The Environment of Achievement, Part 2

“But hope is not disconnected from action or result; it is the drive that propels action and result. It is not an ungrounded feeling but a belief that action can bring about change.”

Hope is word #1, a characteristic of an atmosphere that enables optimal achievement.

The second: humility.

The dictionary suggests it involves a modest view of one’s own importance.

At this point I could rail against the lack of humility we often see in our public personas. I won’t, except to mention its potential influence on our thinking and on that of our students. The message we get from the media: to be successful see yourself as more important/gifted/intelligent/_____ than the next guy, and find a camera crew to capture your bravado. This viewpoint is actually detrimental to a learning mindset.

Why? What does humility have to do with learning?

Humility opens the mind to learning. In Fires in the Mind, Kathleen Cushman makes a convincing argument for valuing as initial motivation for learning.¹ We become interested in something new when we value the relationship we have with others who already know something about it (e.g., a son becoming a baseball player like his father), the products we can produce by knowing more than we do (e.g., a photographer who pursues mastering a new camera lens), and/or the satisfaction we get from having our questions and curiosities addressed (the child who tears a computer apart to discover what’s inside that makes it work). We value something other than our previously gained understandings. We place ourselves in the role of humble learner rather than overconfident know-it-all.

Note the implications for us as educators. To create and maintain a learning environment characterized by humility, we need to attend to our relationships with students. (Do I establish relationships with students that enable me to potentially inspire their interests in new learning?) We need to reveal what new learning will enable students to produce. (Do I know how what I teach has value beyond the classroom? and do I engage students in using what they learn beyond the classroom?) We need to foster students’ curiosity. (Do I use the power of questions and “I wonder…” statements to engage students’ attention and thinking?)

Humility makes the mind receptive to feedback. To summarize Daniel Pink in an overly succinct way, the equation for motivating learning is meaning + feedback.² If valuing initiates learning, feedback maintains the interest and deepens new understanding. But not just any feedback will fill this vital role. A paper returned to a student after three days with nothing more than a “B” or an “84” at the top does more harm than good. Why? Because it sparks a prideful, protective response. Either the student will pretend not to care about the grade (“I know I’m better than you think I am.”) or the student will argue to regain the points that were mysteriously lost (“I’ll prove that I’m better than you think I am.”). Either way the opportunity for learning from mistakes is likely lost.

To be effective, feedback must be part of learning; while the cement of new knowledge or understandings is still wet, the teacher needs to engage students in discussion, offering redirection, encouragement and exhortation, and additional challenge. Instructive feedback should have the goal of enabling each individual student learn as deeply and achieve as highly as possible.

How does instructive feedback contribute to an environment characterized by humility? First, the teacher models humility through the way feedback is given. Dr. Robert Brooks uses the term “we statements” to describe an effective approach.

Second, feedback communicates that error is part of learning and is expected. In Kathleen Cushman’s research, one student suggested that feedback during learning enabled her to laugh at herself and use the error as a prompt for additional learning. Without the feedback, she would have continued to practice her errors and have become frustrated when her progress stagnated. Such frustration often activates a defense response rather than a mindset that accepts and even seeks feedback.

Finally, feedback maintains the correct perception of learning as being endless. We can always know more, understand better, or improve how we do something. Feedback keeps us challenged and helps us avoid feeling like we know all we need to know. We accept the humility that comes with recognizing we never reach perfection in any area or with any topic.

In this area, I’m concerned about students for whom school learning seems to come easily. They often absorb and live by the idea that being smart means not having to put forth effort. This erroneous belief about intelligence has significant, negative ramifications for their learning and achievement.

When working with the teachers, I’m often asked, “What do I do with the students who master the concepts or skills easily and quickly?” A question I use to prompt my own thinking in this area is, “What does the next level of achievement with this concept or skill look like?” I then use the answer to direct my feedback to these students.

Implications for us as educators? We need to be providing students with supportive and helpful feedback during learning. (Am I engaging my students in such conversations?) This includes challenging students to keep learning, keep refining, keep extending their knowledge and skill, even when the immediate task is completed easily. (Do I keep every student challenged and growing? Do I pursue learning myself so that I model the endless nature of mastering new concepts and abilities?)

Humility maintains curiosity (and vice versa). Curiosity is the name we give to the state of having unanswered questions. And unanswered questions, by their nature, help us maintain a learning mindset. When we realize that we do not know all there is to know about something in which we are interested, we thirst. We pursue. We act as though what we do not know is more important than what we do. Humility allows us to question; asking questions keeps us humble.

How do we spark curiosity in the classroom? One of my favorite suggestions and examples comes from one of my favorite teachers, Dr. Judy Willis:

Hoping for ways to energize the next day’s math lesson for her middle school students, Dr. Willis visited a supermarket, seeking an inexpensive item she could display on the students’ desks as they entered the classroom. She settled on a small vegetable, not knowing exactly how she would use it. The next morning, Dr.

Willis started teaching the lesson without explaining the radishes the students discovered on their desks. At the lesson’s conclusion, the students asked about the radishes. Still uncertain of the answers, Dr. Willis replied, “Why do you think I put a radish on your desk for today’s lesson?” The students offered several explanations. They connected mathematical concepts with their sensory experience of the radish, making associations that seemed sensible to them. Though Dr. Willis could have “come up with something” to share as an explanation, the students’ thinking generated more connections, and their discovery of these connections fostered deeper understanding and better memory formation. In short, the students were engaged in significant elaboration of the day’s mathematical content prompted by its curiosity-generating pairing with a common vegetable.³

Curiosity, having unanswered questions, propels learning. (Am I making serious efforts to spark curiosity in my students?)

We may think of hope as looking up. However, that should not prime our thinking to view humility as looking down. Humility is looking around, finding out what we do not know, seeing what’s available for learning it, and pursuing it until we become, we produce, or we satiate.

How do we foster an atmosphere of humility in our classrooms, schools, systems? Here are the questions I’m using to prompt my thinking:

• Do I establish relationships with studnets that enable me to potentially inspire their interests in new learning?
• Do I know how what I teach has value beyond the classroom? and do I engage students in using what they learn beyond the classroom?
• Do I use the power of questions and “I wonder…” statements to engage students’ attention and thinking?
• Am I engaging my students in conversations that capitalize on feedback’s contribution to learning?
• Do I keep every student challenged and growing?
• Do I pursue learning myself so that I model the endless nature of mastering new concepts and abilities?
• Am I making serious efforts to spark curiosity in my students?

