Paul Falk and Dana Zacharko Intermediate Boys and Girls Science Paul Falk and Dana Zacharko

Who is more often encouraged in the field of science? Boys are often encouraged more in the areas of science and math then girls are. The question is not can girls do it, rather what needs to be done to encourage girls to pursue those areas more? The next two slides mention things to keep in mind when working with girls.

Challenging Our Girls to be Risk Takers…. Include in your classroom: frequent use of cooperative learning opportunities, frequent individualized learning opportunities, use of practical problems in assignments, frequent use of hands-on opportunities, infrequent use of competitive motivational strategies, frequent activities oriented toward broadening views of mathematics and physical sciences.

Have High Expectations for Girls Avoid rescuing girls. Encourage girls to make an imperfect product, to get dirty, disheveled, and sweaty in pursuit of a goal; to make big, interesting mistakes. Encourage risk-taking and problem-solving. Don't be too eager to solve a girl's problems for her. Learning about options and consequences is a necessary and valuable step for all youth on their road to becoming confident and mature adults. Expect and advocate for homework that includes complex problem-solving and requires analytic skills beyond simple computations. Stress the importance of math and science even if these are not your own strong points. Being positive about math and science and communicating that they are important enhances the chance for girls to seek math and science as attractive learning and career opportunities.

Directions and Questions BOYS Don’t want to listen to directions, they want to get right into what they are doing. Even if they are having a difficult time they will work longer without asking questions. Don’t ask for help often, they want to do it on their own. GIRLS Want to listen to directions and will ask questions about the directions so they have a complete understanding before doing something. Will ask for help more frequently and as soon as they encounter an obstacle.

Spread out for silent speedball. Time for a brain break!! Spread out for silent speedball.

Delivery of lessons for boys vs. delivery of lessons for girls The order the activities, content, etc. is delivered DOES matter when teaching single gender classes. Girls like to know why something works. By doing an inquiry first they can make connections to it as they learn the material. The girls also like to know why something works. Boys predominantly need to have the whole picture presented to them and then look at the individual parts.                              

Experiment vs. Inquiry What is the difference?

Examples of an Inquiry and Experiment Inquiry for solids, liquids, and gases – used to build background knowledge and set the stage for unit/chapter. Observe different things and ask questions to discover and collect information. Experiment: Slime – Is it a solid, liquid, or gas? Complete write up for the experiment. Usually this is done the day before. Knowing that boys don’t always pay attention to directions you could give them a brief verbal or written quiz to see that they know the steps of the experiment. Hand out materials and make the slime. The experiment is not the making of the slime, rather determining whether slime is a solid, liquid, or gas. Have students create another experiment using the slime or further inquiring about the slime’s characteristics.

Experiment time! Making slime!

How do you further help students retain and connect to the material that they have learned? While you do take into consideration that boys and girls learn and connect to material in different ways, you also need to take into consideration a student’s learning style. Both of the single gender classes learned from hands on activities. Girls also learned content by connecting the content to music and movement. We would change the words of songs that were known to the students to include science content. The songs, connected with movement, would help put the content into multiple parts of their brain.

Regardless of the gender, please remember to encourage the scientist in all of your students!

Please feel free to contact us: Questions? Please feel free to contact us: Paul Falk pcfalk@volusia.k12.fl.us Dana Zacharko dlzachar@yahoo.com