Girls and Technology in a Single Gender School Atlanta Girls’ School

1. Girls and Technology in a Single Gender School Atlanta Girls’ School Elizabeth Cohen Director of Technology

2. Are Girls All That Different? In some ways….

3. Research documents the differences in genders, also shows diversity within genders accounting for ambiguity, differing opinions and in some cases contradictory results.

4. Single Gender Research • Physiological • Psychological • Educational

5. Boys develop gross motor, large muscle skills faster than girls in the elementary years, an advantage for the boys on the playing field.

6. In early learning, girls have better auditory discriminations skills. Girls can discern the subtle differences in short vowels than boys, a clear advantage in first grade!

7. Girls use many areas of the brain simultaneously when problem solving, while males use far fewer areas.

8. MRI studies since the late 1980’s have shown that women and men process information, listen, read, and experience emotion in very different ways.

9. Neuro-radiologist Joseph Lurito asked female and male volunteers to listen to a John Grisham novel. He mapped what areas of the brain "lit up" in each volunteer while they were listening. His findings, released in November 2001, were striking. Women use both the right and left hemispheres in processing language; men use only the left hemisphere. Source: Michael Phillips, Mark Lowe, Joseph T. Lurito, Mario Dzemidzic, and Vincent Matthews. Temporal lobe activation demonstrates sex-based differences during passive listening. Radiology, 220:202-207, 2001.

10. Psychologists have found that females and males use different strategies when they are navigating. Women typically navigate using landmarks that can be seen or heard. Men are more likely to use abstract concepts such as north and south, or absolute distance. Both methods work. But the two methods are very different, and the brain areas involved are completely separate. Source: Georg Gron, Arthur Wunderlich, Manfred Spitzer, Reinhard Tomczak, & Matthias Riepe. Brain activation during human navigation: gender-different neural networks as substrate of performance. Nature neuroscience, April 2000, 3(4):404-408.

11. Earlier researchers such as Piaget and Erickson focused primarily on development of male children.

12. In adolescence, brain activity associated with emotion moves up to the cerebral cortex. So, the 17-year-old is able to explain what she is feeling, and why, and in great detail and without much difficulty. But that change occurs only in girls. In boys, the locus of emotional control remains stuck in the sub cortical areas of the brain. Asking a 17-year-old boy to talk about his feelings is about as productive as asking a 6-year-old boy to talk about his feelings. Source: William Killgore, Mika Oki, and Deborah Yurgelun-Todd. Sex-specific developmental changes in amygdala responses to affective faces. NeuroReport, 2001, 12:427-433.

13. AAUW (American Association of University Women) study showed that girls tend to rate themselves (self-esteem) lower than boys do. This gap tends to widen, as the children get older. More importantly, feelings of low self-esteem had a greater effect on the girls. For example, if girls thought they would not do well in math and science, they would tend to avoid taking AP classes in those areas, this correlation did not hold true for boys.

14. (Carol Gilligan) The book, Meting at the Crossroads, illustrates the “loss of voice” girls experience as they travel through adolescence. The confident 2nd grader who dominates the dinnertime conversation, becomes the high schooler who will ride with a drunk driver rather than “say anything”.

15. There is still much discussion among researchers, but the basic hypothesis is that girls seem to be influenced by their feelings more than boys are. (Belensky Women’s Way of Knowing)

16. Single gender learning environments tend to be positive settings for girls. They get better grades, report they learn more and have higher self esteem.

17. Some elements of mixed gender educational structures should not be lost, for example competition works well for a majority of boys and a minority of girls and should be included in the structure. Some authoritarian, directed teaching is important in advanced placement classrooms.

18. Textbooks should reflect generic terms such as humankind for mankind. Girls feel a little disconnected when the textbooks reflect male achievement!

19. In mixed gender classrooms, boys tend to answer faster, louder, with conviction (even if wrong!) You can differentiate classrooms for girls can by giving girls the time they need to answer, (wait 5 seconds) after asking a question to receiving the answer.