What questions would you add?

References

1. Cushman, K., Fires in the Mind: What Kids Can Tell Us About Motivation and Mastery (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010).
2. Pink, D.H., Drive: The Surprising Truth Behind What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009).
3. Washburn, K.D., The Architecture of Learning: Designing Instruction for the Learning Brain (Pelham, AL: Clerestory Press, 2010), 45.

Images

humility http://www.flickr.com/photos/49503002139@N01/3710722003

Curiosity http://www.flickr.com/photos/94859200@N00/540245890

Professional Development: A Defense

Teacher conversations about professional development often include the terms worthless and waste of time, and a general disdain for typical approaches is often evident. The back-and-forth can be a bruising arena for those who actually provide professional development, and I’ve been feeling a bit bruised recently. Don’t worry. The bruises have only been blows to my ego. (The only actual bruise I have came compliments of a concrete planter on the corner of New Jersey & M Streets in Washington, D.C., and that’s not a tale I care to retell.)

I must confess that my own experience supports such derogatory comments. I once spent an entire morning of “professional development” brainstorming alternate ways to earn a living. Though I’m sure the administration’s intent and the presenter’s goals were worthwhile, the session was so poorly designed that worthless and waste of time accurately described the result.

Why, then, do the current perspectives of professional development seem bruising? A few years ago I began an organization committed to “investing in teachers,” a “school’s most valuable asset.” And, yes, professional development is a significant component of what we do. So, allow me to provide a brief defense of professional development based on what it can do when it’s effectively designed.

Professional development can contribute to increased student learning. As we learn more about teaching and related topics, such as findings from neuro- and cognitive science, we discover principles that can improve our teaching. As our teaching becomes more effective, our students understand more. Our growth in teaching influences their depth of learning.

Many times, our growth in teaching relates to our instructional design—an element that directly influences student learning: “Many breakdowns in student learning may be a function of poor classroom curriculum design,” suggests Robert J. Marzano. “...the expert teacher has acquired a wide array of instructional strategies along with the knowledge of when these strategies might be the most useful.”¹ Professional development can equip us with additional strategies for fostering learning.

Professional development can provide a common language for teachers to talk to teachers about teaching. This increases the possibility of collaboration, a practice known to improve practice:

Surgeon and author Dr. Atul Gawande details conclusions of a Harvard Business School study on the learning curve surgeons experience when learning new surgical techniques. Practice in itself proved an unreliable predictor of learning rate and success, but how surgeons practiced made a significant difference. A surgeon leading one of the quickest-learning teams picked “team members with whom he had worked well before” and kept “them together through the first fifteen cases before allowing any new members. He had the team go through a dry run the day before the first case, then deliberately scheduled six operations in the first week, so little would be forgotten in between. He convened the team before each case to discuss it in detail and afterward to debrief.” In contrast, a surgeon who had significantly more experience led one of the slowest-learning teams. He involved different personnel in each surgery, “which is to say that it was no team at all,” and led no pre- or post-operation discussions. Increased collaboration quickened learning rate and improved performance. Most important, patients benefitted from the surgeon’s collaborative approach.²

Educational research reaches a similar conclusion: collaboration improves teacher performance. Unfortunately our learning institutions often impede professional growth by inhibiting collaboration. As a result, we can actually hinder student learning by failing to sharpen one another through collaboration.³ Common professional development can provide a basis and means for such collaboration.

Professional development can provide new research that equips teachers to be more intentional. New research often illuminates why what we already know to be successful teaching is effective. This recognition helps us become more intentional in our use of various methods and approaches. When we understand why something works, we know better how to optimize its effectiveness. A consistently good teacher is an intentional teacher, and the more we understand about teaching and learning, the more intentional we can become. Professional development can do these things, which also means it can fail to do them, and this is a source of teacher frustration and justifiably bruising comments:

Unfortunately, schools provide little help. Most professional development programs for teachers, claims Richard Paul, are “episodic, intellectually unchallenging, and fragmented” with “very little discussion on or about serious educational issues, and when there is such discussion it is often simplistic.”⁴

Those leading professional development sessions have a critical responsibility. In the next post I’ll explore some principles that should be considered when designing and leading professional development. We need effective, high quality, meaningful professional development.

Otherwise we do a disservice to hard-working professionals and deserve the bruises their opinions inflict on our egos.

References

1. Marzano, R.J., What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2003), 106, 78.


2. Gawande, A., Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance (New York: Henry Holt, 2007), 230.


3. Sergiovanni, T.J., Moral Leadership: Getting to the Heart of School Improvement (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992), 88.


4. Washburn, K.D., The Architecture of Learning: Designing Instruction for the Learning Brain (Pelham, AL: Clerestory Press, 2010), 191.

Image: 'Audience' http://www.flickr.com/photos/30127486@N00/267785927

Creative Thinking in the Classroom, Part 2

Time. Is there a greater challenge for educators? It seems like instructional time is often the target of well-meaning but time-devouring programs. Assemblies, pep rallies, fund-raising motivational events, and those intercom announcements eat precious minutes, and these are on top of an already bloated curriculum. As a result, we tend to eliminate anything that has a whiff of being extraneous.

One major casualty: creative thinking. However, as I discussed in Part 1, for the brain creative thinking is not just the predecessor to producing art. It is a means of deepening understanding. In other words, creative thinking is a cognitive gateway to deeper, more meaningful learning. Let’s examine how learning can spark creative thinking, which can lead to deeper learning.

