Episode 98: Executive Functioning in the Classroom with Sarah Oberle and Mitch Weathers

0:00Welcome to the Learning Scientist podcast, a podcast for teachers, students, and parents about evidence-based practice and learning. Welcome back to another episode of the Learning Scientist podcast. Today, I am so excited to be joined by two recognized experts on executive functioning and two of my very dear friends, Dr. Sarah Oberle, who is a veteran primary educator, speaker,

0:32and author, and Mitch Weathers, who's the founder of Organized Finder, a best-selling author, and again, a recognized voice on executive functioning in the classroom. Together, they have recently released a book called Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom. Today, we are going to have a conversation all about executive functioning and really what that is, what educators should know about it, and really kind of how to separate out the noise from the science in the executive functioning realm.

1:05So thank you both for joining me today. Glad to be here. Thanks for having us. Yeah, glad to be here. All right. So let's get started with executive functions. There's a lot of, like I said, just noise out there when it comes to executive functioning. So let's just start with like a definition here. What on earth are we talking about? I'll jump in and keep it really brief that executive functions are a set of interrelated cognitive processes that make goal-oriented behaviors possible.

1:39And that could be the smallest little tiny goal, like I'm just trying to stay focused on the task at hand. It could be a much larger goal. And in the classroom, we're trying to spot those behaviors that are brought to us by these cognitive processes. Okay. So we're talking about kind of goal-directed behaviors. We're specifically talking about cognition. As you said that, I was wondering, is there anything about motivation in executive functioning as well? Or is that like a distinct separate thing? I'm sure that motivation has a lot to do with EFs, but it's not a component scientifically

2:13of executive functions. It's not one of the six different cognitive processes that are considered an executive function. Oh, so we have specific ones? Maybe I should have added that to my little brief definition, but trying to stay brief. Yeah. So there's six outlined in the research and kind of broken into two categories. One, the first is referred to as the core executive functions, which are working memory inhibition and cognitive flexibility, sometimes referred to as shifting. And then there's higher order EFs that kind of come on board a little bit later developmentally,

2:49which is planning, reasoning, and problem solving. And there's, of course, overlap or interplay, and there's lots of variability in terms of the development of executive functions, but it really is the biology. It's what's happening. And so the work that Sarah and I have been engaged in the last couple of years is really looking at that core set in the K through three space, because that's really when those are just starting to emerge or come on board developmentally.

3:21And in the upper elementary, middle, high school, and into our mid to late 20s is when the higher orders start to come about. Okay, great. So you mentioned one of the components is working memory. And for me, I've always kind of struggled with figuring out, like, is all of this working memory? How is it the same? How is it distinct? And Sarah, I know you've done lots of work on working memory. I mean, still to this day, when I present about working memory, I use your, like, box

3:51analogy for working memory for everyone, because it's so good. And if you're interested in that, there's a blog. I'll link to it in the show notes. But maybe you can speak a little bit to that, like, what is the same and what is different from working memory and executive functioning? Sure. So working memory is one of the six components of executive functioning. And maybe I'll go into a little bit what the other two core EFs are, and that will explain a little bit how they are different.

4:22So we know we have working memory. Inhibition is one of the other three core. Inhibition is your ability to not only exhibit self-control and prevent yourself from acting on impulse or reflex. So I really want to say something. I'm going to pause and not say that. I want to look at something. I'm going to stay focused. It's also your ability to filter out what you shouldn't be paying attention to. So it inhibits your action, but it also helps support your focused attention. And cognitive flexibility is your being able to sort of roll with the punches when there's

4:57an unexpected change, you know, not having a meltdown when the schedule has changed or when there's, you know, a shirt that you wore that, you know, you didn't really want to wear and mom said you have to wear it. Now, you know, very like toddler-like behavior that we see, you know, we're thinking about cognitive flexibility starting to develop around that age, which is why we have such small things that set off our toddlers, right? Because they don't have the ability to kind of change their mind so quickly. Cognitive flexibility is also understanding that, you know, just because I want to do

5:29something right now doesn't mean that everybody else does. So it has a lot to do with peer relationships in the classroom, as well as being able to be calm, stay calm when things don't go as planned. So as you were saying that, I was thinking about my own kiddos. So I don't know if both of you actually know. So both of my children have been diagnosed with both autism and ADHD. And so as you were saying that, Sarah, I was like, this is really interesting to me because

