Executive Functions Archives

Online Learning: Supporting College Students

March 21, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

Some college students may rejoice to hear their classes have shifted to online learning, but the social context for that change remains stressful and it is a mistake to think that classes will be easier online. For students still in dorms, the distractions are endless. For students living back home, distractions and adjustments to family life contribute to the disruption. With the radical switch that most face as their instructors turn to remote learning, college students need to accept a greater level of responsibility for their education, all while being more patient with others and themselves.

The health crisis that is leading to self-selected quarantines and university closures is a massive change for everybody. Accept some disruptions as your instructors overhaul courses for online learning. Some may struggle with platforms they have largely avoided. Others may need to reimagine their course content. All are facing a barrage of updates on policies and practices and having to adjust accordingly. Some students are comfortable with online learning, while others aren’t. Some have impairments that complicate their access and use of virtual platforms. Patience with professors and classmates will help during the transition period into online learning for the rest of the semester.

Switching to online learning means being entirely self-regulated and governed. Plan study sessions for each subject. Dedicate a few hours throughout the week. Letting work accumulate becomes overwhelming and that stress leads to abandoning projects. Marathon sessions are not effective. Short but regular engagement works best. Put your study time into a calendar and stick with it because falling behind is very easy. In higher ed, professors don’t provide the same level of support that high schools do. College students need to be responsible for managing their time, their work, and their success.

Even if you are comfortable researching and working online, even if most of your assignments and tests required online posts, switching to exclusive online learning introduces new management expectations. Each week, instructors may use their educational platform (like Canvas or Blackboard) to assign a plethora of small assignments: videos with internal quizzes, discussion boards, textbook reading as well as articles posted to the site, automated quizzes, conference meetings, and much more. Keeping track is hard. Set aside a weekly period to look through your online course site and identify what you need to do. Some work may not have due dates, but your professor will expect you to complete it in advance of tackling other work. List all the work expectations, and track what needs to be done in a notebook or calendar.

Doing all the work for one class on one day typically fails. Some classes will require multiple posts a week. Cramming information makes it easier to forget. With online learning, there is less repetition of content so focus on any activity and extracting necessary details becomes even more important. The instructor won’t be there in class to revisit core ideas and answer questions, or simply respond to those heavy silences when students are unsure. If you know you don’t understand something, request a virtual meeting with the professor or TA. If the content appears in the subsequent week and you still don’t understand it, then you must address the situation immediately or face the likelihood of falling too many steps behind the material.

Recognize that the new types of work may require learning new platforms. Schedule extra time to complete assignments in case the system is not what you thought it would be. Watch tutorials and ask classmates for tips. Connect with other students through a video platform to work together. It can help as long as the work stays the focus.

The other side of the quarantine is feeling severed from friends. The isolation isn’t simply about being alone but about losing the kind of heartfelt contact that ‘hanging out’ provides. Video chats help a lot but everyone is on different schedules and connecting doesn’t always work. Just like scheduling study time, schedule chats with close friends or make group dates. Decide to have coffee together in the morning or to all eat the same thing. That small gesture can feel bonding.

For those at home again, after becoming accustomed to managing your own life, daily interactions with parents can create stress and discord within the family. Everyone is trying to adjust. The best way to show your parents that you have the maturity to study, eat, and sleep when you want is to listen patiently to their concerns and stay on top of your work. Recognize that they are likely adjusting to your lifestyle, too, and trying to make room for it in their own. If everyone finds a little more patience with each other, especially when we feel it the least, then as adults in these trying times we will get through.

By Charlotte Kent, Ph.D. and Private Tutor, and Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and Learning Specialist

Online Learning: Supporting Teachers

March 21, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

e-Tutoring and Online Learning:

With the Covid-19 crisis gripping the country, there have been major changes to everyday life: social distancing, cancelled schools, closed businesses and deep economic uncertainty. These changes are having profound impacts on education as teachers, schools, and students are forced to adjust to e-Tutoring and online learning. This shift can be challenging, thus we’ve organized a number of suggestions to help smooth the transition and aid educators in providing a positive learning environment for students in these difficult times.