Learning involves four “core processes,” two of which are comprehension and elaboration. If learning proceeds in a straightforward fashion—experience→comprehension→elaboration→application—it can bypass opportunities for creative thinking. This is unfortunate because learning can spark creative thinking:

The resulting understanding prompts a creative curve. The mind says, “Wait a minute! Let’s explore that again, but this time from a different perspective, or with a different reference point, or in multiple dimensions, or by combining it with _____.” Neuroscientist and writer Gregory Berns describes this as “reverse perception.” Creative thinking, claims Berns, “comes from using the same neural circuits used to perceive natural objects,” but in reverse. Instead of perceiving what is and acting on it, the mind seeks what else could be. The individual re-explores the new data, returning to comprehension to disorganize, relabel, and re-sort the data in a different way. This difference may be in perspective, in scale, in dimension, or in any ways that alter initial thinking about the data. For example, the creative individual may engage a creative tool (e.g., drawing an analogy) or explore representational variety (e.g., a multiple intelligences approach, such as representing verbal data in a musical or spatial form).1

This figure shows the “creative curve.”
When given the opportunity to re-explore understandings, the brain often engages in re-comprehension, the sorting of critical details, and re-elaboration, the recognition of new patterns. These new patterns may be new, unique, creative. As the individual examines these new patterns, methods of expressing them may come to mind. These possible expressions are then examined for potential, and if deemed effective, the individual may proceed to producing a creative product. At this point the individual’s skills in the chosen medium come into play—i.e., an experienced and capable painter will likely produce work of a higher quality than the novice. However, both beginner and master benefit from the thinking preceding the expression because it’s the thinking that deepens understanding of the original topic.

Note that learning and creative thinking are actually overlapping processes. Both engage (re-)comprehension and (re-)elaboration, and as a result, both have the potential to deepen understanding. If deep learning of subject matter is the goal, creative thinking can help achieve it. Also note that creative thinking requires time and space. If learning proceeds too efficiently, opportunities for creative thinking are lost. Challenging students to revisit subject matter, reorganize its details in different schemes, and explore those reorganizations for new patterns can initiate creative insights. Those insights contribute to deeper learning. When creative thinking leads to creative products, another opportunity for deepening learning is generated:

…creative works can deepen learning in the classroom. For example, Erica, a middle school teacher, has her students develop a series of symbols to summarize a work of literature. For example, one student summarizes Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol in a series of three symbols: a tightly clenched hand, that same hand with three different colored streaks of light surrounding it and a large timepiece in the background, and finally an open hand extending forward. The results become new data for the other students. As they examine the symbols, the students reprocess the details of the literature, consider the connection between the story and the symbol, and make a decision regarding the symbol’s effectiveness. This reprocessing—interacting with the symbols as if they were ‘another person’—mirrors learning’s core processes, engaging recall and thought about the original stimulus. This rethinking fosters deeper learning of the subject matter.2

There are also implications for our teaching. Want to be creative in your instructional design? Your brain needs the time and space to explore the subject matter—to reorganize it, search for new patterns, and apply the resulting insights to teaching plans. Unfortunately this time and space is probably the biggest challenge to our teaching more creatively. One way I deal with this is to look ahead and identify the major upcoming instructional units. This look ahead creates a space between what I’m currently teaching and what I will be teaching and gives my mind time to explore the subject matter in ways that enable creative thinking.

Getting away from my normal work space seems to help. Many of my creative ideas find me during morning runs. Actually, research suggests such a change of scenery increases the likelihood of creative thinking:

Sometimes a simple change of environment is enough to jog the perceptual system out of familiar categories. This may be one reason why restaurants figure so prominently as sites of perceptual breakthroughs...When confronted with places never seen before, the brain must create new categories. It is in this process that the brain jumbles around old ideas with new images to create new syntheses.3

Creative thinking and learning are complementary processes. Learning enables creative thinking, and creative thinking deepens learning. This is why my target-based organization of thinking does not include a separate ring devoted to creative thinking. I see creative thinking as a type of learning. As such, teaching students to think creatively is critical if we seek to develop self-directed learners. Add skill in expression, such as the methods and approaches taught via the arts, and we’ll be graduating creative thinkers with the skills to engage the world through art—or at least bring artful expression to their lives and work.

Sources

1. Washburn, K.D., The Architecture of Learning: Designing Instruction for the Learning Brain (Pelham, AL: Clerestory Press, 2010), 231-232.
2. Ibid., 234-235.
3. Berns, G., Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2008), 33.

A Teacher's Lessons from Writing, Part 2

My cell phone rang when we were deciding which package of paper towels to buy.

“Kevin, this is John Paine. Do you have a few moments to talk?”

I had both anticipated and dreaded this call, and the paper goods lane of Publix was not my ideal setting for the conversation. My wife, sensing it was the call I’d been waiting for, dug through her purse to find a beat-up memo pad, found a page with about an inch of clean space, and thrust it into my hands along with a pen. I think she waved as she headed for the frozen foods section.

“Um, sure Mr. Paine, this is fine.” I found some clearance between a package of paper towels and the shelf above it. Voila! an impromptu desk.

“I’ve read your manuscript in its entirety and will send you specifics, but I wanted to discuss a few general things with you by phone first.”

“Okay.” (Note the high intelligence of my response. I was a bundle of nerves.)

I found Mr. Paine, no lie, via an internet search, and I never expected him to take on my manuscript. A professional editor, he’d worked on books I recognized by authors I recognized. He’s on the speed dial of several major publishers and is called for emergencies, such as a book still needing editing on the eve of its print run. When he requested the rest of my manuscript after reading the first hundred pages, I thought it might be so he could have a non-example to share with colleagues for a few profession-related laughs.

“I think you’ve don a good job to this point,” he said. “In fact, I wish my teachers had taught this way.” Even though it was my writing he was editing, his comment on teaching caught my ear.

“Really?” I asked. (Again, note the deep intellect represented in my response.)

“Yes, I would have learned much more and it all would have seemed far more interesting and relevant.”

This was a gift. Even if he then said that the writing should never accost a reader’s eyes, I would have floated out of the paper goods aisle.

“There are some things you can do that I think will make your message even clearer,” he continued. “One thing that editors help writers do is see a manuscript from a reader’s perspective. That’s my job, so here are a few general suggestions.”

Like a good paper towel, I absorbed all I could from Mr. Paine’s comments. I won’t bore you with the details, but this conversation launched one of the greatest periods of learning I’ve experienced. I needed to step away from my investment in the project and view it from a different perspective. As I worked with Mr. Paine through the following weeks, I grew in my understanding of seeing from a reader’s perspective. I needed more examples. I needed to use fewer technical terms. I was at my best when I allowed my examples to become short stories that entertained and informed. I was at my worst when my writing failed to touch the ground, when its theory remained theory without practical applications. I needed an editor, a teacher, someone to say, “I know your intent. Here’s a better way to communicate it.”

