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Designing for Executive Function

Designing for Executive Function

Executive Function is one of the three scaffolds for learner supports introduced in the UDL Guidelines 3.0. Executive function focuses on strengthening learners’ ability to plan, organize, and manage their learning. Executive function includes nurturing emotional capacity (Guideline 9), building knowledge (Guideline 3), and supporting strategy development (Guideline 6). By proactively designing for executive function, you help learners set goals, monitor progress, and build confidence in their growth.

This page supports the March 2026 UDL in Practice session on Designing for Executive Function. Explore the strategies below, and find additional opportunities through U of T’s UDL Programming.

Strategy Library: Designing for Executive Function

This library highlights strategies for designing for Executive Function, organized into three categories drawn from the UDL Guidelines 3.0. Each strategy links directly to UDL considerations while emphasizing small, practical changes you can try right away.

Emotional Capacity

Recognition of motivation, awareness of self and others, reflection, and restorative practices

Building Knowledge

Activation of background knowledge, emphasis on big ideas, information processing, and transfer

Strategy Development

Goal-setting, planning, resource management, progress monitoring, and equity practices

Emotional Capacity

Designing options for emotional capacity (UDL Guideline 9) means recognizing the role of motivation, reflection, and empathy in supporting learners’ executive functioning. This may include:

  • Recognize expectations, beliefs, and motivations (9.1)
  • Develop awareness of self and others (9.2)
  • Promote individual and collective reflection (9.3)
  • Cultivate empathy and restorative practices (9.4)

Here are some ways you might begin to design options for emotional capacity:

Expectations and Motivation

Recognize and build on learner motivation and beliefs.

  • Use surveys or polls to surface learners’ expectations and beliefs. (9.1, 7.1)
  • Connect tasks to intrinsic motivators such as curiosity or relevance. (9.1, 7.2)
  • Highlight effort and strategies rather than innate ability. (9.1, 8.5)
  • Share stories of overcoming challenges to build resilience. (9.1, 8.2)
  • Provide opportunities for learners to reflect on and revise their goals. (9.1, 6.1)

Awareness of Self and Others

Support empathy, perspective-taking, and self-awareness.

  • Invite learners to share identities or pronouns in safe, optional ways. (9.2, 7.4)
  • Use activities that build perspective-taking (case studies, role plays). (9.2, 7.2)
  • Normalize and value different communication styles. (9.2, 5.4)
  • Provide reflective prompts that build self-awareness of learning processes. (9.2, 6.1)
  • Use peer feedback activities to practice awareness of others. (9.2, 8.3)

Reflection

Encourage learners to reflect on progress, strategies, and experiences.

  • Use journals, portfolios, or blogs for structured reflection. (9.3, 6.4)
  • Provide prompts that connect experiences to personal or professional goals. (9.3, 8.1)
  • Scaffold reflection after feedback with guiding questions. (9.3, 8.5)
  • Facilitate group reflection on collective learning. (9.3, 8.3)
  • Ask learners to identify one concrete change to make after reflection. (9.3, 6.4)

Empathy and Restorative Practices

Cultivate inclusive, respectful, and restorative approaches.

  • Establish community norms for respectful interaction. (9.4, 7.4)
  • Use restorative practices when conflicts or harms occur. (9.4, 6.5)
  • Provide structured opportunities to practice empathy in dialogue. (9.4, 7.2)
  • Invite anonymous feedback about classroom climate. (9.4, 6.5)
  • Highlight inclusive or restorative practices from within the discipline. (9.4, 2.4)

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Building Knowledge

Designing options for building knowledge (UDL Guideline 3) means providing multiple pathways for learners to connect new knowledge with prior learning and to make meaning. This may include:

  • Connect prior knowledge to new learning (3.1)
  • Highlight and explore patterns, critical features, big ideas, and relationships (3.2)
  • Cultivate multiple ways of knowing and making meaning (3.3)
  • Maximize transfer and generalization (3.4)

Here are some ways you might begin to design options for building knowledge:

Activating Background Knowledge

Connect new ideas to what learners already know.

  • Begin lessons with guiding questions or advance organizers. (3.1, 6.1)
  • Use polls or quick writes to surface prior experiences. (3.1, 7.1)
  • Invite learners to create mind maps linking new and existing knowledge. (3.1, 3.3)
  • Relate concepts to familiar contexts or case studies. (3.1, 7.2)
  • Prompt learners to connect course topics to personal learning goals. (3.1, 9.1)

Highlighting Key Ideas

Make critical concepts clear and memorable.