5:59when we think about sort of those three executive functioning skills that you're talking about, I mean, my daughter was like two points away from being selected for the gifted program. Her working memory is actually really, really good. She has this tremendous memory, et cetera. But the other two are problematic. The cognitive flexibility comes from the autism and the inhibition comes from the ADHD quite a bit. And so even your description of toddlers being like that, we have often said that for both of my

6:34kiddos, it kind of felt like they got to their like terrible twos and never left. Because they had those very unique issues that they they've had to try to overcome. And it just it seems like they're just kind of delayed in the development of those executive functioning skills. Does that ring true what I'm saying? I mean, I'm talking about neurodiversity here. And so I don't know the degree to which you guys can speak to that. But does that ring true what I'm saying? Absolutely. And we know that executive disfluency is the hallmark of autism, of course.

7:06Our book speaks to the general population. And we say, you know, this is applicable to everybody. We are clear that we are not experts in neurodiversity or special education. However, what we're saying is even your students who are five, six, seven, they are still developing these skills. So we need to taper our expectations in response to that knowledge. And we need to use that knowledge to make strategic decisions in the classroom. So while we might not be seeing those temper tantrums in kindergarten, well, we will see

7:42them in kindergarten, sometimes a little bit in first grade. But, you know, they have had a couple of years to start to develop, whereas, you know, a child who has autism, let's say, like you mentioned, might be kind of stuck or just delayed in their ability to demonstrate the behaviors that we associate with executive functions. So, yes, it all rings true. We are more saying, hey, this is applicable for all of your students, no matter if diagnosis or not. And we'll always say this is applicable for all humans, as a matter of fact.

8:14But when you're a teacher of the early grades, we want you to be aware that these cognitive processes are very much under construction. And so we want you to keep that in your back pocket as you're making on-the-spot decisions, as you're planning your routines and your instruction. I think it does ring true in all grades, right? This is a human thing. But you hit on something I think it's worth teasing out a little bit. When we think of executive functions, we really have to be focused on the environment.

8:45I'm using that term broadly. That means our instruction, our routines, the physical, the acoustic environment, all of that considering. And if we can be equipped with the knowledge that helps us create learning environments, create these spaces that lead to better executive functioning, it's a win-win kind of for all kids. Like this work that we're engaged in, Sarah and I, is meant to be tier one for all kids. And I just think of your daughter or one of your daughters in a classroom where if the

9:19ability to inhibit is already a challenge for me and the environment is such that I'm having to really focus a lot of my cognitive bandwidth, aka working memory, just to inhibit, whether it's maybe it's too noisy or whatever that might be, that's problematic. For neurodiverse kiddos and all learners. So if we can intentionally start to think about the environment in ways that go, okay, if I could offload some of that, it's going to be a win for all students.

9:53But it's in a lot of ways, I liked your first question, like is working memory like part of all of this? And it kind of is. Working memory and cognitive load are part of every executive function conversation I think educators should have. And we kind of nod to that in the book, but there's one more thing I'd like to say is we're, we're referring to the, as I said at the beginning, these behaviors or skills that manifest from these cognitive processes. And we explain this in the book. You're not, we're not like growing a student's working memory.

10:27We know that the research is clear. That's, that's not the case. We're, we're trying to shape environments that protect that precious resource. Same with inhibition and cognitive flexibility. But you hear the phrase, we've already said it on this call already, executive functioning skills. And you, well, if it's a skill, is that a cognitive process? No, the skill is the behavior that is brought to you by executive functioning. And that can be practice and can grow and we can get like, and this comes on board certainly

10:59with higher order executive functions. But, you know, think about the ability to get and stay organized, the ability to manage my time, those types of, those are things we can practice even though they're brought to us by the, these cognitive processes. I hope that makes sense. It does. So as you were saying that, it reminds me of, you know, I, I work with medical students, like the other end of the spectrum here, but they often are talking about like getting smarter or like improving their memory or whatever.

11:32And we talk about like, no, that's not what we're doing, but we are going to change the strategies that you're using in order to learn more effectively or more efficiently. And so it's not necessarily the cognitive processes aren't changing, but we can use effective strategies to harness the cognitive processes that already exist. Yeah. And, and it's, but back to what Sarah said as well, that, that age and grade level appropriate expectation, like your students, you can probably have a, a fairly high expectations.