As a teacher, I know that letting others see our work in the classroom can be intimidating. Many of us have experienced the administrator and clipboard fly-by described by Alan Sitomer, which was most likely followed by a brief discussion in the administrator’s office with the ceremonial placement of the evaluation in our personnel files. But, as I learned, there is value in having someone else redirect our perspective—not with a clipboard and brief observation. Instead, we need “editors,” coaches who come along side us and help us do what we do better, perhaps with more of the learner’s perspective in mind. We need professional relationships like those described by Derek Keenan in his excellent blog post.

Though I’ve written about coaching before, the value of such a relationship became clearer to me through my experience with a professional editor. This, I thought, is what I need in my teaching. Someone who respects my work, who sees its value, and yet sees how I could make it even better, how I could make it more effective. Someone who can guide me to see and think like my learners, not check a box or circle a number on a form. Someone who wants my work to be its best because of its potential influence, not someone who’s crossing a task off of their to-do list.

I need a professional editor for my teaching.

Image: 'Happy Buggy Wednesday' http://www.flickr.com/photos/10687935@N04/3946962619

A Teacher's Lessons from Writing, Part 1

I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. My first book is about to be published, but the printing/binding process is taking longer than I’d like. (Don’t worry, this isn’t really about the book.) This period between final revisions and publication has given me time to reflect on the journey, and, as usual, my thoughts have been exploring connections to teaching. Surprisingly, many principles seem relevant, such as…

Audience matters. Yes, I know this seems obvious, but it wasn’t at first. I started writing shortly after my last stint in graduate school, and I could out APA style the APA itself. I adhered to the style boundaries with such fealty that I was surprised not to be appointed to the committee determining proper citation forms for tweets and wall postings.

So, I anticipated great responses when I distributed early copies of the initial chapters to colleagues. With as much kindness as one can express such sentiment, they basically suggested that unless I intended to submit the work to the Journal of Sky-High Instructional Theory, I had work to do. Constantly reading “the teacher,” who never became a real person with a name, and frequently being interrupted by date and page number citations made reading my early writing laborious.

When it became clear that I was hunting in the wrong forest, I changed from writing to reading. I became a voracious gatherer of books about writing. I’ll save the extensive influence of this self-education for a later post. For now, I’ll just point out that I was of two minds in my writing. I wanted to write for teachers, my colleagues. Publishers would suggest I wanted to write for a “general audience.” However, my actual writing targeted university professors—the individuals who had been my audience and had held my fate in their hands for the past several years. How could I change direction? Several books offered suggestions that are nicely summarized in this passage from Mark Tredinnick:

Good writing is not mannered and stilted—it’s not inflected with overanxious politeness, nor false with bonhomie, nor false with confidence, nor anything faux or excessive…Good writing is calm and cool, and it remembers its manners. Everyone likes to be treated with a relaxed mix of dignity, grace, and respect by someone who knows what he’s talking about but isn’t trying to show it off. That’s the kind of attitude writers want toward their readers.1

After I somewhat ironically checked a dictionary for bonhomie (cheerful friendliness), I realized I needed to find my voice—a way of writing that sounded like me in real-life, not me as a grad student.

This prompted me to reflect on the writing I required of my students. Did I ever allow them to explore and find their voices? Was I offering them only an audience of one—me, their teacher—that would so stilt their writing that it would be of no interest to a “general audience”? If so, was I truly preparing them to influence their world?

Over the last few years, I’ve gotten to lead a course called “Writer’s Stylus” for teachers. The five days of professional development provide a metamorphic experience. Teachers from all disciplines start the week writing like students—that is, they write with “overanxious politeness” and false “bonhomie.” As the week progresses, they begin to find their voices and write with such dignity and grace that they deserve to be read, many for the first time in their lives. If you write regularly, this may not seem that transformational, but trust me, it literally changes lives. While I get excited about what these teachers will do instructionally, I grow even more excited by their personal growth. Finding your voice can truly change an individual’s outlook, confidence, and, yes, life.

So what am I doing with my students? Sure, you can argue that they need to learn to write for the academic world, and I’ll agree. But if that’s all I emphasize, have I equipped them to write for the larger world? Have I enabled them to make history more than a dry recounting of facts? Have I encouraged them to take readers to a volcanic eruption and care about the people affected by it? Have I empowered them to present the structure of mathematics as a dynamic window on the world? Have I helped them write literature and not just write about it?

Audience matters, but it is the writer who must change, must grow, must discover how to communicate as himself. Authenticity is what draws an audience.

Did I master this aspect? I’d never claim that I did. I have hope, but more than that, I have a renewed focus in my teaching: help learners find their voices and equip them to “speak” with “calm and cool,” with “dignity, grace, and respect,” not to show-off, but to confidently impact their world.


1. Tredinnick, M., Writing Well: The Essential Guide (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2008), 184.

Image: 'in Concert' http://www.flickr.com/photos/45409431@N00/2459533929

Why Instructional Time Matters

But time keeps flowing like a river (on and on)

To the sea, to the sea
’til it's gone forever…

At least that’s what the Alan Parsons Project suggested in their hit song. But poets and songwriters aren’t the only ones seemingly consumed by the passage of time. Educators frequently talk about the concept, discussing “time-on-task,” school start and end times, and the length of the school year. What’s behind this preoccupation with instructional time? Does it matter if the school day is interrupted for pep rallies, award assemblies, announcements from the office, and the like? Isn’t the school calendar that revolves around the needs of an agrarian culture adequate for today’s students? Why does nearly every conversation with teachers end up being a discussion of time and the lack of it in classrooms?

Teachers have sound reasons for being concerned about time. More than 100 years of research suggests a significant correlation between time spent learning and the amount of learning that results. As memory expert Alan Baddeley describes it, “In short, as far as learning is concerned, you get what you pay for.”1 The relationship between this research finding and teaching may seem obvious, but let’s dive deeper into the research and its implications. Researchers originally connected expertise in playing the violin with the amount of time spent in individual practice. They found that experts spent more than 10,000 hours practicing, while lesser experts spent about 7500 hours practicing, accomplished experts spent around 5000 hours practicing, and committed amateurs spent around 1500 hours practicing. While the numbers fluctuate slightly, the general range has remained surprisingly consistent as researchers examined expertise levels in other disciplines.2

What does this have to do with teaching? Probably more than we realize. For example, every school system I’ve encountered has significant literacy goals for students. Most schools would like to produce expert, or at least lesser expert or accomplished, readers. According to the research, developing such readers requires at least 5000 hours of practice—5000+ hours that students focus on applying and developing their reading capacity. With that in mind, let’s examine a possible scenario. If a child spends one hour each day for 175 days of the school year from grades one through eight, she will have invested approximately 1400 hours in developing reading expertise—not even enough for “committed amateur” levels! What if we add kindergarten and high school? The student still comes up woefully short at 2275 hours—not even halfway to accomplished levels.

