Learning by Gender - Information from NSTA

I thought that this news item, featured in a recent NSTA e-blast, was informative as we consider scientific learning. Learning and gender: By paying attention to the differences between boys and girls, schools can gain new perspectives on teaching all children... Accountability and accessibility to learning is an issue I struggled with while in the classroom and while assisting pre-service teachers. As a classroom teacher, I struggled to help my students develop those skills that support the process for learning. Part of the struggle was over the issue of bias. As a coach to pre-service teachers, I struggled in developing an awareness, or sensitivity, to those issues, such as gender bias, that would contribute to a student turning off/tuning out because of something I did. An article in the October 2006 American School Board Journal http://www.asbj.com/current/coverstory.html caught and maintained my attention. It is about learning and gender. The center of the article is the contribution brain research has to teaching for learning. The article goes the gambit explaining the differences between genders, covers the research process of the brain, shares learning styles, links this information to the learning process, shares gender behaviors and how they manifest themselves in the classroom (A wow for me!), discusses the learning process around math and science. In addition, it takes the next step and shares what staff development helps teachers be more effective in their day-to-day teaching. For a short article, Michael Gurian does a broad stroke with just enough depth.