Logistics and Tech:

For e-Tutoring and online learning, there are a few technological essentials. First, you need a mode of clear audio and visual communication with your student and luckily there are plenty of options! Services such as Skype, Facetime, Google Hangouts, or Zoom all provide free video conferencing. Additionally, it’s important to make sure that both you and your student have reliable internet access and a quiet location to work. Communicating digitally inherently presents a barrier and it is crucial to remove any additional distractions; lagging calls, freezing screens or a barking dog can all damage the effectiveness of your session.

Also, it is important to have some manner of a shared workspace with your student for online learning. We recommend a shared white board program such as Groupboard, or the screen sharing available in Zoom. For math subjects, it is essential to be able to work through problems visually together; a Wacom writing tablet (or similar type) will also speed up your ability to draw diagrams and write out equations. For English and grammar exercises, however, it may be preferable to work in a shared Google Doc. Your choice of shared workspace may change with your student’s needs, so it is prudent to become comfortable with a few different options. Simply put, writing out diagrams on paper and holding them up to the camera is not the most efficient or effective way to communicate with your student.

Finally, regardless of how you plan to communicate with your student, it is important to make these decisions before you start your online learning. This will give you time to ensure that both you and your student have access to and familiarity with whatever technology is required. You want to avoid spending ten minutes of your session trying to guide your student through the functioning of a Google Doc, unless the purpose is digital coaching a tutorial of this platform or tool.

Reducing Friction from Online Learning:

When e-Tutoring and delivering online instruction, it is essential that you and your student both have copies of the material. We recommend having a dedicated channel for file sharing. Whether it is an email thread, text chain or the chat option in your video conferencing program, you both need to know how information and documents will be sent. Then, if you need to add a worksheet to your lesson plan or send over another round of practice problems, you won’t waste valuable time logging into emails or sending links to the wrong place.

Additionally, if you are not using software that includes screen sharing, you should vocalize every time you change tabs. While it may seem obvious to you that you’ve moved from the digital white board back to the worksheet, if you do not explicitly tell your student, they may not change tabs with you and get lost. Each time you and your student are not aligned, you risk disrupting the flow of the lesson.

Finally, if a student is completing any homework offline, you need to ensure that you have a way to view it. This can be achieved with a document camera during the session, or by having the student scan their work and email it to you before the session. If students don’t have a typical scanner, they can take a photo and email, text, or upload it to a designated spot.

Maintaining Student Interest:

Because you will lack many of the non-verbal cues that indicate if a student is engaged with online learning, it is harder to know that your student is paying attention during a remote session. In order to keep them interested, it is key to have the student actively participating in the session. You should constantly ask questions and have the student rephrase any information you provide in their own words. Remember, the moment you are talking and your student is not, they may have opened another tab or drifted into a dream world.

Additionally, because you are no longer in the room with your student, you should aim to ratchet up your enthusiasm. Learning from a screen can feel stiff compared to learning in person, so it is up to you to compensate for that gap with fun and purposeful activities, a positive attitude and consistent energy.

Flexibility of Session Length and Schedule:

Because online learning doesn’t require travel, it allows you to be more flexible with your schedule. Breaking up a full-length session into two smaller sessions or scheduling short follow ups are now options that you can offer your students. Be creative! You can now schedule a session to outline an essay and another one to edit the final draft, or three thirty-minute sessions to do math drills and review content consistently throughout the week.

Providing Normalcy and Minimizing Disruption:

Given the current disruption to your students’ school life, you should check in on how they are handling the transition in their schools. Your students may have issues with their new remote classrooms and you can help them develop strategies to learn more effectively. This can be an ideal opportunity to model problem solving behavior; rather than prescribing solutions, use targeted questions to help guide your students to strategies on their own.

Additionally, be open to feedback. Ask your students about how your remote sessions are going and try to incorporate their suggestions. Check in about what they like and don’t like about online learning and be willing to adapt your approach to their needs.