12:07But, you know, when you look at a five-year-old, we just being equipped with this knowledge as educators is really important around our expectations. What I assume you can or should be able to do through this executive functioning lens, I think you're, you're spot on there. Yeah. So I can put it on my students to be very self-directed in this. I can make them aware of their, you know, limitations and their strengths and then say, you know, you need to come up with, you know, and teach them the strategies, but then it's

12:40up to them to deploy them. That might be a lot for a five-year-old, right? For a five-year-old, we might be needing to design the classroom environment with those things in mind more than expecting them to be able to know how to inhibit appropriately or regulate or whatever. Yes? Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. And we have to be, we have to really make the invisible visible. So we have to be very specific and explicit about things that you would be surprised about.

13:12So, you know, Mitchell laughed because I sent him a video of teaching my students how to put their chairs up at the end of the day. And it took a lot more. It wasn't just put your chairs up. You know, it was like, stand up. Now we're going to, you know, now we're going to pick this up. Are we going to put it here? No. Why? What will happen? So it is, you know, being very explicit and not taking for granted what we assume that they'll just know. And as a ninth grade, I spent most of my career in ninth grade.

13:42And I would say to the last class of the day, hey, what we do at the end of class is you all put your chairs up. Got it? And that's probably the last time I'd have to. I might remind them a couple, but it would be routine within moments. But this literally was like a five minute video that Sarah sent me. And I was just, just chuckling like the, and then it still wasn't done. I mean, I think you kind of stopped and, you know, it makes you want to run around and put all the chairs up for the kids, which is not what we're saying. Don't, don't do that. But yeah.

14:12Yeah, and this is the aspect too, that this is not just by any means an academic concern. We are talking about just behaving as a student in a school setting and being able to do things that aren't necessarily academic in nature, but can strain or put pressure on your, whatever you have in terms of cognitive flexibility, whatever you have in terms of inhibition. So, you know, I think we, not only to learn, but to be able to exhibit the behaviors that

14:47we need to succeed in school and to demonstrate what we're learning, we very much have to consider the development of EFs. I think that's a really good point. Thinking about things in terms of cognitive load or even in terms of cognitive depletion is, is one way that I like to look at this sometimes that if we can reduce the amount of, of cognitive effort that students have to put in to, to all of these little things, right? If we can create an environment where, yeah, they're not having to deal with a whole lot

15:21of cognitive flexibility or they're not having to, to deal with things that their little brains just aren't quite ready to do yet. And then by the end of the day, they're not totally exhausted as any parent out there, especially parents of neurodiverse kiddos, but any parent out there can tell you, you know, like the first few days of kindergarten, they come back at the end of the day and they are a hot mess, right? The kids are just, they're angry and they're exhausted. And it's because they've been doing so much cognitive work throughout that day.

15:55And especially at the beginning, when there aren't those routines in place, um, to help them sort of get through all of that. I feel like that's a lot of, a lot of what we're talking about too, is that if you can put routines in place and reduce, um, some of that, that cognitive load that we put on them, then they have more capacity and more capacity for a longer period of time in order to be focused on learning. So even though we're not necessarily directly talking about learning all the time, all of

16:26this impacts students' ability to learn. I think the main goal is the preservation of whatever our students have, whatever their capabilities at the moment, no matter how, you know, developed or, or delayed they are, or we want to do as much as possible to offload the pressure on their need to inhibit distraction. So we're going to be really careful about how we set up the environment. Um, we're going to be really careful about what we say during instruction.

16:58So we don't set them off on, you know, all of a sudden they're thinking about something else. Um, we're going to be strategic about the decisions that we allow them to make so that we're not straining their ability or inability to be flexible. And, um, you know, we want to maximize what they have for the learning. So we don't want to say this way, you know, your working memory doesn't have anything to do. No, we want them to use, uh, whatever cognitive potential they have, but we want them to use it on the learning itself. We don't want to waste it on these little, um, you know, things in the classroom that will

17:30start to siphon off their potential that they could be using for, you know, actual learning activities. I love that. So it's not, the idea is not to not use these things. We want them to use them. We want them to develop these things, but we want them to use them on, on what matters instead of taking those resources and putting them somewhere else. Yeah. The, I mean, school, not all the time, but at certain times should be effortful and hard. Like I need to concentrate. I mean, we want that for learning and that's part of it.

