bookmarks and highlights are catalogued here and it’s very easy to copy and paste for quotations. Whenever you make a highlight in your Kindle device, it synchronizes the same text to your digital notebook. You can enter notes associated with every highlight in a corresponding text box online. This is usually faster than inputting on the kindle device with two thumbs. However, this means that you have to read with your Kindle and laptop, which might be off-putting and distracting for some students. Amazon does offer Kindle users the ability to read their books on their computers through a downloadable desktop application. The app has the same intuitive reading experience as on the Kindle device. But taking notes is still cumbersome in regards to accessibility. Once a student begins writing their assignment, it sometimes takes a while for them to find the information they are looking for in a very long text. Is there an alternative? Yes! There is. We recommend maintaining a master annotation sheet indexing all highlights in one location. A simple piece of paper is instantly accessible. For literary works with many chapters it can take much less time than accessing the corresponding highlights digitally. This is our little hack so students annotate digital texts more efficiently.

Using the Master Annotation Sheet

Digital annotation is very easy. We recommend the student split the paper in half longitudinally. In the first column, they write the chapter and letter pertaining to annotation. The number is for the corresponding chapter and the letter is for each idea. So three annotations in chapter 3 would look something like this:

3A Death of the queen

3B Riots in the streets

3C First kiss tension

Having this master sheet saves time for the student when they are writing their paper. They can quickly find the chapter and section highlighted, corresponding to the idea they would like to elaborate on.

Many students prefer to read on digital text and if it encourages students to read more, that’s a good thing. The Kindle is a powerful device with it’s built in dictionary and vocabulary builder. When you look up words definitions, they are automatically added to the vocabulary builder on the device. With vocabulary builder, you can use digital flashcards to later practice remembering these definitions. Most importantly, it is critical to make sure students can remember what they read and can easily access that information as effortlessly as possible. By having a little “old school” annotation sheet, they have a foolproof method to annotate digital texts and ensure their research writing is as efficient and effortless as possible.

By My Learning Springboard Editorial Team

Netiquette, part 2: Email Etiquette In College

May 2, 2019 Leave a Comment

Email Etiquette

Netiquette is the set of manners and expectations for writing on the Internet, but following specific email etiquette guidelines can help you communicate effectively. Your email messages make a difference; confusing, rude, or grammatically incorrect emails delay the response you need and want. Sometimes student emails are riddled with errors that make it difficult to understand their message; a lack of response may stem from the other person’s confusion. If messages lack greetings and signatures or crucial information, such as the name and time of the class, the person may not know how to respond. When messages are abrupt or excessively friendly, they may come across as disrespectful. Each of these formatting and wording choices must be carefully considered with regard to email etiquette.

Consider Your Emails to Avoid Bias

Research shows that a lot of students are less formal with female professors or professors of color; a classic on this subject is Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia by Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Carmen G. González, and Angela P. Harris. Young female professors of color get particularly personal treatment, often called by their first names without inviting students to do so, among other awkward social interactions.

Student bias is sadly present and students need to watch for it, just as professors are required to judge their students independently. Though a 2016 study reported in Educational Researcher found that students generally liked faculty of color, their appreciation did not necessarily translate into professional respect according to the authors, Hua-Yu Cherng and Peter F. Halpin. Many studies show student prejudice against the professional acumen of faculty based on perceptions of gender, race, and sexual identity.

These biases are culturally instituted and we all have to work to overcome them. They occur in school and they occur in the workplace. Learning to recognize your own unconscious prejudices is awkward in the beginning. It feels “unnatural.” That’s okay. You are learning new habits of treating any faculty member, or boss, with the respect they deserve for their position and knowledge, rather than for their superficial qualities. It will become “natural” one day, too. Check how you engage with all faculty, treating each one with respect, and you will avoid an awkward encounter with a female colleague or manager of color later when you are working and your behavior can directly impact your career.

Since email is a place where we rush, biased attitudes slip out most easily there. Many faculty enforce email etiquette guidelines in order to help students establish useful lifelong habits; they may require that you rewrite the email before offering a response to your query, for example. Review your emails to ensure you didn’t slip into any language that wasn’t appropriate for the class and the relationship you have with the professor.

You likely know how to write an email, but in the mad rush of college assignments and demands, it becomes very easy to forget email etiquette basics. Don’t.

Formula for Writing an Email

Recipient (“to”). In school, when you write your professors, you likely have no reason to include anyone else. If you “cc” (copy) people on a message, then you are suggesting they need to know about this communication, but are not expected to reply as it does not directly concern them. Avoid “bcc” (blind copy) unless you have a very good and clear reason for including that person without any one else knowing about it.

Subject line. Your subject line tells your reader what to expect. You often need to go back and edit the subject after you’ve finished the email to update the topic, similar to changing the title of an essay when you are done. No matter what, don’t leave the subject line blank.

