The way most of us concentrate and focus our attention on things that matter has undergone a dramatic disruption in the past two decades. While what we need to do can be enhanced by technology, there are potentially even more digital factors that get in the way of meeting one’s academic, employment, and/or social goals. In this course, we will use a developmental lens as we introduce strategies to help students problem solve and self-evaluate how they set goals, make plans, and stay on task to foster executive functioning, while simultaneously and constantly being distracted by digital tools such as screens, phones, and watches. We’ll also take a deeper look at the latest research related to concentration and focus.

This three-hour course will kick off with 90 minutes of Dr. Tracey Marks, a practicing psychiatrist of over 20 years, whose mission is to increase mental health awareness and understanding by educating people about well-being and self-improvement. Dr. Marks has an enormous following on YouTube where she produces educational videos for managing stress, anxiety, and improving executive functioning. Dr. Marks’ has published a book called, Why Am I So Anxious?, which is available on our website. In part 2, Michelle Garcia Winner, Founder of Social Thinking, will talk about teaching executive functioning, mental time travel, and self-reflection for tweens and teens.

Both teachers and learners need practical ways to think about the social world. In this introductory course, you will learn 15+ practical teaching strategies using Social Thinking Vocabulary and visual frameworks. The activities from this course focus on making abstract social information more concrete through lessons to teach social learners how to socially attend, interpret, problem solve, and respond to social information. Activities will also focus on strategies for teaching emotional understanding, theory of mind/perspective taking, and executive functioning to help learners meet their own social goals. Note: This course is introductory and designed for those who are new to Social Thinking or just want to expand how they teach lessons from the Social Thinking Methodology.