18:01It can't be that all the time. But yeah, if you're, if you're, I love the phrase cognitive depletion. If there's, I mean, there's just less there for me to draw on to stay focused on what I'm trying to learn. So if we're going to turn up the rigor, we have to be thinking about executive functions and working memory in particular. But the good news in all of this is you can probably pick it up through the conversation is this isn't anything else, something else for a teacher to do, which is really important. This is just equipping yourself with the knowledge to say, okay, let me consider my environment,

18:36my routine, my instruction. It's the things I'm already doing, but through the lens of executive function. So the epiphany for me, and I write about it in my first book, which is grades three through 12. So it's a little bit more of the higher order focus, but lots of working memory and cognitive low talk. But I, I'm based in California. Most of my students when I was in the classroom were multi-language learners and I could see, I've, I've, I've never heard that phrase cognitive depletion. And it's like, that was my seventh period kiddos compared to my first period.

19:10And I used to joke, like if I've given a talk or something that if it's there, they were, their, their brains were, they were learning so much and so engaged all day and they were just full. And that was what the fatigue came from. And it's like, no, they're having to translate everything they're reading and everything they're hearing. And they're going to seven different classes with seven different teachers with seven different routines. If like all this difference is I have to, I have to take some of that bandwidth just to navigate the school day.

19:40I used to refer to it as the learning labyrinth. And if we can, again, intentionally reduce some of that for students, we're creating more capacity, less depletion. It's so interesting to me, like that we need to get educators together from so many different domains because we're all speaking, we're all saying the same thing and saying it in so many different ways. Another part of what you were just saying, Mitch, to me, reminds me of when we're talking about my students and we're talking about the hidden curriculum of medical school.

20:11And it's the same thing, right, that they're having to literally translate things sometimes because we have so many darn acronyms, but also sort of like cognitively translate. Like, what exactly are they talking about? Because I'm unfamiliar with this domain that other people are. So it's issues that first generation students have. It's issues that multilingual students have. And these things overlap so much. And I feel like we so rarely talk to each other to realize that there's so much that we can

20:42learn about how to support students at every level with the same darn things. That's a little aside. Sorry. No, it's not aside because, you know, I'm secondary. Most of my time in the classroom was middle school and then ninth grade. And then with my organized binder work, I'm upper elementary, middle school, high school and college, you're higher ed. And here we are. Sarah and I wrote this book for K3, right? And it's absolutely applicable for all of us. I've been, since we've finished it, I've been telling everybody that I'm working, like

21:16the high school, middle school, wherever you are, I'm like, I know it's just K3, but trust me, read this. It'll, because it is applicable at any level. And the older we get, you know, this, especially being at the university level, we get more and more content focused and we forget about the hidden content, the hidden curriculum. And that's where executive functions come in. Yeah, absolutely. I do want to talk for a second about this issue that I have seen. And, you know, Mitch, the first time I saw you speak, I came to see you speak because I

21:52like you as a person. But I was a little bit hesitant because I was like, oh, executive functioning, I've heard like bad things about this. I won't lie. Like that was my first initial thought. It was because I feel like not everybody's speaking the same language when they're talking about executive functioning and that there's some stuff out there that is like in the best way possible, like snake oil with executive functioning. And I was so impressed with your talk.

22:23And I was like, oh, this is good stuff. This is science based. This is what we love. So what is all the other stuff? And I haven't like sat and done my research to answer that question myself. But I I'm curious if you guys can speak a little bit to the educators who are listening to this, who are like, wow, this is great stuff, but are like me and maybe heard of executive functioning

22:53in the past and maybe didn't think that it was as science based as what you guys are talking about. What's the difference? Like, how does someone know if they're hearing about executive functioning? How does someone know, OK, this is the good stuff? This is this is what I want to be paying attention to. I always felt that way about executive functioning, too. I thought, oh, good. It's not just me. OK, it becomes a catchall. And I see this as a teacher. It becomes a catchall for anything that has to do with, you know, functioning as a student,

23:28for anything that has to do with academic progress or unexpected behaviors. And, you know, it's a term that's thrown around. And even when I look at professionals who say that, you know, that's their business, they are not speaking scientifically about executive functions. And I think they get away with it because it is, you know, accepted as this gray area in education. And we are a very practice based field.

23:59But I think where we get into trouble is when we drift too far away from the science or we start talking about things without understanding the science. We're making a lot of assumptions and then we're sharing some inaccurate information. So, you know, the distinction is really executive functions in their purest form are not behaviors. They're not something you can observe. What you see or what you can do, if we're talking about your own, are behaviors that we tend to associate with executive functions.