No, this doesn’t include the time a child may spend reading at home, but it would be a rare child who actually spends the extra 2300+ hours needed to achieve “accomplished expert” levels. And to make the situation more challenging, recent research on the amount of time students actually spend reading in school classrooms ranges from a low of seven minutes to a high of 23 minutes.3 (Note that the research focuses on time spent practicing—recalling and applying skills—not on the amount of time the teacher presents information.)

Admittedly, we are not attempting to produce readers for the stage at Carnegie Hall, but this research on time and learning should not be dismissed. Time spent learning does matter for a student’s achievement. We’ve only explored this connection to developing literacy capacity, but the same would be true if applied to other disciplines. Want to develop expert mathematicians (or at least “committed amateur” mathematicians)? Time matters. Want to develop accomplished scientists (or, again, at least “committed amateur” scientists)? Time matters. The time a child spends recalling and applying learning correlates with the child’s level of expertise. When it comes to learning, time invested in recalling and applying relates to ability and achievement.

In conclusion, here are some questions to consider:

• What are our priorities? In what areas of the curriculum are we attempting to develop more than amateur capacity? In what areas of the curriculum are we striving for more than amateur achievement?
• How does our time (both given and devoted) reflect those priorities?
• What is needed to increase the time students choose to spend in recall and application of new learning?
• What are the implications of this research for our own professional development?

Share your thoughts and insights!

References

1. Baddeley, A., Eysenck, M. W., & Anderson, M. C. Memory (New York: Psychology Press, 2009), p. 70-78.
2. Ibid.
3. In-School Independent Reading. http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/res/literacy/in_read3.html

To Retain New Learning, Do the Math

Every teacher experiences the frustration. Content and skills taught throughout the year seem to abandon students during springtime standardized testing. “How can they not know this?” thinks the the teacher. “We learned this back in November.”

Recent research reveals some likely causes, and the principles for retaining new learning may not be intuitive to us as teachers. For example, multiple retrievals rather than multiple exposures promote better retention of new learning.1 In other words, the more students are required to recall new content or skills, the better their memory will be. Reviewing the material with students does not have the same effect. The students must be engaged in activity that requires them to recall the material. Even when students recall details incorrectly, if the teacher promptly provides the necessary instructive feedback, engaging students in recall of the material fosters better retention of new learning than a teacher-led review.2

But how often should teachers be engaging students in recall of newly learned material? Two findings provide answers.

First, repeated recall should occur frequently immediately following new learning. For example, a teacher who teaches students to add fractions should engage students in recall and use of that material several times over the school days immediately following instruction. Again, even if students do not recall the skill correctly, requiring recall combined with immediate instructive feedback is more effective than reviewing the skill.3

Second, once the initial period of learning and multiple retrievals is past, students still need to be engaged regularly in recall of the material. In general, students need to recall the material after a delay of 10 to 20% of the time between initial learning and final testing.4 For example, if students learn a new skill with only a month of school (about 20 school days) remaining, they should be engaged in recall of that skill every 2-4 days. This increases the likelihood that the new learning will be part of their knowledge when they begin the following school year. (Ideally, they would be recalling that skill every 7-14 days over a 10-week summer break!)

So, let’s go back to our opening scenario: a teacher teaches material in November that students need to recall for testing in May—a gap of about six months, or about 120 school days. To increase the likelihood that students will recall the material in May, they should be engaged in retrieving it every 12-24 days, once or twice a month, probably closer to every 12 days for the first few months and every 24 days for the last few months. It is critical that every retrieval be accompanied by immediate instructive feedback.

One more principle helps us design activities that engage students in retrieving new learning. The more material students are required to recall, the better. For example, if students are required to retrieve or construct an explanation of how to add fractions and actually apply the skill to add fractions, their retention will be greater than if they are merely required to apply the skill.4

According to this research, many of our classrooms may be structured for minimal memory retention. If we begin every school year reviewing material from the previous years and spend the second half of the school year introducing new material, students are less likely to retain the new learning in future school years because they were not engaged in recalling it throughout the school year. We need to be teaching more new material at the beginning of the school year and reviewing that material as the school year progresses. Perhaps this helps explain another common teacher frustration: the “They should have learned this last year” syndrome that we’ve all experienced.

Retrieval + Instructive Feedback = Retention of New Learning.

1. Devachi, L. The Limits of Memory: How to Maximize Your Memory Trace. Presented at the 2008 North American Neuroleadership Summit, New York.
2. Baddeley, A., Eysenck, M. W., & Anderson, M. C. Memory (New York: Psychology Press, 2009), p. 70-78.
3. Ibid. 74.
4. Ibid. 82.

Authors, Illustrators, and Teaching: Part 2

Authors and illustrators get treated like rock stars at the National Book Festival. Readers crowd into tents, some literally with standing room only, to see and hear the people behind favorite narratives and artwork. The payoff is worth the effort. Many authors and illustrators are as interesting in person as they are on paper.

In the last post, I discussed three authors and illustrators who provided insights related to teaching. Here are three more who similarly challenged and inspired me.

Sharon Creech was, in honesty, quite different from what I expected. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t an author who would embody one of her characters so perfectly that you felt like you were in theater with an accomplished actress rather than under a tent with a writer. Her editor shared the stage and played a role as Mrs. Creech read and enacted a section from her latest book, The Unfinished Angel. With drama and humor, the two wordsmiths captivated the crowd, even those beyond the tent’s borders. (By the way, for the record, unfinished angels speak in English with an Italian accent and make up words when necessary!)

Drama and humor. Tension and laughter. What a great combination for teaching. When I prepare to teach, do I look for the drama and humor in new material? Do I use these tools to not only keep attention but make material more memorable? Do I go the extra mile to bring such creativity to my teaching? I love this quote from Saul Bellow: “No school without spectacular eccentrics and crazy hearts is worth attending.” Do I allow myself to be the “spectacular eccentric” or “crazy heart” when doing so would promote learning?

