Did you know that when you become a SMARTS subscriber, you receive access to much more than just an executive function curriculum? In this post, we’ll highlight a few features that can help you extend students’ learning and build your own EF Toolkit.
Resource #1: SMARTS Community Message Boards
On the SMARTS Community Message Boards (Elementary and Secondary), all SMARTS users can share ideas, pose questions, and learn with other educators who are passionate about the transformative power of EF strategy instruction. SMARTS users are also always encouraged to contact staff with questions and comments—feel free to reach out to us via the message boards!
Resource #2: Lesson Focus Sorter
The Lesson Focus Sorter makes it easy to select your lessons. Each SMARTS lesson has identified lesson focus areas (e.g., time management, self-advocacy, test taking) that are listed on the first page of each lesson plan. Using the Lesson Focus Sorter, you can sort by focus areas to find lessons that match your students’ needs.
Resource #3: Strategy Reflection Toolkit
The Strategy Reflection Toolkit contains planning and reflection sheets (in addition to the reflection sheets that accompany each SMARTS lesson). Students can use these sheets to make a plan in part A, and then reflect on how it went in part B. Using strategy reflection sheets consistently can develop your students’ metacognition and help them engage in selecting the strategies that work best for them across a range of tasks with a high EF demand (e.g., planning essays/projects, task initiation, overcoming procrastination).
SMARTS is a powerful, easy-to-use tool for EF strategy instruction in any classroom. From SMARTS Elementary to SMARTS Secondary and our Training and Assessment options, our research-based tools meet the needs of diverse learners and are applicable across grades and content areas.
Interested in learning more about SMARTS? Reach out anytime!
- Caitlin Vanderberg, M.Ed., SMARTS Associate
SMARTS Executive Function Curriculum: smarts-ef.org
Research Institute for Learning and Development: researchild.org