Executive Function Skills 101

I believe that people are good at many things. If you are a person that struggles with time management, task follow through, prioritizing, planning, meeting deadlines; YOU ARE NOT ALONE! These are all examples of executive function skills. Perhaps these skills weren’t taught in school, or they were something that you didn’t quite master and now you find yourself struggling. There is good news, it’s never too late to learn these skills.

In my classroom teaching days, I noticed that teachers teach content, but they don’t always teach you what to do with that content and this is where some students get lost. In my role as a high school teacher, I found that if my students could figure out a strategy to do something meaningful with the content, this is when they found success.

When students share that they are not feeling successful in college, I take that opportunity to point out that there is no separate admission process at Rutgers, they earned their spot and deserve to be here. We dive into a series of questions about what they did in the past to experience success and that is the starting point. I’ll say it again, people are good at many things and at times, we need to be reminded of this.

Strategies that you used to be successful in high school, may not be working the same in college. It is not uncommon at all for this to happen, college is a very different learning environment than high school.

To get started, here are a few of my favorite resources to share with students:

• Learning Advisory – a phenomenal site full of great information 
  • https://ldadvisory.com/college_students/
• Landmark College – great resources that you can print out
  • https://www.landmark.edu/research-training/blog/infographics-on-self-advocacy-and-executive-function
• ADDitude – awesome executive function skills resource
  • https://www.additudemag.com/

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.  If you have any resources or strategies that you have found success with, please email me at erin.leuthold@rutgers.edu. I would love to hear from you!