Up next, another Newbery-winning author, Kate DiCamillo. I must highlight the perseverance DiCamillo personified. When rain knocked out power to the sound system, she continued to take questions and shout answers to the audience. This sounds less of an accomplishment than it actually was. The tent was jam packed and people wandered through steady rain falling outside.

But it was DiCamillo’s anecdote about the origins of The Tale of Despereaux that captivated my thoughts. A young boy suggested a story about a hero with large ears. At first, DiCamillo didn’t give the suggestion much thought. It certainly wasn’t much to go on when trying to write a whole book! But the idea stayed with her, and about five years later, The Tale of Despereaux was published.

Simply listening to students can sometimes provide substantial professional development! In trying to teach a group new concepts recently, one individual kept asking for examples. Every time I’d thoroughly explain something, at least in my own thinking, I’d get asked for an example—sometimes more than one. Listen to the suggestion, I told myself. Keep it in mind. Use it to improve your teaching. As I responded with examples, I could see the a-ha! moments multiply. The request, when fulfilled, made me a better teacher.

Sometimes a suggestion, even one focused on a hero with large ears, is all the you need to communicate in fresh and effective ways.

Finally, my favorite presentation came from Jerry Pinkney. Mr. Pinkney is a five-time Caldecott Honor medalist, and his latest book, a retelling of the Lion and the Mouse fable through illustrations, should catch the committee’s attention this year.

Mr. Pinkney shared his childhood with the audience. Growing up in the Philadelphia area, his parents, neither of whom possessed artistic talents, encouraged all their children to draw. It was something to do—something to keep the children occupied. While young Jerry manned a newspaper stand, an artist caught a glimpse of his sketches. Impressed, the artist invited Jerry to his studio. Before that visit, Pinkney was unaware that art was something you could do for a living, and oh!, the world of colors and artist’s tools that he encountered for the first time.

One caring adult—that’s it, just one caring adult opened up the world that would become Jerry Pinkney’s focus and passion. There’s a thought for teachers, but that’s not the one that I carried away with me.

Almost in passing, this successful, revered, and award-winning illustrator mentioned that he still takes drawing lessons. “You can always improve some aspect of what you do,” he explained, “and it’s important that you do so.”

While I can’t sign up for weekly teaching lessons, I can seek out professional development opportunities that will stretch some aspect of my teaching. Such continual growth is what Jerry Pinkney claims has empowered his success for several decades. My relevance and influence as a teacher may, likewise, depend on my willingness to continue growing professionally.

Drama, humor, wisdom, and growth. Sounds like a good recipe for teaching. In fact, it’s not a bad recipe for life.

An Educator Races (but not to the top)

The single shot from the starter pistol stirred me out of my pre-race stupor. Here we go, I thought. This is what those early morning runs prepared you for—hopefully. As I started moving toward the starting line of the Montgomery Half-Marathon (it took 27 seconds to get to the starting line!), Paul’s admonishment to run the race set before you infiltrated my thoughts. The race set before you. Reflecting on that concept brought to mind the advice friends had offered. Start out slower than you want to ultimately run. Use your head, especially for the first five miles. Be aware of other runners and avoid impeding their running. Take advantage of every water station. I shook them from consciousness and tried to focus on running my race.

That sounds easy, but doing it becomes much more difficult when you are surrounded by hundreds of other runners. How do you run your race when you are one drop in a moving wave? To be honest, I never figured it out, and for the first three miles I allowed myself to just be part of the wave. At the third mile marker, the wave became more like separated ripples, and I noticed that I was ahead of my target pace. Good news, right? Maybe. My concern then became having the stamina to finish the distance of 13.1 miles.

I kept trying to slow myself down. I even found a runner with a watch who was trying to run my target pace. I stayed behind him for a couple minutes, but couldn’t stand it and ended up passing him. At this point it became clear to me that running my race would depend mostly on listening to my body and heeding its suggestions.

I must pause to tell you about the funniest part of this experience. I’m an avid reader of Runner’s World magazine, and 99% of the advice I recalled from its pages proved true during the race. However, the RW writers made drinking from a tiny paper cup while continuing to run sound as easy as walking and chewing gum. As I entered the first water station I knew not to stop. That creates a major hazard for other runners (imagine a car stopping suddenly in front of you while driving). I knew to hone in on one volunteer, make eye contact, and grab and go. Shouting thanks was optional, but I managed it nonetheless. Now, just get the liquid into your mouth. Easy, right?

I pinched the cup, as I remember Runner’s World explaining, and tried “funneling” the water into my mouth. If the water in the cup had remained calm, all would have been fine. But my running served as a submerged earthquake, creating a tidal wave in my tiny paper cup. As I attempted to pour the water into my mouth, the tsunami continued its upward trajectory, soaking my entire face and adding to the muck on the inside of my glasses. Determined to do it right, I got brave at the second water station and grabbed a cup of sports drink. The same thing happened. My head was now drenched and dripping watery Gatorade. I stuck out my tongue to catch a few drops, laughed at myself, and kept running. It took me five water stations to get the motion right! Apparently, though my running pace was ahead of schedule, my learning pace was behind.

Somewhere around the five mile mark, I overheard the following conversation:

Runner A: Hey, Bob, I didn’t know you were a runner!
Runner B: I’m not! I just started in March. This is my first race. When I started I could only run 90 seconds before resting. Now look at what I’m doing! It’s crazy!
Runner A: No, not crazy. Awesome!

Like me, Bob was running his race. In six months, he’d gone from being a non-runner to running a half-marathon. What an inspiration!

I must pause to make an observation about people. Specifically, non-runners. Every once in a while, someone would be sitting out on their lawn and occasionally yelling to the runners. (Some might have yelled at us, but I often was too distracted to hear clearly!) I think at least six different people told me, “This is the last hill! It’s all downhill from here!” They were liars, every single one. Others would yell, “Keep going! You’re almost there!” Thanks, but at the four-mile mark of a 13.1 mile race, you’re not even close to being almost there.

