2026 SAI Pre-Conference — Learn it Today, Use it Tomorrow

Pre-Conference: Learn it Today, Use it Tomorrow — Cutting-Edge and Practical Strategies to Develop Independent Executive Functioning Skills

Why do capable students struggle to start work, manage time, transition between tasks, or complete assignments independently?

The issue is often not behavior or motivation—it’s executive function.

Executive function skills—planning, time awareness, task initiation, and self-regulation—are essential for student success, yet they are often misunderstood and rarely taught directly. Many students who appear unmotivated or inconsistent are actually struggling with the hidden cognitive demands embedded in everyday school tasks.

In this full-day pre-conference workshop, participants will explore a powerful new lens for understanding and teaching executive function skills in real classrooms. Based on the award-winning 360 Thinking™ Executive Function Method, this session shows how planning, time awareness, self-regulation, and task management can be taught throughout the school day without adding a new curriculum.

Instead of relying on reminders, prompts, or compliance-based strategies, educators will learn how small instructional shifts—“tiny tweaks”—can dramatically increase student independence, engagement, and follow-through.

Through practical examples and hands-on analysis of real classroom tasks, participants will learn how to reduce prompt-dependence and help students move from “What do I do next?” to “Here’s my plan.”

Participants will learn how to:

✅ What executive function actually is—and how lagging EF skills (not lack of motivation)    drive many student challenges

✅ How to teach students to “see” the future and act with intention

✅ How to use the Get Ready * Do * Done Model to turn any academic task into a tool to develop executive function skills

✅ Visual time management strategies to help students feel and manage time independently and complete tasks within allotted time frames

✅ Simple, powerful ways to tweak routines and transitions to increase student independence

✅ Support students in learning how to manage long-term projects while maintaining rigor and accountability

Participants will leave with immediately usable strategies, practical language to describe executive function, and a framework for supporting student independence across classrooms and grade levels.

Learn it today. Use it tomorrow.