Description:
Sarah and Jessica are finally coming together to combine their expertise to present the relationship between Executive Function and Anxiety and to offer practical strategies for improving student engagement.
With over 30 percent of students presenting with anxiety, overwhelmed adults require a new approach as well as a practical and easy-to-implement toolkit of strategies that work. It is probable that during a pandemic that heavily impacts everyday life, levels of anxiety in children and teens are even higher, and the possibility of subsequent trauma greater.
Overwhelming, negative, and inaccurate thoughts can contribute to student disengagement. When this is the case, traditional suggestions such as incentives, offering breaks, a graphic organizer, or even checklists will not help the student initiate an activity. Practical classroom strategies that specifically target improvement in accurate perception, self-monitoring, self-regulation are essential. We will offer a way to teach these skills without causing student dependence.
Sarah and Jessica will share easy to implement preventive tools, strategies, and interventions for increasing student engagement. Through the use of case studies, humorous stories, and examples of everyday challenging situations, Sarah Ward and Jessica Minahan will combine their expertise to help participants learn the best ways to build skills in students to reduce anxiety and improve executive functioning, accurate thinking, self-monitoring, and initiation. Virtual classroom and traditional classroom examples will be shared.
Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to:
- Describe the relationship between anxiety, working memory, and executive functioning
- Define how situational awareness, self-talk, forethought, and episodic memory are the foundational skills for successful task execution.
- Enumerate strategies to promote initiation skills in students who exhibit work avoidance.
- List 3 technology tools that can increase student engagement
- Enumerate strategies for reducing negative thinking toward writing
