How to Use This Resource
Executive Function and “Book Smarts”
“Book smarts” are one aspect of being successful in college—students might be fully capable of understanding a lecture or reading a textbook. They might possess the raw ability to write a paper or participate meaningfully in discussions. However, even “smart” students are sometimes unsuccessful in college because they lack executive function—or the non-cognitives that contribute to success. The purpose of this book it to help faculty and tutors by providing resources that will assist students in building these “non cognitive” or executive functioning skills.
What Is Executive Function?
Executive Function is the ability to plan, set goals, stick to goals, evaluate whether something is working or not and change accordingly. Students have always struggled with executive function, but in our post COVID era, they seem to be struggling with it more than ever.
Executive functioning can be broken down into discrete skills– different psychologists have different names and definitions for these skills, but below are components of executive function that we will use in this book:
- Inhibitory Control– sometimes students will “shut down” if they earn a low score on a test or paper, if they are asked a difficult question in class or if they are confronted with a confusing assignment. Some students will complain about not being able to focus, or of not being able to shut out personal problems long enough to study. This is inhibitory control—the inability to control oneself long enough to accomplish goals.
- Task Initiation—Closely related to inhibitory control is task initiation. Some students struggle to get started on homework or they feel overwhelmed by the process of making decisions about where to start, so they procrastinate or don’t do their homework at all.
- Time Management—Most people, regardless of the task, underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete. Some students “live and learn” by recognizing that, since their math assignment took two and a half hours to complete, the next one will take that much time as well, so they adjust their schedules. Other students continue to underschedule—which results in scrambling and late assignments. Another big challenge for students breaking complex projects into “doable” chunks and scheduling those.
- Self-monitoring– Strong students monitor their studying. A voice inside their head always asks, “Do I understand this?” “Is this study activity effective?” “If I changed my studying, what would I change and why?” Students who struggle with this area of executive function tend to focus on “getting through” assignments. For example, they might continue to read a textbook chapter even though they didn’t understand the last few pages because they don’t pay attention to whether or not they understand what they read. Or, a student who struggles with self-monitoring will study the same way for every class and prepare the same way for every exam because they either do not stop to evaluate if their current choices are working, or they may recognize that are not studying effectively, but don’t know what to do about it.
- Metacognition—Students who are able to “metacognate” are able to see the relationship between course components– for example, they will see how the in-class discussion will prepare them for the test, or how the article they read relates to the textbook. They will see the value in homework because they will recognize which skills the homework is developing. Students who have strong metacognition skills base decisions about how to study on ultimate goals–for example, a student who knows that they will have an essay exam in a month will spend study time thinking up what possible questions they might be asked and how they would answer them, whereas a student who is not as skilled at metacognition might focus on memorizing terms or, they would wait until a day or two before the exam before they brainstormed possible essay exam questions.
Helping Students Develop Executive Functioning and Study Skills
Often, faculty will bemoan their students’ lack of study skills. They wonder why students don’t take notes unless they are expressly told to do so, are unprepared for exams, or consistently wait until the last minute to do homework. This “academic immaturity” might stem from executive functioning issues as well as, or in addition to a lack of study skills.
While faculty express concern over students’ lack of executive functioning or study skills, they often also express frustration with what to do about it. Faculty often don’t have the time to teach study skills, and, if they do, they recognize the teaching students how to study effectively is a skillset they may not have.
Tutors, whether they are professional or student, usually work one-on-one or in small groups with students so they are often in a better position to note which study skills in particular their students need to develop in order to be successful in a particular class. However, they may not have the time or resources to develop handouts, etc. to help students develop stronger study skills.
This book is designed to help faculty and tutors address study skills and executive functioning challenges with their students by first providing insight into why students struggle with a particular skill, providing guidance about how to speak with students about it, providing customizable, downloadable resources faculty and tutors can print, and providing ideas for how to use the resource in different settings. Most of the resources can be used in a one-on-one setting or they can be adapted for class activities, or to accompany homework assignments.
Book Structure
This book is divided into eight chapters:
- Helping Students Understand Class Expectations
- Organization
- Time Management and Planning
- Reading Comprehension
- Notetaking
- Test Preparation
- Writing
- Motivation
Each chapter is organized in the following way:
There are introductory materials in each chapter followed by the resources themselves. Below the outline is described:
“Beliefs and challenges Students Might Have:” Often, there are big differences in the ways tutors and faculty see learning and how students see it. The purpose of the section is to help faculty and tutors understand the expectations and beliefs some students have when they enter college and how those beliefs can get in the way of their success. The “beliefs” described here come from staff, faculty and student interactions with students over years of teaching, but faculty and tutors cannot assume that their student(s) has/have these beliefs. This section just provides “food for thought.”
“Discussion Points:” The second section of each chapter is called “Discussion points on___________.” This section provides faculty and tutors with suggestions and guidance about how to have a conversation about the topic of the chapter. Discussion points can be adapted for one-on-one interactions or for small group or classroom activities.
“Resources:” The third section features resources– each resource is introduced with an explanation about how it can help students followed by the executive functioning skills it will help develop. This will allow faculty and tutors to quickly look through the resources and determine which one will be the best fit for the student they are working with.
“Ideas for Use:” The fourth section is dividing into two sections– one for tutors and one for faculty. It provides a bulleted list of suggestions about how the resource can be used.
“Download this Resource:” At the very end of each chapter is a link that will take the user to a downloadable Word document that contains all the resources from the chapter. This allows faculty or tutors to customize whatever resources they find useful with information specific to a class, or a discipline.