20. Now that we know that girls have distinctive learning styles…. We also know that technology use can enhance education.

21. The Metiri Group, in a report commissioned by Cisco Systems (2006) researchers hypothesized that the purpose of using technology in schools is to improve student learning increase student engagement close the digital divide build 21th century skills

22. Research shows that students with routine access to laptop computers score higher in writing assessments, demonstrate better analytical skills, engage in problem solving, and collaborate more effectively on schoolwork - all of which, ultimately, lead to higher student achievement. Apple, Inc. 2007

23. Whew! We are almost there! Now, how can we use laptops (one to one) to help girls learn in the most efficient way?

24. A solid, reliable infrastructure is critical to all users, but especially so for girls who are more influenced by their feelings. Girl: I don’t know why I can’t get on the internet, I must be doing something wrong. Boy: Your Internet is down!

25. Teach note taking on the laptop as part of your study skills program. Tile an Internet site and Word side by side. As they read, girls can take notes. Use projectors and interactive boards whenever you can. Example: homework discussion.

26. Use color as much as possible. Highlight important text. Teach girls how to highlight using different colors for exams, difficult vocabulary, etc.

27. Use different fonts/colors for different kinds of writing: dialog in blue, descriptions in green. Build study guides using the contents page of the textbook as a guide. Use Comic Sans font for exam study questions, Roundhand for study answers

28. Teach girls to collaborate with each other, girls are more comfortable with collaboration than with competition. Provide environments that empower young women, encourage their intellectual curiosity, and foster active participation in the learning process. (Buffalo School of the Sacred Heart)

29. Revision and editing are attractive to girls, this is a comfortable way to use language, make revisions part of the process,not just corrective. Help girls to keep track revisions as a positive model.

30. In her dissertation, Adolescent Girls and Technology: Tablet PC Computers as Learning Tool, Terrie Hale Scheckelhoff asserts that tablet PC’s are preferable for adolescent girls because of the stylus and the ability to write on the screen.

31. Help girls to … Develop more confidence by teaching presentation skills. Develop leadership skills by using blogs, wikis and social networking applications. Encourage girls to take risks! Girls blossom in a setting where they can take risks without fear of the embarrassment. Girls learn best in an atmosphere of cooperative discovery. Use science probes, math software like Geometer’s Sketchpad. http://www.sacredheartacademy.org

32. Professional Development Provide timely professional development for teachers using laptops in class. Provide “just in time” support for teachers. When students discover new uses for the laptop, encourage them to share with the class. Set up tech teams of girls to assist the teachers and fellow students.

33. Invite technology vendors (Apple, Toshiba HP reps) to meet with girls and ask for their opinion about laptops and design. What would a laptop look like if girls designed them? Help girls to find their voice in technology.

34. Resources http://www.singlesexschools.org/research-brain.htm http://teachersnetwork.org/NTNY/nychelp/energize/differences.htm http://www.nmsa.org/Publications/MiddleSchoolJournal/September2002/Article10/tabid/418/Default.aspx http://www.principalspartnership.com/brainbranks.pdf http://www.brandon-hall.com/downloads/ASTD2007WoodillHandout.pdf http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~wit/exploring/index.htm http://gstgateway.wigsat.org/ http://www.sacredheartacademy.org Ecohen@atlantagirlsschool.org

35. Resources http://www.maryflanagan.com/gender/Default.htm http://mcs.open.ac.uk/gentech/ http://libraries.mit.edu/humanities/WomensStudies/Tech2.html http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/gendertech2/index.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4555370.stm http://www.itcs.com/elawley/gender.html http://www.binarygirl.com/ http://www.ncgs.org/ http://www.whatworks.ed.gov/ Technology in Schools: What the Researc Says, Metiri Group, 2006 Adolescent Girls and Technology: Tablet PC Computers as Learning Tool, Dissertation, Terrie Hale Scheckelhoff, 2007