Things like working well as a team or meeting deadlines often require a lot of practice. I believe that a grade is a summary of a student’s content skills, not behavior, so I learned some ways to teach soft skills without penalty. When we penalize a student’s grade for being late to class or turning something in late or not being prepared, we are not teaching them HOW to learn that behavior we are punishing them. This a practice that can have harmful effects on a student and their future. Here are 10 ways you can support soft skills (without interrupting your curriculum) so that students have many opportunities to refine their executive functioning and self-regulation:
1. Group Projects
Whenever I create group projects I always assign roles such as time manager, leader, creative director, editor, etc. that mimic real-world job roles. I also provide individual feedback versus a group grade ( group grades tend to encourage one or more students to lean on others, rather than everyone contributing) and I include a self/ peer reflection. Students are usually pretty honest about how they and their group mates performed.
2. Provide Authentic Choice
Choice in the classroom can come in many forms: method, texts, medium, etc. Choice boards and menus or variety in texts/ topics encourage students to leverage their strengths and passions, which helps with engagement. Even as an English teacher, I often have essays as an option, but allow students to demonstrate skills in other ways ( a youtube video or podcast, for example). I know a math teacher who gives students the option to walk through solving problems on a whiteboard, one at a time, or verbally to demonstrate mastery rather than take a paper test.
3. Implement Project- Based or Self- Paced Learning
Self- paced learning was an absolute lifesaver during pandemic teaching, when I had most of my students online and just a few in the classroom ( and tons of attendance issues). Students could miss direct instruction on one day, but come back the next not feeling like they were confused or too far behind. Students finished longer- length tasks at different paces, but that was okay! It allowed me to partner stronger students with weaker students and gave me time to work with small groups. Students also have more freedom to advocate for themselves with this model – they have to let you know what they need in order to be successful. This idea is based on the Modern Classroom Project. I haven’t fully adopted their methodology, but I use bits and pieces that work for me.
4. Have Students Set Goals and self-Reflect Regularly
Asking students to start the quarter, semester, or year by setting content and/ or standards-related goals will give them a sense of ownership over their learning. This will need to be followed up with regular self-assessment and reflection. Some teachers even use these goal-setting practices as a basis for the student’s final grade in the course. As for deadlines, I set guidelines for when projects or tasks are due but rather than deduct points for not turning it in on time, I ask them why. Sometimes, students had a mountain of other work to do and became overwhelmed. Sometimes, they had a rough night at home or were babysitting or working and had to choose between my work and sleep. For the record, I ALWAYS tell my students that I would rather they get a good night’s sleep than stay up all night completing my assignments. Other times, the issue is that they didn’t understand how to do the assignment, or a piece of it. I’d rather help them master the skill than penalize them for not understanding.
5. Incorporate Meaningful Cycles of Feedback
Creating a culture that values feedback is not easy. Make sure that any time you provide formative feedback it is not attached to a grade ( as I mention in my post about biased grading practices, this rewards students who already know the material), and students have the opportunity to re-learn and practice more before demonstrating mastery. Feedback doesn’t always have to come from you, though! Providing a peer- checklist, itemized rubric, or answer key before students revise their work can take some of the load off of you and empower students to support each other in the learning process.
6. Provide Sentence Stems for Responding to Adversity
Whether it is asking about their grade or disagreeing with someone in a class discussion, giving students sentence frames models how they can respond to obstacles respectfully and productively. I started using sentence stems to help my emerging bilingual students, but I soon realized they actually benefit all of my students. No one has ever complained that they are childish, and I have started using them in all aspects of my classroom.
7. Practice Social Emotional Learning
Genuinely incorporating social – emotional learning into your classroom provides so many benefits. It allows students space to be vulnerable and admit when they’re struggling in a way that fosters self regulation. There are a million ways to do it but I keep it simple by modeling open, honest, vulnerable, and REAL communication. This means admitting when I’m having a hard day, and allowing students to have hard days as well. I give students time to share about themselves and their lives – good, bad, or ugly – in bell ringers at the beginning of class. It’s a great way to create a community in a non-academic way that doesn’t take up too much instruction time.
8. Practice Ownership
Model owning your own mistakes or acknowledging your role in getting things done. Once, I really struggled with a grading deadline, and I let students know. I extended the deadline for the assignment and gave students an extra day to work on it. I could have held the line and still not graded the paper for another week, but letting students know that I struggled with something and giving them time back because of it showed that I was human. As a new teacher, it was so hard for me to admit that I was wrong or made a mistake, mostly because my cooperating teachers told me I had to be the authority in my classroom and that was the way to do it. I’ve since learned that students actually respect you more when you own your flaws, especially when that is what we expect of them.
9. Practice Self- Acceptance
Modeling and practicing self-acceptance is important for teachers and students. This creates community, but it also encourages students that they are still worthy and valuable even when they fail or make big mistakes.
10. Provide Opportunities to Practice and Celebrate Mistakes Without Judgement or Comparison
The truism that comparison is the thief of joy totally applies here. While some competition can be fun and a great release for students ( trashketball, anyone?) it is important to make sure that its in a space where students lift each other up, not tear each other down. As much as I can, I try to do collective competitions where the whole class contributes to a goal, or consider multiple ways for students to participate in ways they are comfortable with doing. I also try to celebrate as much as I can. When students get to cheering each other on, even with the smallest success, it breeds more tries, more mistakes, more success (and less judgement!).
There you have it! I hope this gives you some ideas on how to incorporate soft skills teaching into your classroom without relying on grades for reinforcement.
What have you tried in your classroom? What are some failures/ successes you’ve had with teaching soft skills/ executive functioning without grades?
