The Teacher's Key: Finding the Answers for Learning

Sometimes as teachers we need to explicitly teach executive functioning skills or even set up a plan that helps students follow through on what these skills look like while in action. Time management and task initiation skills are easy to implement steps and strategies for students to follow.

Do we set our classrooms and management systems in such a manner that we model planning while teaching students strategies for prioritizing important information. Helping our students to plan and prioritize will set them up for success.

1 Corinthians 14:40 "Let all things be done decently and in order." So many of our students could find more success in the classroom if they only had the skill of organization! We can be the teacher that can help them organize and hold them accountable while they are in our classrooms. Thank you to Sarah Hudon for all the work she did in organizing these lessons to help teachers know how to help o...

Executive Functioning skills are key to student success. As teachers we can realize that some students through no fault of their own need help while their EF skills are still developing. Thank you to Sarah Hudon for putting these resources together so we can be better teachers! 

Executive functioning skills can interfere with the learning process and is critic for students to receive help developing skills. Thank you to Sarah Hudon for organizing and providing this information helping teachers and parents gain knowledge about executive functioning skills.

Executive functions help us to plan, organized and regulate our learning and behavior. God gave us the first executive functioning skills to help us after salvation. We find that in the Fruit of the Spirit. He changes our thoughts to love, joy, and peace. He also changes our behaviors to longsuffering, goodness, kindness, faithfulness and temperance.    Join me as we discover how some students nee...

Students do not always avoid a task simply because they do not want to do the work. Sometimes they can be embarrassed by the fact that they do not understand the task or simply do not have the skills to perform the task. Teaching our students to walk in truth includes them understanding that they can do hard things and they can work through their weaknesses instead of running from them.

One reason for students to misbehave is to seek attention. Mrs. Evans used to say, “Why can’t we just give people what they need?” We just need to decide that some students just need more attention. Go ahead and give it to them. Don’t make them seek it. Then teach them how to appropriately seek the attention they need. Teach them how to ask for extra time they need or how to wait and get it later....

We can recognize obvious reasons students disobey, like defiance, rebellion, and just plain ole disobedience or foolishness. But there are some reasons some children actually have a problem with self-regulating. This is where we can help students walk in truth by acknowledging the problem and using scripture and strategies to overcome their struggles. Walking in truth is not being perfect. It is k...

The Lead me part of our model is the abstract teaching and leading students in their own ability to study and learn.

Jesus used pictorial or representation teaching when He met with Nicodemus and related being born again to our physical birth. We can help students learn with charts, graphs, graphic organizers, and pictures. Some students need to "see" what they are learning with the help of visual aids.

Jesus taught using the concrete method when He fed the 5,000, put mud on the eyes of the blind man, or perform the many miracles during His teaching. We certainly cannot perform miracles like Christ, but we can use concrete items for students to touch, feel or taste for learners that need to use their senses to learn.

Did you know God's Word is full of methods for teaching! Psalms 25:4-5 has three methods that Jesus models for us in the New Testament. Shew me; teach me; lead me. Following Jesus's example, we can see where he used concrete, representative or pictorial, and abstract methods depending on who he was teaching! He knew His audience!

Children may not always remember what was taught, but they remember how they feel. We can help students feel safe and loved through our teaching process.  

Adding our senses during an experience will add lasting memories. I love the smell of cut grass. That smell always takes me back to when I was a little girl coming into our small town as we were driving home from camp. Those memories are etched in my mind and triggered through the smell of cut grass. When we add taste, smell, touch, sounds, and smells to a lesson it deepens the learning paths in o...

Children learn best when they experience something. We can easily set up experiences in order to deepen and lengthen learning for our students.

The next few lessons are from the Daycation break out session in case you missed it. I found these verses and this truth out of a desire for finding the answers to learning. I don’t know why, but I am so amazed that God’s Word teaches us everything we need to know about teaching! I have not found all the answers yet, but I keep discovering hidden gems throughout His Word. God’s Word is packed full...

Another life changing therapy that we found in our search for answers was FIE. FIE helps to develop cognitive functions needed for learning. I like to say it is learning how to learn. These are strategies we need to input, process, and express information. You can find information about it on the website NILD.org.