Managing Impulsivity
Managing impulsivity is a metacognitive habit that requires students to “take the time to develop and discuss strategies for attacking problems. Students can use this guidance during their work and to evaluate their performance afterward” (Costa and Kallick, 2009, p. 39). The skills associated with managing impulsivity are essential for being a successful student in high school and college, and they are even more vital in the workplace where time for a consequence analysis may not exist. I chose this habit to explicitly teach my students because, as a 7th grade teacher, I see my students making impulsive decisions daily — both behaviorally and academically. Being able to stop, evaluate a problem, devise an appropriate plan, think though the consequences of the plan, and then act on that plan is a hard-learned skill, even by many adults. In being able to teach my 12- and 13-year-olds the value of wait time now, they have had the time to practice, internalize, and reflect on the value of this skill.
Reference
Costa, A.L., Kallick, B. Habits of Mind Across the Curriculum. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2009.
Explicit Teaching
Managing impulsivity was explicitly taught to my students using the PowerPoint to the right. Slides 2-3 break down the language of the habit, explaining to students what “being impulsive” means and then expanding on this definition by describing what it means to manage one’s impulsivity.
Once we had discussed the meaning of this habit, we watched the video to the bottom right, Pixar’s “For the Birds.” In this video, the small birds act impulsively out of anger to kick the big bird off of the telephone line; however, in not thinking through their decision, they ended up hurting themselves. When watching this video, students were required to jot down instances of poor impulse management, and then we discussed whole group how the outcome for the small birds would have been different had they practiced wait time and consequence analysis — two important skills necessary to effectively manage impulsivity.
Finally, the students reinforced this initial understanding by participating in a silent discussion within small groups, see below to the left. Students worked together to answer four questions:
What does managing impulsivity look like?
What does managing impulsivity sound like?
When is managing impulsivity important to use?
When is managing impulsivity not important to use?
I was happy to see that the students listed strategies such as “count to ten,” “thinking before you speak,” and “taking deep breaths” as ways to manage impulsivity. Additionally, my students found it difficult to identify occasions when not managing impulsivity would be beneficial.
I felt confident that my students had a strong understanding of managing impulsivity after this initial lesson.
Reinforcement:
How impulsive are you?
After students had a strong understanding of what managing impulsivity was, I wanted them to take a closer look at their own impulsive tendencies. To accomplish this, I had students complete a survey that asked a series of questions, see pages 1-2 and 4-5 to the left. Most students in this group fell in the middle category, which classified students as being very good at managing their impulsivity; that being said, I found that the students who had the most “impulsive” answers did not complete the activity.
On the last page of the survey, see pages 3 and 6 to the left, students were asked to identify habits associated with managing impulsivity that they felt they were good at and also habits they felt they could improve on. Students then reflected on their impulses and identified how to manage their impulsivity in different situations, including at school, at home, and when faced with challenges. Similar to their responses during the explicit lesson above, the students identified strategies they could use to manage their impulses, such as taking a deep breath and being reflective. I was pleased to see these answers, as they were not prompted with a word bank but pulled these skills from their own activation of prior knowledge.
This survey showed me that my students were on their way toward internalizing the ability to effectively manage their impulsivity.
Reinforcement:
Analyzing Characters’ Impulses
After students began to recognize their own abilities in managing their impulses, I asked them to analyze the same habits in the characters we had been studying. In the activity to the right, students were required to read excerpts from the novel we have been studying, A Long Walk to Water, identify the challenges each character was facing, explain the outcomes of those challenges, and then identify which aspects of the habit the characters used to achieve those outcomes. While the survey was purely reflective, this activity required students to look at outside situations and then identify the various aspects that go into managing impulsivity. Evaluating these character scenarios helped students see what managing impulses looks like and the outcomes it produces.
The second scenario extends this activity by challenging the students to infer how the outcome of the character’s challenge would have been different had he not managed his impulsivity. Many students identified that Salva, the main character in A Long Walk to Water, likely would have died along with the Lost Boys he was leading because he would not have stayed calm or thought through a plan to get them all to safety.
In evaluating this work, I was beginning to see my students use the vocabulary of managing impulsivity, and they were able to identify the benefits of using the habit in these extreme and dangerous situations.
Reinforcement: Consequence Analysis
In this final reinforcement activity, I presented students with racially motivated scenarios and asked them to (1) identify the impulsive actions taken and (2) discuss alternate ways the people in the scenarios could have better handled the situations.
Students found it very easy to identify the impulsive actions, citing the fact that the father pulled his son away and the woman locked her car doors when seeing an African American person as impulsive actions. What I appreciated about the discussion that accompanied this activity was that students began to really connect to the idea that impulses are not always easily controlled — the difficulty with managing impulsivity is that impulses occur before you can stop to think about them. The students had a strong discussion when talking about alternate ways these scenarios could have been handled and internalized the importance of thinking through actions, no matter how big or small they may be. Students realized through this activity that their impulses affect others, sometimes in ways that they do not intend. I appreciated this conversation, especially as it was easily connected to the impulsive actions that land students into detention and how their ability to stop and think can benefit them, their peers, and their teachers.
At this point, the students began to internalize not just what managing impulsivity was but how important it was to be able to master this skill and practice it daily.
Conclusion
Managing ones impulses is never easy, as a 12-year-old, and 18-year-old, or a 30-year old. For this reason, I chose to introduce and explicitly teach this habit to my 7th grade students in order to help them identify and internalize skills that will allow them to grow into responsible adults. I felt while teaching this skill the students had a strong understanding of the vocabulary and grew very familiar with the strategies associated with impulse management. It was also clear that my students had begun to reflect on their actions, and I could see the impact these reflections had in their behavior. Moving forward, I plan to continue to push my students to manage their impulses before those impulses come out. The students grew very good at reflecting on their impulses, but continue to work on “wait time” in the heat of the moment.