Fast Feedback on Skills and Habits

Fast Feedback on Executive Functioning Skills

Use Feedback Forward to gather and interpret evidence of student executive functioning skills.

Executive functioning skills include working memory, emotional regulation, focus, task initiation, planning/prioritization, organization, time management, defining and achieving goals, flexibility, and stress tolerance. Feedback focused on executive functioning might include criteria ranging from self-monitoring when checking work in math to sustained focus during an independent study or time management during a collaborative project. Fast Feedback makes it easy to elicit and interpret evidence of progress more consistently so that you can give students feedback regularly.

Five questions to answer as you plan to give Fast Feedback on Executive Functioning:

1. Which executive functioning skill should be a focus during this unit, term or course?
   • Individual Student Focus: If you plan to support individual students, review IEP, 504, or other special education plans for executive functioning goals and accommodations. Determine how the student will independently practice those skills during classroom routines, tasks and activities. Choose those skills as your feedback focus.
   • Whole Class Focus: Reflect on classroom routines, tasks, and activities which require independent self-regulation. Determine the executive functioning skills that students will need to apply during these classroom events. Choose one or more as your feedback focus.
2. What does success look like over time or in different activities? What are specific indicators of growth
   • Identify specific indicators that will help you recognize and explain what proficiency in each executive functioning skill looks like. Consider developing a rubric or framework, or co-creating one with students.
3. How will I share success criteria with students?
   • Encourage a cooperative learning environment by sharing success criteria with individual students or the entire class. When appropriate, consider sharing this information with parents to facilitate support at home. Build self-assessment checkpoints into class routines and activities, enabling students to regularly evaluate and reflect on their progress.
4. When and how often will I give Fast Feedback to students on this skill?
   • Meaningful data insights in Feedback Forward require at least five sessions of Fast Feedback. This means that giving feedback needs to be a consistent part of your routine. Consider classroom structures, planned activities, and daily routines: identify the tasks or activities that allow students to practice this skill.
5. How will I act on data insights and help students move forward?
   • Make a plan to help students move forward using the feedback from Feedback Forward. Use the Insights to provide the foundation for conferences or weekly check-ins. Ask students to reflect, set goals, and create plans for moving forward. You can also screenshot a student’s data insights to create a customizable progress report to share with students and parents. Use Insights to plan for intervention, direct instruction of specific skills, or differentiated instruction.