Gender Differences in Learning: One Size Does Not Fit All

1. Gender Differences in Learning:One Size Does Not Fit All

2. Session Goals • Garner insights into differences in attention, learning, and actions based on physiological gender characteristics. • Learn effective and differentiated (at times)strategies to engage all students. • Understand why boys struggle in a primarily feminine culture. • Acknowledge the differences rest on a spectrum and not on absolutes.

3. The Core Issue: • MEN ARE LIKE WAFFLES • WOMEN are LIKE SPAGHETTI

4. GENDER STEROTYPES • The masculine boy and the feminine girl… • Gender covers a spectrum from “absolute to, it depends” on the situation, where you grew up, what your personal interests are, your temperament, and the survival skills you learn at home and at school. Susan Kovalik, Highly Effective Teaching 2009

5. MEN AS NATION BUILDERS • They were the first builders, explorers, hunters, artists, doctors, scientists, architects. They developed roads, bridges, shelters, covered wagons, weapons, log cabins, wheeled carts, cars, trains, trucks (all uses from the smallest to the largest excavators), created mines, logging mills, boats, ships, canoes, houses, water wells. They are mechanics, veterinarians, farriers, create MODERN MARVELS, engage DIRTY JOBS, and are everyday scientists. • They developed roads/highways, telephone lines, inventions old (from zippers to fax machines to palm pilots) and new, planes, jets, rocket ships, space station, subways, technology: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates……..blackberries, ipods, to the pixel technology used during the Inauguration. Susan Kovalik, Highly Effective Teaching 2009

6. Today many boys are bystanders in a virtual world

7. THE POWER OF VIDEO GAMES • They are in charge of the action • Immediate Feedback • Meets the need for action • Can lose themselves in the game • Highly competitive

8. CULTURAL AUTISM • The end result of a childhood with more time spent in front of a computer than outdoors is what author Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods, coins as cultural autism resulting in tunneled senses, feelings of isolation and containment and a wired ‘know-it-all’ state of mind. Susan Kovalik, Highly Effective Teaching 2009

9. SILENT EPIDEMIC • 7,000 a day drop out of school • Will earn $290,000 less over their lifetimes • 68% will need public assistance • 20% likely to be involved in violent behavior

10. Children see

11. “boys adrift” by Leonard Sax • Possible considerations for the changes in boys today: • School • Home • Video Games • Endocrine Disruptors • Medication

12. Physiological Differences • The brain differences between boys and girls are more profound than anybody ever guessed. • Key areas to understand: Hearing Vision Emotion

13. THE EYES HAVE IT • Girl’s eyes focus on the details, • WHAT IS IT? • COLOR RANGE • Boy’s eyes focus on movement- • WHERE IS IT GOING? • Avoid sitting by the windows or working in the hall • COLOR RANGE

14. Vision • What attracts the attention of newborns: Girls - Human faces Boys - Moving objects- a mobile

15. Vision • The male retina has mostly the larger, thicker ganglion cells. • Where is it? Where is it going? • The female has predominantly the smaller, thinner ganglion cells. • What is it? • Females gather information about color, texture , and many details.

16. Implications for classroom • Boys should sit in the front of the class so they can clearly hear the teacher and are not distracted by what others are doing. • Windows are a distraction and so is working out in the hallway

17. CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? • Girl’s hearing is 10X more acute than boys. Loud voices, loud music, sidebar chatter are distracting, if male teacher has loud voice they believe they are being yelled at. • The range of sounds surrounding speech are difficult for boys to hear. • They should sit in the front of class to hear teacher • Communicate with a boy while in a car

18. Hearing • Newborns-music in the nursery • Range of sound surrounding speech • Can they hear you? • Girls are distracted by noise levels about ten times softer than noise levels that boys find distracting

19. NOUNS AND VERBS • Girls draw nouns: • Houses • Family members • Trees • Pets • Flowers • Rainbows • Boys draw verbs: • Crashing • Flying, • Speeding • Fighting • Skiing • Skating

20. FAVORITE RECESS ACTIVITY • Recess for girls is: • Talking • Talking • Talking • Talking • Recess for boys is: • running • kicking balls, catching balls, playing tag.

21. brainstorm

22. COLLABORATION/COMPETITION • Girls prefer to “talk about” it and come to a solution where everybody wins. • Boys enjoy competition, being on a team, not letting their team mates down

23. HOMEWORK • Girls will do it because they care about what the teacher thinks of them • Boys will do it if it interests them! • Projects that require making something, solving a problem or inventing a new game

24. STRESS • Girls: • Stress inhibits the neural connections in the hippocampus • For Boys: • Stress enhances the growth of neural connections in the male hippocampus, • and improves learning in some situations

25. DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE • Girls fine motor and language skills mature about 6 years earlier • The developmental language area of a five year old boy looks like the language level of a 3 ½ year old boy • Boys spatial memory develops 4 years earlier than girls

26. PERCEPTION IS REALITY • If a boy fails in kindergarten, especially today when the Kindergarten curriculum is equivalent to the first grade of years past, they hold the idea that they are not smart.