However, many people really did provide a lift of spirits. On the campus of Alabama State University, the percussion section of the school’s marching band rhythm-ed us across the campus. In the Colonial Heights neighborhood, a group of neighbors stood at the corner shouting greetings and welcoming us to their home turf. At another point, a family had their car doors open and its radio blasting; the beat of Motown carried us on its waves. A gentleman on a bike showed up at several mile markers to cheer the runners forward. Each of these made me glad to be there. (I had quite the opposite reaction to whomever in “historic Cloverdale” thought it would be funny to cook bacon with all the windows open, but I’ll let that go!) Another activity that upped the friendly factor was the many runners who thanked the police officers and volunteers who made the event safe and smooth from beginning to end. I hope all of them knew the sincerity behind those yelps of gratitude.

Somewhere after the 10th mile marker, I lost track of how far I had gone. Was the next mile marker 11 or 12? I convinced myself it would be 12. Obviously, it wasn’t. I surprised myself by not being defeated or even set back too badly from this miscalculation. Somehow I was able to push ahead, glad to finally know for sure what the next mile marker would be.

And oh, the joy of hitting mile marker 12 and then 13 and noting that I was still ahead of my target pace. It was possible that in addition to finishing I might actually finish in under two hours! (Cue the Chariots of Fire theme!). “Hear those bells?” called a spectator. “They’re waiting for you at the end!” Again, technically the bells were not at the end, but they did pull me forward. In fact, as I rounded the last corner I found a burst of energy and actually sped toward the finish. Recalling Runner’s World’s recommendations again, I tried to ignore the clock and run through the finish so the photos of me would be magazine cover material. Let’s just say that between the Gatorade baths and the fact that I looked like I had just run 13 miles, I won’t be appearing at your newsstand anytime soon. Nonetheless, my wife did capture the moment, providing evidence of the accomplishment.

A few moments of chaos—a man with what looked like a pin-pong paddle stepped forward to scan my timing chip, a volunteer threw a finisher’s medal around my neck, and a couple volunteers offered water and bananas to the weary—and it was over. It was over way too soon. I was just beginning to have fun! There is little that generates more motivation than success.

By now you may be wondering what this has to do with education. After all, that is the focus of this blog. To make some connections, let me share some questions that I’ve asked myself:

• Do I recognize that my students must each run his/her own race to learning—that learning is always an individual act? How am I creating the conditions that allow each learner to find their way to new understandings and abilities?
• How do I lift the spirits of learners who find the going difficult? Do I toss easy lines at them? or do I encourage them with honesty while running along side them to help them progress?
• Do I allow and help my students to laugh at themselves? Failure combined with self-anger is a sure road to defeat. Do I model resilience? Do I help my students develop resilience?
• Do I recognize that what I think will be easy may be a challenge for students? Do I plan sufficient practice and feedback to support students as they move toward mastery?
• Do I celebrate students’ success? Do I create conditions that give students a feeling of accomplishment? or am I so preoccupied with the next thing that celebrations get left out? How motivating do I allow accomplishment—true accomplishment—to be?

These aren’t new ideas or the roadmap for major educational reform, but their potential power and influence are more significant to me than ever before. I may not have raced to the top (I finished 203rd), but running my own race proved to be an effective dose of professional development.

Authors, Illustrators, and Teaching: Part 1

Authors and illustrators recently challenged my thinking about teaching.

The National Book Festival is an annual event held on the Mall in Washington, D.C. This year my wife and I attended for the first time. As I listened to various children’s authors and illustrators, I was struck by how much relevance the ideas they communicated had for educators.

First up was Charles Santore. Mr. Santore has illustrated several well-known children’s books, including The Camel’s Lament and versions of classics, such as the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” and the fantasy The Wizard of Oz. He also illustrated this year’s National Book Festival poster.

Because he moved from advertising illustration to children’s literature, many of Mr. Santore’s comments contrasted the two. For example, in illustration, Santore explained, you have to synthesize all the ideas into one, attention-grabbing illustration. However, in illustrating children’s literature, the artist can attend to pacing, even drawing “quiet” pictures that allow the reader to pause and ponder.

This pacing, giving the reader time to imagine and think, mirrors a pace the brain needs for optimal learning. Often called “down-time,” the brain needs to process new content in manageable chunks.1 A teacher who lectures for 45 minutes straight promotes less learning than a teacher who presents information for 10 minutes, engages students in processing new material, and then resumes presenting information for another brief period. To learn, the brain needs to pause and ponder—it needs the story of learning to include “quiet” illustrations.

Up next was one of my favorites: Nikki Grimes. Miss Grimes has authored several of my favorite children’s books, including The Road to Paris. With gifts in both poetry and prose, Miss Grimes captivated the audience with a colorful, poetic journey through several of her works. I cannot explain this sufficiently to help you appreciate it. She used poetry to introduce a color and its affective associations, then illustrated the concepts with passages from her writings. She created a hush in the tent and no one wanted her to stop.

What does this have to do with teaching? It made me think about how little thought I often give to my actual presentation of information. Sure, I think long and seriously about the activities I use to introduce or engage students in processing new information, but Nikki Grimes put that kind of thought into how she actually presented the information.

Hmm, how could I simulate this? Could I combine communication forms to better articulate critical concepts for students? Would a poetic journey through the Pythagorean theorem promote better understanding? One thing is certain: by challenging myself to consider the approach, I’d think more deeply about how I would actually explain the concept, and that would likely improve the words and phrases I used to teach it.

Finally, for this first of two posts, we heard and observed illustrator Kadir Nelson. Without exaggeration, Mr. Nelson is an artistic genius as evidenced in all his books, including the recent Testing the Ice.

A quiet individual, Mr. Nelson let his pens do most of the “talking.” He called two children up to the stage and recreated one of his illustrations with the children filling the roles of the original characters. Two young girls became Jackie Robinson and Yogi Berra, and their faces lit up with excitement and recognition. He actively involved the children, taking their minds to the scene he wanted them to imagine. Wow! In one illustration, he captured an entire narrative—a narrative to which two young girls could emotionally connect.

Narrative is a powerful teaching tool. Stories frame experience. Mark Turner suggests stories are actually fundamental, organizing structures: “Parable is the root of the human mind—of thinking, knowing, acting, creating, and plausibly even of speaking.”2 Neurologist and author Alice W. Flaherty agrees, suggesting metaphors, such as stories, contribute to memory formation and understanding:

…metaphors are cognitively useful because they rephrase an abstract concept in more physical terms. This engages the cortex with its visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory maps, and the limbic system with its emotional charge…[Metaphors] create a sense of understanding by an analogous mechanism. By giving abstract concepts tastes, colors, smells, and emotional resonance, metaphors fix them in our minds and make us feel like we understand them.3

The human mind frequently thinks in terms of stories, communicates in stories, and converts new learning into stories. By framing experience, stories provide a structure for exploring and making sense of experience. Can I structure any of my teaching as narrative? Again, just challenging myself to try will likely improve my teaching.

