Consider executive function skills. Students use them to begin an assignment, organize materials, remember directions, manage time, shift between tasks, monitor progress, and keep working when something becomes difficult. A student does not need a diagnosis or an individualized plan to struggle with any of these things.

We often treat missed deadlines, forgotten materials, incomplete assignments, or difficulty getting started as problems with effort. Sometimes they are signs that students are still developing the skills needed to manage increasingly complex learning.

Executive Function Is Part of Everyday Learning

Executive function includes working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility. These skills help students hold information in mind, manage distractions, adjust their thinking, plan their work, and solve problems. A 2025 longitudinal study led by researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago followed students from the upper elementary grades into high school. The researchers found that executive function skills predicted later high school GPA. They also emphasized that adolescence remains an important period for developing these abilities.

That finding should influence how we design learning. If executive function skills affect academic performance, we cannot assume every student already knows how to plan a long-term project, break down an assignment, manage several deadlines, or determine what to do when they become stuck.

We need to teach those skills as intentionally as we teach academic content.

Accessibility Can Help Every Student

Many supports originally associated with special education are simply examples of thoughtful teaching. Clear written directions help the student who has difficulty remembering multiple steps, but they also help the student who was absent, distracted, overwhelmed, or uncertain about where to begin.

Chunking a large project into smaller checkpoints supports students with documented executive function needs, but it can also teach every student how to manage complex work. Visual schedules, models, checklists, flexible tools, recorded directions, planning templates, and opportunities to revise can reduce unnecessary barriers without reducing expectations.

A 2025 review of Universal Design for Learning in secondary education found that inclusive classroom design commonly incorporated scaffolding, student choice, self-regulation, goal setting, planning, information management, and progress monitoring. These are not niche supports. They are foundational learning skills.

Accessibility is not about making learning easier. It is about making the path into learning clearer.

Technology Should Support Independence

Technology can play an important role when it helps students manage their own learning. Digital calendars can make deadlines visible. Task managers can break projects into steps. Text-to-speech can help students review complex material. Speech-to-text can help a student capture an idea before losing it. Shared documents can make feedback immediate, while multimedia options can give students different ways to process information and demonstrate understanding.

Let's choose tools and practices that help students plan,
focus, communicate, reflect, and gradually take greater ownership of their work.

Designing for All Learners

IDEA’s All Learners Spotlight Community brings educators together to explore executive function, study habits, organization, accessible design, assistive technology, inclusive instruction, and tools that strengthen learner independence. This community begins with a simple belief: strategies that remove barriers for one learner can often improve learning for many others.

Are we doing enough for students or waiting for them to qualify for
support before teaching them how to organize, plan, focus, and manage their learning?