27. HOW DO YOU FEEL? • Girls • A good ‘chick movie’, a television show that expresses feelings (American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Extreme Makeover all, “feel good” experiences • Boys • Hard to verbalize as the connection between the limbic system and the language system are not as wired as a females • An action movie, car chases, good guys and bad guys, shooting and crashing.

28. RISK TAKING BEHAVIOR • Girls ask, “Why would they do that?” • Boys take the risk because it is there • Engage in risk taking events within the family.

29. The gender differences are so specific that, in many ways the second grade girl is more like a twenty-five year old woman than a second grade boy.

30. Boys will be boys behavior • Rough and Tumble • Like recess best, running, throwing balls etc. • Punches pal to show he likes him • If in a fight, will be best friends tomorrow

31. FEELINGS • Asking a 7 year old to tell you why they are sad or distressed is difficult for them because the wiring from the emotional center of the brain has little direct connection to the verbal center in the cerebral cortex.

32. EMOTION and Girls • Reflective Thinking • Journal Writing • Reading • Sharing with other girls

33. Girls and Recess • Girls like recess best because they can talk with their friends

34. SCHOOL • The curriculum of kindergarten today is essentially the first-grade curriculum of thirty years ago. • Starting students reading before they are ready can actually boomerang and turn them off to reading.

35. - • Boys who fail to do well in kindergarten develop negative perceptions of competence, and those negative attitudes are difficult to reverse as they progress through school. • It is much more difficult to unlearn something learned incorrectly than to learn it correctly the first time.

36. Where our boys stand: • 70% of students in special education are boys…. • 80% discipline referrals (many on medication) • Boys earn two thirds of the D’s and F’s • Nationally boys are a year and a half behind girls in literacy (Response To Intervention) Gender differences? • …..The Minds of Boys, Michael Gurian, Kathy Stevens

37. SCHOOL WORK • Girls are more likely to do their homework even if the assignment doesn’t interest them. They want the approval of the teacher. • Boys will be less motivated unless they find the material intrinsically interesting.

38. - • Fine motor and language skills mature about six years earlier in girls. • In boys spatial memory matures about four years earlier. • Once over thirty these differences even out.

39. Adolescent Emotions • Brain activity dealing with emotions moves up to cerebral cortex, language center (reflection, reasoning, language) • A 17 year old girl will be able to explain why she is sad in great detail • Not so for boys!

40. Literature • Introduce a piece of literature by reading the most exciting, action-filled pages first…. • Have them do some predicting and then begin in earnest • In processing literature have boys draw maps of the setting indicating where events took place

41. To Improve Writing • Encourage boys to brainstorm with pictures before they write their stories.

42. Males are problem solvers • They want to attend to something presented and stay with it until completion. (Must be interesting and best if involves physical movement) • Movement between classes doesn’t count.

43. Strategies • -Guyify your classroom to balance • -Ask yourself the question, “What will they DO in order to learn skills, concepts, standards, knowledge?” and make their learning involve movement as often as possible. • -Become informed about what they are good at outside of school • -Consider offering instruction in some gender specific settings

44. Collaboration • Boys will collaborate as a team to win the competition, they don’t want to let their team down. • Moderate stress improves boys’ performance on tests – while the same stress degrades young girls performance on tests.

45. Boys Taking Risks • Three principles when reducing risk behavior that could lead to serious injury: • 1. “Boys in groups do stupid things.” • 2. Supervised is better than unsupervised (organized sport, skiing, camping, scouts) • 3. Parents and teachers assert your authority “Don’t argue, don’t negotiate, just do what you need to do.”

46. Adequate time • School schedules hamper completion of a problem and/or the attainment of success. • Think about drama, sports, dance, or any activity where assessment is authentic- we give it adequate time.

47. ADULT GENDER DIFFERENCES • Men are like waffles, his thinking is divided up into little boxes that have room for one issue at a time. • When he is at work, he is at work • When in the garage, he is in the garage • When watching sports, he is watching sports

48. MALES FEEL BEST: • WHEN THERE IS A PROBLEM TO SOLVE • When what they do makes them feel successful • Knowing that the computer makes predictable moves and gives predictable feedback

49. WOMEN/SPAGHETTI • LIKE spaghetti, every thought and issue is connected to every other thought and issue in some way. Life is a myriad of connections

50. EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED • FEMALES PERCEIVE the WORLD WHERE EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED. • They want order out of disorder, and something significant to do.