Intermediate

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• Intermediate
• Boys and Girls
• Science

Paul Falk and Dana Zacharko
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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.
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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.

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• Directions and Questions
• BOYS
• Dont 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.
• Dont 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.

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Time for a brain break!! Spread out for silent
speedball.
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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.
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Experiment vs. Inquiry What is the difference?
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• 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 dont 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 slimes
  characteristics.

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Experiment time! Making slime!
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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 students 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.

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Regardless of the gender, please remember to
encourage the scientist in all of your students!
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Questions? Please feel free to contact us Paul
Falk pcfalk_at_volusia.k12.fl.us Dana
Zacharko dlzachar_at_yahoo.com