Organizational+Skills

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This is a resource list generated for a conference presentation on AT tools for organization. A summary of what we talked about follows: WATI's ASNAT manual also has a nice chapter, blending organizational needs with tools. You can download their assessment chapter at []

Organization is a critical skill students need for school and life. It is hard to define exactly but we all seem to know when someone is not organized. Struggles with organization seem to fall into 4 basic categories, self management, project management, time management and materials management. Self management is the ability to attend to the learning moment and manage emotions/ feelings while in the moment. All of us have "bad" days. Over time we learn to channel our energies into acceptable outlets rather than blow up or retreat. Students are learning this process and may not have all the tools they need. Students with ADHD, autism and/or have difficulty controlling emotions often fall in to the first category. The use of deep breathing, music, engine changer, fidgets, swings or white noise can help some students gain better control of their processing of the external world. A graphic that has helped me to understand this underlying self control world came from a presentation by an OT, Shelia Fricke, almost 20 years ago. The red line shows a typical day, we wake up slow, have some coffee and the day plugs along, a few ups and downs but generally good and then as we get ready for sleep our arousal tapers off. If we are medicated say from a seizure disorder or had a late night and the task we have to do are boring we may look like the green line. We get into the middle zone which is optimal but it takes effort. The blue line shows some moments when arousal is overstimulated, maybe a change in expected routine, a fire drill or an escalation of behavior that leads to over reaction. Everyone in the classroom is somewhere on the continuum and all of us tend to "bounce off" others in the room. I have found on the days that I am near the blue zone, my students go there with me. That is why learning how toexpress and offering ideas on how to manage this system are important to organization. If your attention and arousal level are not with the educational task it is going to be hard to learn.

Materials Management tends to explode on the scene in middle school. or late elementary when kids start moving between classrooms. Tools get lost, papers pile up, digital files and favorites overflow and ideas never move into the completed projects a student turns in. Work spaces taking on a storage unit feel and assignments don't get turned in. Understanding Executive Function can help. There is a coding or prioritizing that goes into managing materials. What are the important papers to keep? How will I find the file that I will need for that part of the project? Working with students to build a coding system is great but also very individual. Some kids love color folders. Others do not. I used to have an everything folder, all paper went in and then once a week I sorted it out. I saw another teacher use the chicken pox method. Dot the paper everytime you touch it, 10 dots and its time to go home unless "reference" is written on it. Organization expert Julia Morgenstern has a great book on this topic called Organizing from the Inside Out. Check the other resources in the handout above. Another one not mentioned there is the work by Judy Sweeney at [|www.onionmountaintech.com]. Look on the side bar for services, then handouts, she has an organizational check sheet to try an help identify the style of organizer a student is and then has tool suggestions to fit the various styles. [] []

Time management also tends to emerge as a problem in later elementary when assignments start getting due dates and students are only given a certain amount of work time. But it also can be seen in the students who miss transitional cues of change or focus so intently at what they are doing that they have a hard time regearing for the new activities coming their way. This second group benefits from some of the tools from self managment. The first group may need a scaffolded experience with mini due dates, and progress tracking, Many of the portable online tools work well to cue action. Ever try to remember all the birthdays,, bingo birthday reminders or outlook...There are some neat online tools in the resources of the handout above. Also some to do lists and reminder programs that come as apps for your phone or iPod/iPad. [|www.rememberthemilk.com]

Project Management combines these skills with organizing ideas to complete projects and assignments. It includes so many of the action and thinking steps, especially those between reading and production of written work. How students sort out key bits from all the materials is a critical component of school life, The use of graphic organizers can help, see the list I have under the system support page or the handout above. This list grows daily so these lists are just samples of what are out there. One new option for organizing information is the concept of tagging. Diigo and Delicous are just two of the tools that help sort digital info by key words you may use to retrieve it. Take that nice halloween fraction activity, by tagging it Halloween and another tag of math fractions you have multiple chances of finding it when you need it. There are also more options digitally to present information. I can read the text, play with the interactive, watch a video, play with the vocabulary and listen to a podcast, Students need to explore which options help them learn, retain and decide what information will be used for. This style difference can include how a student searches for information, using the more traditional Google, or the newer tools that use visuals on a search cube or streamlining to an idea with eyeplorer, []

[] online activities that work the brain