Building Student Capacity: Refining our Approach to Learning Support

Executive functioning skills are a prerequisite for learning. And, when the executive functioning demands of school become overwhelming, our students can get stuck in the details of planning, organizing, and “doing school” rather than focusing on the skills we want to nurture. Most kids want to do their work well, so what holds them back when they don't? Is it a lack of motivation or cognitive ability—or could it be a struggle to regulate their behavior toward a goal? In response to this struggle, learning support structures often focus on trying to “fix” the learner; we help our students understand, practice, and build their executive functioning skills.

Drawing from Universal Design for Learning principles, we will consider the flip side — what if the barrier to access is not the learner’s executive skills (that are housed in a still-developing part of our students' brains), and instead, it's in our design? How can we refine the design of our courses in order to emphasize the skills we want to nurture, such as creating, collaborating, solving problems, and thinking critically?

This program will consist of two parts. Part one will focus on building our understanding of executive functioning. Part two will give space and opportunity for designing and refining our assessments.

In Part One, participants will:

• Self-assess our executive functioning skills
• Consider our biases and judgments around teens with executive dysfunction and clarify the language we use to describe student learning
• Understand what executive functioning is and how it sets the stage for learning
• Examine four practical approaches to executive functioning support

In Part Two, participants will:

• Reflect on our strengths and challenges in our current approach to student support as educators, learning specialists, and administrators
• Practice goal-setting and backward design that lead to the design of our assessments
• Brainstorm ways to minimize the cognitive load of our assignments without compromising the learning goal
  

This program is designed for middle and high school teachers, student-facing administrators, and learning specialists.
CANCELLATION POLICY
Life happens. We understand that there will be times when you cannot attend a workshop that you have registered and paid for.

Registration may be transferred to a different person up to 7 days before a session. However refunds will not be given, and a session missed for any reason will not be refunded.

Below we have outlined our cancellation and refund policy, which we have in place to ensure the most accurate numbers when we secure well in advance locations, catering, and facilitators. Thank you for understanding.

For our ongoing programs or one-day intensives, refunds are available (less a $50 processing fee) up to 22 days before the scheduled starting date. We are unable to provide refunds for cancellations made 21 days or less prior to the first day of a workshop. A missed session that is part of an ongoing program is non-refundable and non-transferrable. For our summer institutes refunds are available (less a $50 processing fee) up to 30 days before the scheduled starting date. We are unable to provide refunds for cancellations made 29 days or less prior to the first day of a summer institute.

Please contact us by email as soon as you know you cannot attend a workshop. This will allow us time to contact our waitlist and hopefully fill your spot.

Host or Publisher California Teacher Development Collaborative