Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Building Executive Function: Now You See It, Now You Don't

I am reading about executive function in the brain and how essential it is to everything we do. 

The executive functions are a set of processes that all have to do with managing one's resources in order to achieve a goal. 
(Cooper-Kahn, Dietzel, 2008, p. 10 as cited in Sulla, 2018 ) 

I might add something like skills to "resources" since Sulla talks about how we need to be able to analyze, evaluate, and reflect when doing the somewhat simple task of fixing drywall.

But I was more interested in the teaching activities this book would offer. 

The first activity suggested to help build executive function was something called "Now You See It, Now You Don't".

Tableau I, 1921, Kunstmuseum Den Haag


This is similar to the game memory. But you try to remember specific details of the picture when describing it. For example, you would show students a picture for a short amount of time, then hide the picture from them. The students would try to describe the images in as much detail as they could.

I can see this working with one of our Units of Inquiry. For example, for a unit on the elements of art, maybe you could show students an art image that has strong line elements to it. After revealing the image, you could ask not only details they saw, but this could also be an opening to talk about the art and how line was used in the image. 

I also think an activity like this would be great for EAL students and building their vocabulary. 


Sulla, N., 2018. Building Executive Function. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, p.2.

"Piet Mondrian” Wikipedia.org, Nov. 2 2021, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Mondrian.

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