Description
Halle Payne discovered her love for all things organization and executive functioning first as an undergraduate student at Stanford and second as a project manager at one of the top 100 websites in the U.S. She now works as an Executive Functioning tutor, SAT/ACT specialist, musician, and songwriter. A highly emotionally attuned and empathetic person, Halle’s tutoring style is designed to get a sense of a student’s strengths and “points of overwhelm,” to find suitable strategies that will empower your student to organize their life and keep up with their learning.
HALLE’S PHILOSOPHY & APPROACH
Executive Functioning is all about teaching students the tools and strategies to excel in their academics, work, and life. As someone who knows what it’s like to have a lot on her plate, I focus on helping students of all levels develop the skills required to stay on top of their work.
I take a modern approach to Executive Function coaching. I focus on five main tools with my students: Google Calendar, Google Tasks, Google Keep, Gmail, and Google Drive. Almost every school provides the Google Suite of educational products to its teachers and students, but I’ve found that very few are using these tools to their full extent. When used effectively, the Google Suite can transform your student’s efficiency and minimize your student’s sense that they are “drowning” in work (I remember this from high school very well!). Instead, your student will feel empowered to take ownership and responsibility over their schedule, work, grades, and more.
The traditional methods of Executive Functioning, which are primarily paper-based, are not as effective for most students, who work primarily on laptops and tablets… If the student already struggles with organization, then it doesn’t make sense to put them in charge of something that they can easily lose, leave at home, or forget to look at. Moreover, your paper calendar can’t exactly ping your phone to remind you about an assignment (What’s something your kid almost always has on their person? We might as well make that technology work FOR them).
During our sessions, I work with students to develop communication skills that are appropriate for school and work, so they have the tools they need for high school, college, and beyond. You’d be surprised as to how many students think an email can be written just like a text message — to their teachers and mentors at that. A bit of etiquette goes a long way in improving your student’s ability to advocate for themselves with their teachers over email.
Finally, I empower students to organize all aspects of their life. My sessions with students focus on checking school-related online platforms for any missing assignments, creating benchmarks and goals for assignment completion, and inquiring with teachers about partial credit, extra help sessions, or extra credit opportunities. Once a student’s most immediate concerns are addressed, we focus on a student’s work for the week and come up with scheduled times to get the job done. If we have time left over to study, we work on developing more effective study techniques for upcoming tests and quizzes. Student-set reminders ensure that they take ownership and responsibility for their work.
If you’re interested in learning more about Halle and her approach to Executive Functioning, you are welcome to call us at (203) 352-3500 or email us at [email protected].