Finally, in the midst of this crisis, online learning will act as an emotional support to your students. This is bound to be a trying time for your students; their daily routines, education and social life are all in upheaval. By continuing to provide the same warm, reassuring presence that you bring to your in-person sessions, you can be an important anchor of normalcy in their life. The very fact that you are taking additional steps to meet with them in the midst of a crisis signals your commitment to their education and general well-being — it will not be overlooked.

By Jacob Backer, Private Tutor, and Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and Learning Specialist

Writing Fluency and Typing Speed

November 26, 2019 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

Great writers are crafters of mental imagery, masters of linguistics, and drivers of dialogue. When we think about those who write and write well, we describe their poetic word choice, their lucid description, and their unparalleled ability to put unspeakable ideas into print. It is the content of their writing that causes us to return again and again to their texts — the journalist who humanizes a campaigning politician in their profile or the mystery writer who moves the plot closer to crescendo with nothing more than a few turns of phrase between characters. We read, laud, and teach the craft and content of writing to our students with the same revery, encouraging them to use “juicy words” and “vivid description.” But, we are doing ourselves and our students a disservice by not discussing one of the most important skills writers share: their writing fluency.

We infrequently think about writing fluency or typing speed. It is an understood, but rarely talked about, building block to becoming a proficient and skilled writer. Furthermore, few schools systematically include handwriting instruction or typing instruction in their curriculum. Students are expected to somehow build fluency as both writers and typists without the sufficient, and fundamentally necessary, direct instruction and structured practice to achieve proficiency. The groundwork to a writer’s craftsmanship and skillfulness is their ability to expeditiously put pen to paper. Fluency is the silent key to every writer’s success. Not only do fluent writers get their ideas on paper quickly, but by writing or typing with automaticity, they free up mental resources that allow them to become more efficient and adaptable writers, editing and revising as they work, weaving analysis and sophistication into their work without worrying about the mechanical movements of the writing process.

Research and brain science support writing fluency as a key to writing success. Our working memory, the command center of our thoughts, is hardwired for efficiency. Efficiency comes at a cost, however. Our working memory can only hold about 7 pieces of information at a time (Miller, 1956). For the fluent writer, these seven pieces of information being stored could be poetic phrases, the framework for a multi-sentence paragraph, or pieces of plot twisting dialogue between two characters. For the novice writer who is still attending to the mechanics of writing or typing, these seven slots are quickly filled by thinking about how to form the letter m or where to find the comma on the keyboard. They simply do not have the working memory resources to attend to crafting engaging content while struggling to mechanically form letters with their pen or on the keyboard. Research on handwriting speed supports this and, in studies, increased transcription speed positively correlated to the overall quality of writing (Peverly, 2006). Fluent writers are ultimately better writers.

So, while we anecdotally and empirically understand the need for writing fluency and typing automaticity, it is often left unaddressed in the standard writing curriculum. Students learn craft and content and writing fluency is expected to develop along the way. For some, it naturally does and they become quick and accurate writers and typists. But, for those students who struggle to incidentally learn the efficient mechanics of writing and typing, their dysfluency continues to hold them back from developing a stronger repertoire of writing skills.

Luckily, writing fluency and typing automaticity can be developed with a little time and attention (and perhaps, even some fun!). Here are some ideas for how you can build you student’s typing and writing fluency:

Try out some engaging apps and computer programs that work to build mechanical automaticity in handwriting or typing. Typingclub.com offers free typing lessons and games. Apps like iTrace and Writing Wizard teach students letter formation on your iPad. Typing fluency can be achieved in no time while playing games! As your student becomes a more proficient typer, try a keyboard cover to make it more challenging!
Find a penpal: Writing is purpose driven. For the emerging typist, set up an email account and find a responsive recipient. Regular email correspondence to a favorite aunt or faraway friend from camp is a motivating force to sit down and type. This is true of the budding writer as well. Pick out some fun letter paper and make the walk to the mailbox a regular routine. Fluency builds when there is high motivation to write with length and strength to a loved one!
Lists, lists everywhere!: Make your student the captain of your household list keeping, either on paper or in a word document. Shopping lists are always a great excuse to write. But, there are plenty of reasons to make a list. Places to Visit, Questions About Outer Space, and the Definitive Ranking of Ice Cream Flavors make for great conversations and even better list writing.
Start a family blog or journal: Communal projects are a great way to build camaraderie and to sneak in some writing! Start a family journal or blog. Each family member can write a quick paragraph about their week with a snapshot. Your student will be excited to read and contribute, building their writing fluency as they go!