  • Use outlines, summaries, or signal phrases to emphasize big ideas. (3.2, 8.1)
  • Provide checklists or concept maps to highlight relationships. (3.2, 6.3)
  • Pair complex explanations with visuals, flowcharts, or examples. (3.2, 2.5)
  • Reinforce big ideas through multiple examples and contexts. (3.2, 3.4)
  • Avoid overloading slides or materials with unnecessary details. (3.2, 1.2)

Information Processing and Visualization

Support learners in organizing and making sense of content.

  • Provide structured note-taking guides or templates. (3.3, 6.3)
  • Use think-alouds to model how experts process information. (3.3, 2.2)
  • Encourage annotation of readings with highlights or comments. (3.3, 2.1)
  • Break down processes into smaller, step-by-step segments. (3.3, 6.2)
  • Offer concept maps or interactive diagrams to visualize connections. (3.3, 4.1)
  • Encourage learners to compare multiple representations of the same concept (e.g., text, diagram, formula). (3.3, 2.5)

Transfer and Generalization

Help learners apply knowledge across contexts.

  • Provide varied examples that demonstrate transfer. (3.4, 7.2)
  • Encourage reflection on how learning connects to future goals. (3.4, 9.3)
  • Use project-based tasks that apply knowledge to new scenarios. (3.4, 5.2)
  • Invite learners to create study guides highlighting cross-topic links. (3.4, 6.3)
  • Prompt learners to explain concepts to peers in their own words. (3.4, 8.3)
  • Ask learners to generate real-world examples of where they could apply a concept. (3.4, 7.2)

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Strategy Development

Designing options for strategy development (UDL Guideline 6) means helping learners set goals, monitor progress, and reflect on their strategies. This may include:

  • Set meaningful goals (6.1)
  • Anticipate and plan for challenges (6.2)
  • Organize information and resources (6.3)
  • Enhance capacity for monitoring progress (6.4)
  • Challenge exclusionary practices (6.5)

Here are some ways you might begin to design options for strategy development:

Goal-Setting

Help learners set clear and achievable goals.

  • Provide models of effective goals (short- and long-term). (6.1, 8.1)
  • Encourage learners to set personal goals alongside course outcomes. (6.1, 9.1)
  • Scaffold reflection activities where learners revisit and revise goals. (6.1, 9.3)
  • Connect goals to larger disciplinary or career pathways. (6.1, 7.2)

Planning

Support learners in breaking down tasks and planning their approach.

  • Provide assignment timelines or calendars with milestones. (6.2, 8.1)
  • Offer planning tools such as checklists or outlines. (6.2, 8.2)
  • Encourage learners to brainstorm multiple strategies for solving problems. (6.2, 3.1, 7.1)
  • Model effective time-management strategies. (6.2, 9.1)
  • Use guiding questions to prompt learners to plan before starting tasks. (6.2, 3.1)

Resource Management

Help learners organize information and tools.

  • Provide curated resource lists with clear instructions for use. (6.3, 2.1)
  • Encourage use of organizational tools (binders, digital folders, citation managers). (6.3, 3.2)
  • Scaffold research projects with staged checkpoints. (6.3, 8.2)
  • Provide consistent navigation in course sites and materials. (6.3, 1.1)
  • Model strategies for evaluating and prioritizing resources. (6.3, 9.1)
  • Share sample systems for organizing resources (e.g., folder structures, annotated bibliographies). (6.3, 3.2)

Monitoring Progress

Give learners ways to track and evaluate their learning.

  • Encourage regular self-assessments or checklists. (6.4, 9.3)
  • Provide dashboards or progress-tracking tools. (6.4, 8.5)
  • Ask learners to reflect on their progress after major assignments. (6.4, 9.3)
  • Use early alerts or check-ins to identify learners needing extra support. (6.4, 8.2)
  • Offer peer accountability structures for monitoring progress. (6.4, 8.3)
  • Invite learners to set checkpoints with peers or instructors to discuss progress. (6.4, 8.3)

Challenging Exclusionary Practices

Address systemic barriers and build inclusive communities.

  • Invite learners to reflect on barriers they encounter in learning. (6.5, 9.2)
  • Create space to discuss how systems of bias and discrimination impact education. (6.5, 2.4)
  • Work collectively to identify and address exclusionary practices. (6.5, 9.4)
  • Use restorative approaches when exclusionary practices are surfaced. (6.5, 9.4)
  • Revisit course policies and practices regularly to ensure equity. (6.5, 7.4)

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Try One Thing

UDL doesn’t mean redesigning everything at once. Start small: pick one strategy from the lists above and try it out in your teaching or staff-facing context. Even a single simplification, added option, or reduced barrier can have meaningful impact.

Need support? CTSI offers consultations to help you adapt strategies for your context. Reach out to us to start a conversation.

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