Salutation. Don’t skip the greeting. It helps your readers know if the email is meant for them. Avoid being casual if you are starting an email communication; after going back and forth, it becomes acceptable if the person in a position of authority does it first. Even so, be careful not to become more casual than they have.

Introduction. Make sure your readers know who you are, how you’ve met, or how you know them. Administrators work with hundreds, if not thousands of students every day, and some professors teach as many as four or five classes every semester, tracking well over a hundred students, many of whom are in different sections of the same class. Asking readers to figure out who you are, puts your email at the bottom of their to-do pile.

Message. Explain your situation as succinctly as possible. If you have a complicated situation, are replying to an email request for information, or are responding to a series of questions, then consider putting the information in a list, separating points in paragraphs, or somehow dividing each element from the rest. Edit your response when you are done to see if you can make it clearer.

Request. Make your question, request, or need clear. If you need documentation of some kind, state the names of the documents you need. If you want to know something, ask for it; don’t write “I can’t find the info,” when you could write: “What time is the event?” Be direct but polite.

Signature. Always include some form of closing statement followed by a comma and your name on the next line. Avoid closing with demands like, “Please get back to me immediately” because not everyone has access to their email throughout the day and some professors schedule their email replies. A signature can include your email address, phone, Skype or Google ID, any social media handles, titles or positions you might hold on campus, and physical address. Avoid sentimental closings of any kind.

Charlotte Kent, PhD is a tutor and academic coach for My Learning Springboard. She has a textbook forthcoming for first year college students, Writing for College and Beyond: Life Lessons from the College Composition Classroom.

Related:
Netiquette, part 1: Social Media and Message Board Basics

Netiquette, part 1: Social Media and Message Board Basics

May 2, 2019 Leave a Comment

When the news media reported in 2017 that Harvard rescinded admission to 10 applicants after discovering inappropriate social media posts from those students, everyone realized that netiquette really does make a difference. Netiquette is the set of manners and expectations for writing on the Internet. How you communicate on message boards and social media matters.

Netiquette exists to help everyone interact with respect. Email and online messages offer the chance to communicate quickly from a distance. This immediacy created connections that were never possible before, but it also seems to let people express themselves more forcefully and thoughtlessly. Writing in the spur of the moment is dangerous, especially now when nothing posted online is ever really deleted, since people can share, screenshot, and recover anything. What seems funny in one instant may suddenly appear horrendously insensitive the next.

As you begin to apply for college, internships and your first jobs, your presentation online matters. Many companies now scan applicants’ social media presence as a part of the hiring process; 91% of hiring managers review an applicant’s social media profile according to Reppler’s 2011 survey of 300 Human Resources professionals. Time Magazine reported that 55% of hiring managers reconsidered a potential hire based on what they found online according to the 2014 edition of Jobvite’s annual Social Recruiting Survey. That same Jobvite survey discovered that 66% of hiring managers held poor spelling and grammar against candidates—not errors on their job applications, but on their social media posts! Be careful and thoughtful now to save yourself embarrassment later.

Many classes now use class message boards and social media sites (like Tumblr or Instagram) as a part of the work. Being curt or rude to other students, let alone the faculty member, on any class message board or social media site will hurt your relationships with everyone in the class. Even when frustrated, make sure you use correct grammar, clear sentence structure, and polite language. Proper netiquette helps you succeed.

Following netiquette guidelines ensures that people stop to think. Always ask yourself these three simple questions:

Is your statement true?
Does it help the situation?
Are you being kind?

The following recommendations consider the specific situations of class message boards and school social media activities, but they apply to private and personal interactions too.

If you are asking a question, always check to make sure the information isn’t already available. Look at previous posts, the assignment description, the syllabus and other materials. You don’t want to waste people’s time.
Be brief. Write what you need but then edit that to the minimum necessary for clarity.
Edit your statements by reorganizing information so that your points are clear and clustered together appropriately.
Thank people for their help by liking their comment or summarizing the helpful advice in one comment that both recognizes the feedback you got and makes it easier for others to review in the future.
Do not disrespect others. This one is obvious but needs reiterating because it happens far too frequently. Even if responding to someone who is callously disrespecting netiquette guidelines, do so politely. If you don’t, you simply reinforce that the loudest, most obnoxious behavior gets the final word.
Be careful with humor. Taking things out of context is easy to do online. Be careful with what you say so that others don’t take your comments in the wrong way.
Be generous in giving and receiving criticism. Imagine that everyone is trying to be helpful. Do the same.

Charlotte Kent, PhD is a tutor and executive functions coach for My Learning Springboard. She has a textbook forthcoming for first year college students, Writing for College and Beyond: Life Lessons from the College Composition Classroom.