By Marisa Krohn, Ed. M. and Learning Specialist, and Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and Certified Educational Planner

Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63(2), 81-97.

Peverly, S.T. (2006) The Importance of Handwriting Speed in Adult Writing. Developmental Neuropsychology, 29, 197-216.

Keys to Selective Attention and Goal Attainment

November 3, 2019 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

Activation, intention, and inhibition are essential cognitive functions for selective attention. Regardless of the task, the level of access to and employment of these cognitive functions will affect the level of effectiveness and efficiency in achieving a goal. Selective attention depends on alertness toward a task, the intention toward that purpose, and filtering out of unintended and irrelevant distractors.

From the moment that we awaken in the morning to the moment that we fall asleep at night, we are continuously processing information with varying degrees of awareness and action. Our sensory systems are bombarded by external sensory stimuli while our ongoing ‘internal tapes’ are running, rapidly shifting at a dizzying pace as we walk through our day. As we mature from childhood into young adulthood, our neurobiology assists us in developing functional capacities for self-regulation for effective cognitive and adaptive functioning. For students at varying levels of development, the process of meeting expectations over the course of a day requires balancing and managing the processes associated with activation, intention, attention, and inhibition relative to one’s age expectations.

We first need to be neurobiologically ready, alerting and activating our internal system toward an intention (e.g. “I am alert and ready to go!”). Intention is a cognitive construct that is associated with a plan of action toward a goal (e.g. “I have 30 minutes to complete this task.”). Intention needs to be specific and targeted in order to achieve a goal so as not to diffuse the available resources for selective attention (e.g. “During the next 30 minutes, I need to read 10 pages of text and answer questions 1 – 5). Intention is essentially partnered with selective attention and inhibition, passing along a continuum that proceeds from the passive process of intention to the active process of selective attention and simultaneous inhibition. Attention is a central, intentional, and controlled process for managing our perceptions and integrating a process into memory as well as a peripheral, automatic process that is derived from already learned and internalized functions that do not require resources for selective attention. We engage in both central and peripheral attentional processes all throughout the day, likely unaware of the more peripheral attentional processes that help us simply get through the day (e.g. engaging in behavioral routines; employing skills that have become automatized [keyboarding]). It is the central, controlled process of selective attention that needs to be preceded by activation and intention, and needs to be coupled with inhibition. As such, the flip side of active focused attention is active suppression of irrelevant stimuli. Selectively directing our attention to a particular stimulus is associated with exciting particular neural networks associated with the process, sparing the need for excitation of neural networks in those regions of the brain that are not associated with the targeted stimuli. Thus, each process along the noted continuum requires effort and rehearsal in order to selectively focus and sustain attention effectively and consistently.

The greater the intention toward selective attention to the task at hand (rather than divided attention [i.e. multi-tasking]), the greater the need for inhibiting and filtering out the competing distractors. If you think about how a camera lens may zoom in and out of visual focus or how varying levels of volume and clarity of sound impact auditory focus, you can imagine how the need for greater specificity of intention and selective attention requires greater suppression of the diffusion and distribution of the ‘noise’ or distracting background. The broader the area of focus, the greater the loss of clarity.

Thus, suppressing distractors, both external distractors (e.g. sounds and sights in a classroom) and internal distractors (e.g. happy thoughts [“Can’t wait until I can play xxxxx”]; intrusive and anxious thoughts [“I don’t remember anything that I studied last night!”; “I hope that the teacher does not call on me.”]) is critical in order to achieve selective attention and to sustain attention. The ever-increasing need to use electronics to perform academic tasks are unfortunately accompanied by ever-increasing externalized distractors that can also precipitate internalized distractors, and together, can sabotage one’s intention, attention, and inhibitory control necessary for task completion. One’s ability to inhibit these distractors requires awareness of the potential for the negative impact, the intent to suppress the distractors, and modification of one’s environment to minimize the impact (e.g. turning off electronics; class seating placement; use of cognitive inserts [“Focus! Get started! Don’t stop!”; “I’ll try my best.”; “I can do this!”.).