24:30So anything that is top down, so meaning your ability to control yourself, not act upon reflex or impulse, is driven by executive functions. So, you know, I'm not saying that I'm going to grow your working memory. I think we mentioned that earlier. I'm not saying that I'm going to improve your ability to inhibit. What I'm saying is in lieu of your developed executive functions and in lieu of your ability

25:06to use them for those behaviors, we're going to create some artificial structures or we're going to set you up with some behaviors artificially, really, so that you can function as if you had these, you know, stronger executive functions. So what we're doing is saying because your students aren't able to do this on their own, we are going to put in place, you know, routines. We're going to put in place, we're going to make our instruction chunked or we are going

25:40to set up rules in our classroom that eliminates some of the ambiguity. But we are not, we're not, I use the analogy of getting taller. Our students are getting taller on their own. We cannot fast forward that. We also are not pushing their executive functions to develop beyond what they're developing naturally. But what we're doing is saying, since you are five and, you know, or seven or eight, and you may not be able to keep yourself organized, prevent yourself from, you know, putting hands

26:11on someone else, be able to ignore, you know, your best friend next to you that wants to talk to you, we are going to then structure things so that we are eliminating those distractions. So I'm not going to let you sit near your best friend when it's learning time. Um, I'm not going to let you choose your seat. We're going to have, you know, line order numbers because we don't want that to become a point of contention in the classroom. So the difference is when you see people say, I'm going to grow your working memory.

26:44Um, no, you're not. You may be able to grow my ability to, let's just say the activity is pattern, identifying patterns. Maybe I'll get better identifying patterns, but you are not actually growing, expanding my working memory capacity. Um, and so I think that's where we get into trouble. You know, we say executive function skills or behaviors, that's the evidence that we have of EFs. So that's what we say, but they are not in and of themselves something that you can observe.

27:16We are, you know, by proxy saying they're always, you know, they're, they're, they're distracted by everything, um, or, uh, they can't seem to discriminate what's relevant. They can't seem to orient their attention in the right place. So we, we think, okay, their, their inhibition is compromised here. And, you know, because we need something to observe, we need something to measure. But I think when we hear people say like, we're gonna, you know, where I'm an executive function coach and I'm going to teach you how to, you know, like just these sort of vague

27:50behaviors, I'm going to teach you how to stay organized. It's like, okay, so organization is certainly an important component of, of being a student, being able to access the appropriate materials and keep track of them. But there's a lot of fluff. There's a lot of padding around some of these things. And that's where I think we just need as consumers to be knowledgeable about, um, you know, what is someone saying that they're going to do and is it based on the science?

28:23Um, so, and maybe what they're trying to do is something important for learning, but maybe it's not executive function. I'm going to piggyback on that. And I, this is why executive functions as a focus, they need to be an MTSS tier one for all students, everybody having exposure, having practice. Um, and therefore, if there's a, an issue that comes up in an, in an authentic or a universal tier one should be able to identify areas of concern at times and within the tier one space,

28:58address or mitigate those concerns, right? That would be a universal MTSS tier one. And for example, with my students, I'd always tell them, I'm like, after two weeks, if you still can't get organized, we do this every single day. That's not a problem. That's actually something we need to see. Like what's, let's get curious about that. And therefore it's maybe a tier two conversation or intervention. And so the other, I guess, snake oil piece I'm, I'm leery of is when, and I, I, I've lost

29:31count and now how many times I've been contacted through organized binder from a school or a district that wants to buy a curriculum on executive functioning to put in a homeroom or an, you know, advisory class or something. And I have to say, no, like, what do you mean? Like, these aren't taught. This is not something like, and even just think about it. If you want to identify this, the skills of it, like, well, what's more engaging, like a lesson on goal setting and why it's important or a unit and how it changes your life and

30:03how you set goals. And I mean, it's all, there's research around that. Here's the science of it. Or how about we just do it? How about we set goals within the context of my fourth grade class or my ninth grade science class or whatever it may be and, and measure them and see if it's working and come back to them. And like, these are things that, that students need practice with as a by-product of the environment. So I hear you on the snake oil thing. And I, I, the, the, the EF coaching world is, it's, I don't know if you've realized this,

30:36but it, there's a lot of EF coaches. It's a big industry, I guess you would call it. It's really hard to support executive functions from outside. If the focus is on school learning, right? If that's what we're doing outside of the classroom, if it's not congruent with what's happening in the classroom. So if there's systems in place, if there's routines in place that lead to better executive functioning, then a coach or a parent, for example, can be far more successful in supporting

31:08and holding a young person accountable in that process. But to have it separate from the learning, separate from school, to me has always seemed we're kind of forcing, you know, kind of a square peg in a round hole, if that makes sense. Yeah, and I mean, I, I can imagine that there are some things that executive functioning coaches could help with, like, you know, how to use a planner effectively and getting the right.

