Recommend this article for teachers and parents, especially moving forward to help address the needs of students that struggle with “organization and executive function”. The complete article can be accessed at edutopia’s website titled “Helping Students With ADHD Stay Organized” by Ezra Werb Article click here.

Here are some highlights I really liked about the article and what we’re experiencing in our digital classrooms.

“Have you ever looked inside the backpack or desk of a student with ADHD?” …YES

Tracking assignments and calendars – “Teachers can create calendars or charts in their LMS showing the upcoming schedule for projects and readings, which allows students to see clearly what assignments are left to complete and when they’re due.” My co-teaching experience gave me the chance to work with a couple of teachers who really took this to heart on the walls of our classroom. While I kept my blended learning environments pretty organized “to me” I wasn’t paying as much attention to how important the visual representation of a calendar in the classroom was or how our online community utilized its calendar functions for guiding students throughout the year. There are probably a lot more ways we can encourage both students and parents to engage in the practice of maintaining some sort of visual time management process that would work for the student.

Following teacher feedback – “The comments are tied to specific  phrases in the students’ text, so it’s easy to see exactly what the teacher is referring to.” I’ve been noticing how some students are not aware of the usage of commentary functions in online learning management systems and how they can engage in communication with their teachers and other students. It’s not always self explanatory how to find feedback and the protocol or purpose for following up to feedback from a teacher or a classmate. I like how the article recommends referring to a student’s own words. I’m also excited to implement ideas of social emotional learning to encourage through messages of hope and inspiration, especially during a time like this.

Editing and rewriting – “Do any of us adults do this anymore in our own work?” As important as I may think the manual process of rewriting work may be, the further we go into the world of academia and professions in the 21st century, this may not be as important as I’ve thought it to be. I like what it does for the development of an individual’s writing mechanics but when I think about my writing process in the past two decades, I can’t remember the last time I rewrote something by hand academically or professionally.

Writing practice using real-world scenarios – “Using an LMS gives students extra opportunities to develop practical writing skills.” I’m learning that communication is one of the primary tenets of online learning. I’m inspired by the amount of writing students will engage in now more than ever through email correspondence, chat, discussion boards, and other response based interaction online. It opens up the opportunity for student voice among are most reluctant speakers, documents our thought process in both private and collaborative ways and allows for quicker response time to academic writing, especially with more than a hundred students.

Ezra Werb provides many great ideas to think about in this short article. A good read for those of you like myself that are still in their beginning years teaching and new to online teaching with younger populations.