Accessing College Accommodations

April 10, 2019 Leave a Comment

Once at college, students are responsible for managing any and all of their own academic and psychological paperwork. This responsibility is often a surprise and overwhelming for students and their families. For students to get the academic support they need surrounding any kind of learning challenge or learning disability requires documentation that only the student may submit. A parent can’t do it. College accommodations are so helpful but getting them requires that young adults plan ahead.

Confusion around the process of getting college accommodations is common and often creates problems. Parents may try to get the paperwork submitted on time, but too late learn that they can’t. Students may not realize that they are the ones who must manage the paperwork and schedule any required meetings as a part of their orientation process at their college and university. Confusion around college accommodation expectations means that many students wait too long to process paperwork, leading to delays that make the first semester unnecessarily complicated.

Some students avoid the process entirely because they believe they won’t need it or want to try life without the accommodations that have helped them so far. College accommodation paperwork being in place doesn’t mean that students are forced to use it. It does mean that when, and if, they do need it, everything is already in place. For example, one semester, a student managed everything without a hitch until the last crunch of exams and final research papers. At that point, having the official university document to present to faculty that detailed the permitted allowances helped the student to complete the semester successfully.

Faculty are told not to extend allowances without the proper college or university documentation. When faculty refuse to offer medical or academic support and extensions, they are not doing so to be difficult or unpleasant. They have to follow the rules, too. The college accommodations office formerly known for serving learning disabilities, but which increasingly is known as the Accessibility Office, has procedures in place to verify student needs and ensure that all students get the most and best support. When students don’t have the paperwork in place and ask for extensions, they are often not taking advantage of the full panoply of support systems available to them.

This first semester, when students establish their patterns at college, is an unfortunate period for students to experience unnecessary hurdles. Students who qualify for accommodations should have access to extra time for tests or assignments, or the necessary support for anxiety and studying without having to scramble in that moment of stress to get it. Getting college accommodation paperwork in place helps students create a successful foundation for their college experience.

A parent can help a student through this process during the summer before college starts by identifying the office where all this paperwork needs to happen and being supportive as the student learns to independently manage the process to gain any necessary accommodations. Parents can help by being present when the student calls, helping the student take note of any necessary documentation and forms, guiding the student through making appointments, and organizing forms for submission.

Coaching the student to be independent in this way ensures the greatest success later–the student knows who to contact and what to expect when issues arise during their academic years. College accommodations, whether titled the Office of Accessibility, or variations on that name, exists to help students become accomplished self-advocates. They often guide students to the various forms of support in place at the college.

Every school is different and that makes general guidelines difficult. Usually, however, students need documentation from a psychologist, psychiatrist, or physician as well as documentation from the high school to ensure students can register with the office. Once registered, the office provides the documentation for faculty, coaches, counselors, advisors, and others who may need to know in order to provide all necessary and reasonable support.

Start the process early. Don’t wait until orientation. Much of this can be done over the summer before school starts. Gathering official documentation from doctors and specialists can take time, and once received it needs to be processed. If any meetings or in-person signatures are necessary, make an appointment for the period during orientation. Waiting until arriving on campus to do everything often leads to confusion and lost documentation, as panicked families inundate the office and staff.

College accommodations exist to help students, faculty, coaches, and everyone at the college help the student succeed. Managing the process before college starts allows for the most seamless transition.

By Charlotte Kent, PhD, Private Tutor and Executive Function Coach, and Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and Curriculum and Instruction Specialist.

ADHD and Executive Function: The Power of Positive Routines

1. Take charge of tools

2. Make homework predictable

3. Expect the unexpected

Annotate Digital Texts Successfully

The Future of Reading

Annotation Tips and Tricks on Kindle and other Tablet devices

Using the Master Annotation Sheet

Netiquette, part 2: Email Etiquette In College

Email Etiquette

Consider Your Emails to Avoid Bias

Formula for Writing an Email

Related:
Netiquette, part 1: Social Media and Message Board Basics

Netiquette, part 1: Social Media and Message Board Basics

Related Post:
Netiquette, part 2: Email Etiquette In College

Accessing College Accommodations

Company Overview

Private Tutoring

Test Preparation

College Counseling

1. Take charge of tools

2. Make homework predictable

3. Expect the unexpected

The Future of Reading

Annotation Tips and Tricks on Kindle and other Tablet devices

Using the Master Annotation Sheet

Email Etiquette

Consider Your Emails to Avoid Bias

Formula for Writing an Email

Related: Netiquette, part 1: Social Media and Message Board Basics

Related Post: Netiquette, part 2: Email Etiquette In College

Company Overview

Private Tutoring

Test Preparation

College Counseling

Related:
Netiquette, part 1: Social Media and Message Board Basics

Related Post:
Netiquette, part 2: Email Etiquette In College