Pondering pauses, poetic presentations, and narrative frames can inspire and inform my teaching. What I learn from authors and illustrators can become personal professional development if I’m willing to accept the challenges their ideas present.

In Part 2, insights from authors Sharon Creech, Kate DiCamillo, and illustrator Jerry Pinkney.

1. Sousa, D., How the Brain Learns, 2nd ed., (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc., 2001).
2. Turner, M., The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), i.
3. Flaherty, A. W., The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block, and the Creative Brain (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), 230.

Making the Shift, Part 2: Toolboxes not Suitcases

Ever go through a turnstile and realize something you needed was left on the other side of the gateway? During my first encounter with a public transit system, I tried to take a rolling suitcase through a subway turnstile. Of course I ended up on one side of the gateway with my luggage on the other. Fortunately a friendly New Yorker (They do exist!) saw my dilemma and hoisted my suitcase over the turnstile.

Such gateways are one-way by design; they promote lawful movement in single directions. However, a similar design for teaching, learning, and thinking limits student learning and its usefulness. Much of what we should emphasize ends up like my suitcase—on the wrong side of the turnstile.

For example, we may teach a biology unit on cell construction and emphasize new terminology and locations of various cell parts. Then, after students seem to have absorbed the information and can recite it back, we may engage them in “critical thinking” by asking questions that represent various “levels” of a taxonomy. Like my suitcase, thinking gets pulled along behind and occasionally doesn’t make it through the gate. It gets left behind because of pressures to cover the curriculum or because the assessment will only involve the memorization elements of the unit. If time allows, if the gateway stays open, we might pull in some thinking.

But what if thinking were not a wheeled suitcase but a toolbox, something we carry in-hand and set in a central place to enable our work, our learning? What if instead of thinking of ourselves as teaching content, we viewed ourselves as teaching thinking?

That doesn’t mean students would not learn any content. In fact, content would be exactly what they’d gain by making thinking the force that “pulls in” new understandings. After all, students need to learn how to learn to function successfully once a teacher is no longer telling them what to know.

Activating executive function (EF) offers a potential gateway for developing both understanding of new content and strategic abilities for future learning and success. Executive function comprises “complex cognitive processes that serve ongoing, goal-directed behaviors,”1 including goal setting and planning, self-regulation and metacognition, and working memory processes, such as organizing and patterning data. Executive function serves both as “infrastructure” and “overseer” of other cognitive functions.2 By itself, EF lacks purpose, but when infused with ideas and concepts, it illustrates the brain working at its best. Perhaps most importantly for us as teachers, EF enables intention, the transfer of new learning to novel situations. Teaching only to know—that is, to repeat on demand—does not engage the cognitive processes that promote intention. Martha Bridge Denkla describes such knowing as being able to recall a strategy without the capacity to be strategic.3 Simply knowing does not require the level of EF activation that doing does.

Philip David Zelazo suggests that the EF processes of solving problems and attaining goals reveal EF “subfunctions.” These subfunctions can be easily understood by viewing their roles through the questions they attempt to answer:

• representation: “What do I need to accomplish? What is preventing me from accomplishing it?”
• planning: How can I get from the current state to the desired state?
• execution: What’s next? Check. What’s next?
• evaluation: Did that action accomplish its intended result? What do I need to change to make progress toward the desired state?4

Teaching students to successfully engage these subfunctions equips them to learn independently. Engaging these subfunctions as a means of learning new content equips students to use their learning beyond the classroom. This brief look at executive functions reveals some principles that provide guidance for making thinking more of a toolbox and less of a rolling suitcase. An emphasis on teaching for action, or on teaching for knowing how, is more likely to produce transferable learning. Since doing requires greater executive function engagement than simply knowing, teaching that engages students in doing better equips students to transfer their learning to new situations.

Knowing that should become more of a by-product of applying know-how. Rather than just asking, “What do students need to know?” we need to ask “What can students do/produce to foster learning of what they need to know?” (This has additional implications for what and how we teach. I’ll explore these in a future post.)

Increasing an emphasis on executive function is better education for life. It’s impossible to know what knowledge and skills will be essential in the future, but it is certain that EF will continue to enable successful living.

Before concluding, allow me to attempt to prevent some potential misunderstandings. First, I am not advocating abandonment of the disciplines. As the Purview Project states, the disciplines “have contributed to man’s construction of knowledge for ages.” I believe the disciplines will continue to form much of the content schools teach. What I am suggesting is that how we teach the disciplines needs to change. Others have recently suggested similar ideas—e.g., Jose Bowen’s “Teach Naked” approach, which advocates increased thinking in the classroom. But an implication of changing the “how” is changing the “what.” If we’re going to engage students in more thinking, we need to equip and strengthen them to think optimally. I’ll explore this more in future posts.

Second, the ideas expressed here are easier to envision in content-heavy disciplines, such as social studies than in skill-heavy disciplines such as reading and math. I’ll explore these differences in future posts and suggest ways these principles can be applied in both types of material.

In conclusion, I have a confession. I’m writing this post as much to process these ideas as I am to communicate them. I’m in the learning process, which means I have more questions than answers, vague ideas than concrete specifics, and swirling concepts than guiding frameworks. Over the weekend I was asked what was “going on” in my head. In reply, I listed at least seven different major elements. This post is a very initial attempt to sort through some of them. I hope to explore and clarify these ideas in future posts. Stay tuned!

1. Meltzer, L. “Executive Function: Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks,” in Meltzer, L. (ed.), Executive Function in Education: From Theory to Practice, (New York: The Guilford Press, 2007), 1-2.
2. Denckla, M. B. “Executive Functions: Binding Together the Definitions of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disabilities,” in Meltzer, L. (ed.), Executive Function in Education: From Theory to Practice, (New York: The Guilford Press, 2007), 7.
3. Ibid, 11.
4. Zelazo, P. D., “Executive Function Part One: What is executive function?” http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/News/Executive-Function-Part-One-What-is-executive-function.aspx?articleID=8024&categoryID=news-type