Thus, one’s ability to carry out these essential self-modulation functions depends on one’s level of maturation and development, individual differences in one’s neurobiological makeup, nature of the task, underlying skill development (i.e. content skills and executive functions) necessary for task completion, activation to the task, level of interest, investment, and confidence, specificity and selectivity of attention, duration of time needed, and the level, number, and intensity of the distractors.

As can be seen, the continuum associated with activation, intention, selective attention, and inhibition is a complicated sequence that requires intact neurobiology as well as a balance and integration of the factors noted above in order to set and achieve a goal with ease, efficiency, and consistency. Throughout the course of a day, students are confronted with demands for engaging in these self-modulation processes in order to process information, learn, retrieve information, and meet expectations toward achieving their goals.

Signs that reflect problems of activation, intention, attention, and inhibitory control vary from individual to individual. They may include but are not limited to:

Having difficulty waking up, efficiently getting through morning routines, and getting out the door;
Appearing sluggish in class even after a good night’s sleep;
Having difficulty following instructions and needing repetition;
Having difficulty initially attending to and initiating task according to the task demand;
Having difficulty waiting and sitting still, quietly, and in one’s seat;
Having difficulty listening to, sustaining attention, understanding, and retaining information presented;
Having difficulty focusing when reading and needing to reread;
Making the same mistakes over and over again;
Having difficulty completing tasks and doing so in a timely manner.

Watching out for these signs and determining the breadth and level of severity of the signs that may inhibit or interfere with a student’s academic and adaptive functioning will help dictate the need for support to enhance those functions. It is important to determine whether or not the nature and level of concern regarding selective attention and related cognitive functions warrant a formal assessment conducted by a psychologist or psychiatrist to guide specific supplemental support services and/or treatments, eligibility for academic accommodations, or a change in academic placement. It is also important to keep in mind that regardless of a student’s intellectual capacities, significant self-modulation difficulties can exist and can be accompanied by learning difficulties, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Thus, it is also critical to monitor for accompanying vulnerabilities that may further complicate a student’s profile and capacity for self-modulation relative to developmental expectations. As always, early identification and support provide a student with increased opportunities to develop those cognitive capacities and habits that correspond to their neurobiological development, and together, provide greater access toward meeting goals for academic success while enhancing adaptive functioning throughout development.

Concetta M. DeCaria, Ph.D. is a clinical neuropsychologist in a child and adolescent private practice that focuses on conducting psychoeducational and neuropsychological evaluations. She is also a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Reference Sources:

Bakker, S; Niemantsverdriet, K: The Interaction-Attention Continuum: Considering Various Levels of Human Attention in Interaction Design; International Journal of Design, 10(2), 2016, S. 1-14.

Bratman, M. (1987). Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Daitch, A.L., et al. (2013). Frequency-Specific Mechanism Links Human Brain Networks for Spatial Attention. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110 (48), 19585. DOI: 10.1073/pnas. 1307947110.

Gaspar, JM & McDonald J.J. (2014). Suppression of Salient Objects Prevents Distraction in Visual Search. Journal of Neuroscience, 34(16),5658-5666. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4161-13.2014.

Herrero, J.L., et al. (2013). Attention-Induced Variance and Noise Correlation Reduction in Macaque v1 Is Mediated by Nmda Receptors. Neuron, 78(4), 729. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2013.03.029.

Mueller A, et al. Linking ADHD to the Neural Circuitry of Attention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2017;21(6):474-488. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2017.03.009.

Revlin R. Cognition: Theory and Practice. New York: Worth Publishers; 2013.

Netiquette, part 2: Email Etiquette In College

May 2, 2019 Brad Hoffman 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

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Online Learning: Supporting College Students