Study Skills is off to a great start! We’re pleased to be offering this weekly executive functioning class for all middle school students for the second year in a row. Executive functioning refers to the mental processes and skills that help people complete tasks and achieve goals. Study Skills class provides students with explicit instruction in these executive functioning skills that are often invisible, but are critically important for success in school – including organizing, remembering, self-checking, prioritizing, and thinking flexibly.

To start off the school year, students have been taking inventory of their own executive functioning strengths and challenges. They have also identified and shared strategies they already use to help themselves in their school and personal lives. Since students will be learning a variety of strategies throughout the year, they have been spending time discussing what a strategy is – an approach to doing something that helps you get it done well. They’ve learned that useful strategies should pass the “I-SEE test”: a strategy must be Individualized, Systematic, Efficient, and Effective. Many strategies students already use pass this test!

Study Skills is about much more than just using planners and binders, but we do spend time at the beginning of the year discussing how to make the best use of these important tools. Students have been establishing the habit of using their personalized planners to record homework and deadlines. Next, we will dive into ways to manage and organize both paper and digital assignments, and students will learn to set up and maintain personal organization systems that work.

Sixth graders discuss scenarios where a hypothetical student uses a study strategy. Does it pass the I-SEE test?

Students took inventory of strategies they already use, as well as some they used to solve puzzles in class, and categorized them. This is sixth grade’s list of strategies.

Seventh graders show off their personalized planners.