31:40It's, it's maybe slightly different than what they're saying. But I think as you said, Sarah, it's not, it's not that they can't offer behavioral strategies that are useful, and that might be helpful in the classroom, but that might be something slightly different than what we're talking about with really these cognitive functions. And I think as you're saying, Mitch, that, that those things might be behavioral supports, but completely separate from the classroom, it's going to be really difficult to make those

32:14things as effective as they could be. Um, so it's, it's not saying that these things can't be useful, but it becomes kind of problematic when they're separated both from the science and from the environment that the student's actually going to be in. It's really important, speaking of younger, you know, young students, K-12, to invite families into the process. And I'll tell you what, they absolutely love it. We have a bilingual guide that goes home and it just explains what executive functions are,

32:46what's the daily routine, how we get, it just explains this, the, the, the, the environment so that I know exactly if I want to see where my students work as my kid, you know, her work that day or work through the unit or whatever, I know that the table of contents is where she's learning to get and stay organized. If I want to see her daily reflections, there's the, the, I think there's, it's problematic when, when families are, are, um, separated from that, like what's going on at school? How do I like, and that's not that uncommon for us, you know, uh, even three of us educators

33:22with children, I I've had a hard time with that if my daughter's in high school right now, I'm like, do you have like, what's going on in this? I just, I'm not sure, not to say it's a bad, you know, teacher or environment or anything, but I do think we, we do young people a service when we invite the families in, but we have to make sure that that's really clear, that there's no ambiguity so that they can support them at home. On the same token, if I am working on a system like Mitch's system in my classroom where I

33:54have my kids have a routine and, and, you know, they're writing things down and they're setting goals, that's, that's not transferable straight, like it's not a one-to-one at home. And I think that's where some of these businesses, they speak broadly about how they're going to help your life, but it really is task situation, uh, dependent. So I think probably some might be better off saying building awareness about how do you notice

34:24that, you know, in different settings, more, um, building a metacognitive piece. And I don't think that's going to really necessarily work with really little ones because they might notice it in the moment. Um, they might notice it very, they might become aware of very specific things, but it's not going to generalize across life. And I think that's where some things that we see, um, you know, are a little unrealistic. Like if you teach me to use a planner, that's great.

34:56I'm going to keep track of dates. That doesn't mean in my life I'm going to pay attention better, be able to get that basket of laundry folded that I started, um, you know, things like that. And so I don't think that everyone out there is, is a fraud by any means, but I think it does undermine research in general, the science in general, when we say, you know, research backed and research based, and that's another episode, Cindy, but, um, unfortunately I think

35:27some of us pay the price because, um, you know, I was throughout when Mitch and I were writing this book was, and he, he'll vouch for me. I was so like, this has to be exactly on target with what we're reading in publications, but you know, will someone see our book and think, oh, I've, you know, I've seen it all before and it's nonsense probably. And I wouldn't blame them because we all, we all take a hit when, when some, when people kind of dilute the, um, you know, the field of EFs.

35:59On that note, I want to leave the listeners with one thing. So we have talked somewhat broadly and abstractly and theoretically about EFs throughout this conversation. If you could give educators one thing that they can and should do or should consider doing or look at, or one very concrete thing, give it to me. What's the one thing we can, we can give them? I would say look in your classroom or learning space. And if you have, you know, wherever you want your students' visual attention to go, if you

36:33have competing, novel, interesting things for them to attend to, you are making it harder for them to focus on you or the board or wherever you want that learning to take place, especially primary because we do want our classrooms to be fun and warm. And so I would say the easiest, probably most concrete change that you can make or that you can consider is looking at the physical space and making sure that you aren't saying, pay attention to me, not this really cool new neon sign behind me, because boy, is that

37:05a tall order for a little kid. Perfect. Thank you both so much for joining me today. Uh, it's been so nice to even just be able to hang out with you a little bit. Um, but, um, yeah, we'll, we'll have lots of extra information in the show notes and I just appreciate your time and sharing so much great information with our listeners. Thanks, Cindy. Thanks, Cindy. This episode is funded by listeners like you to support our work and gain access to exclusive content. Visit our Patreon page at www.patreon.com slash learning scientists.

37:41www.patreon.com