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Neuroscience For Kids - The Brain: Right Down the Middle

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Intended for elementary and secondary school students and teachers who are interested in learning about the nervous system and brain with hands on activities, experiments and information.

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This international research examines the learning style preferences of Taiwanese students by gender and age in an attempt to determine which of the five learning style stimuli (environmental, emotional, sociological, physiological and psychological) are more likely to be a factor in student academic success. Utilizing an international perspective, this study explores if gender, age and culture impact on students' learning style. The study contributes to the growing body of research on Modality theory while; the international perspective allows us to explore this concept and collect data cross-culturally.

Introduction

The hushed assumption that schooling in America was not equal and excellent gained new momentum and voice on April 26,1983 with the publication of a Blue- Ribbon Presidential report, A Nation at Risk. The report presented a dismal picture of schooling in the U.S. and warned of a rising tide of mediocrity that threatened our very existence as a nation (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). The strongly worded document cited falling standardized test scores and the fact that almost 90 million Americans lacked basic functional literacy, the ability to read, write or do basic math. While many Americans accepted the Commission's findings, little was accomplished in the 20 year period following its publication. Once again in 2003, the Koret Task Force organized by Stanford University's Hoover Institute, reaffirmed the lack of progress in educational reform. The Commission concluded by recommending the overall reconstruction of the schools in order to enhance equity and excellence in American schooling (Koret Task Force, 2003).

In response to the call for change, a number of interesting solutions have surfaced. Some have suggested a reconsideration of the educational delivery systems employed in education. Their approach underscores the importance of focusing on Modality in instruction-the belief that students differ in their ability to learn new material depending on how it is presented and how the presentation style interacts with students' learning styles. Further, they contend that attention to a student's learning preference is the key to improved academic achievement (Gardiner, 1996, Dunn, 1996).

Modality theory suggests that students differ in their auditory, visual, tactual and kinesthetic abilities and actually learn more when their particular learning strengths or preferences are addressed. This perspective suggests that students learn and process information differently and that knowledge of how they process and retain this information is a valuable tool for teachers. Instructors who acknowledge this premise generally support the concept of differentiated instruction and often employ a learning style approach in the classroom.

Learning style refers to the way that students concentrate on, process, and remember new information. One of the more popular models (Dunn and Dunn 1992) divides learning style into five major strands generally referred to as stimuli. These stimuli include preferences for (a) environmental, (b) emotional, (c) sociological, (d) physiological, and (e) psychological, elements that significantly influence how many individuals learn (see Figure 1).

The first of these strands, the environmental, includes an individual's preference for the elements of sound, light, temperature and seating design. The emotional strand focuses on students' levels of motivation, persistence, responsibility and need for structure. The sociological strand addresses students' preferences for learning alone, in pairs, with peers, as part of a team, with either authoritative or collegial instructors, or in varied approaches, as opposed to in patterns. The physiological strand examines perceptual strengths (visual, auditory, tactual, or kinesthetic), time-of-day preferences, and Ae need for intake and mobility while learning. Finally, the psychological strand incorporates the information-processing elements of global versus analytic and impulsive versus reflective behaviors. ...

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Enhancing Excellence and Equity in Schooling: Modality Theory, an International Perspective

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This international research examines the learning style preferences of Taiwanese students by gender and age in an attempt to determine which of the five learning style stimuli (environmental, emotional, sociological, physiological and psychological) are more likely to be a factor in student academic success.

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THE PROBLEM OF INSTRUCTIONAL SELECTION

Teachers aspire to have all of their students learn. This aspiration of reaching all students spans disciplines, age levels, and all varieties of institutions. Most teachers do so out of a genuine love for their discipline and a desire to share the wonder of their chosen field with others. Science teaching is no different than other disciplines in this respect. However, try as we may in science, the lack of diversity apparent in the statistics of who chooses to pursue scientific disciplines professionally suggests that we still have much to learn about how to reach all students.

In their book, Talking About Leaving: Why Undergraduates Leave the Sciences, Elaine Seymour and Nancy Hewitt (1997) Seymour, 1997 Tobias (1990) , author of ). Competitive class climate, strict grading, overpacked curricula, and the overt "weed-out" attitude of some faculty are cited most often as criticisms and reasons for abandoning a science major. However, Seymour and Hewitt (1994) emphasize that "switchers" and "nonswitchers" are not identifiably different populations of students, in that academic ability is not a reliable predictor of who stays and who leaves. This leads to the conclusion that science classroom environments, instructor teaching styles, and the process of instructional selection is unintentionally causing the loss of able, interested students from the profession of science. If we lose students precisely because they learn differently and think differently than those who currently dominate the profession and teach them, we lose a potential source of future creativity in our discipline. Sheila provide ample evidence from analysis of previous studies and their own research that two major factors contribute to choices students make about pursuing science majors and their satisfaction with science as a choice of major-classroom climate and faculty pedagogy. These factors underlie many of the reasons "switchers" leave science majors and many of the complaints "nonswitchers" have about their education in science ( They're Not Dumb, They're Different, writes that "not every student who doesn't do science can't do science; many simply choose not to." Tobias identifies the selection process of introductory science courses as a driving force against diversifying participation, and thus diversifying intellectual approaches within the profession.

Consider the environment that characterizes most science classrooms, particularly in the late 1980s when Sheila Tobias conducted her research in these classrooms. It is usually organized by an individual-faculty or a teacher of grades 6 through 12-who survived, if not thrived, in the fairly traditional pedagogical settings of teacher-centered direct instruction, mostly dominated by lecture-based approaches to teaching. The dominance of lectures and direct instruction, especially at the high school and undergraduate level, in an attempt to transmit the large body of accrued scientific knowledge efficiently, has created a relative monoculture of teaching styles in these settings. Although a variety of strategies have been developed to broaden access for students through more varied instructional strategies (see, e.g., Allen and Tanner, 2003 Tanner et al., 2003 Powell, 2003 ). As such, teaching strategies used in science classrooms have created a situation that we'll refer to here as ), these approaches are not widely used for a variety of reasons. This is not to say that lectures have no place in the pedagogical toolbox of a science instructor, but rather that this tool tends to be overused ( ; Instructional Selection, in which by our very choice of pedagogy, we are constructing environments in which only a subset of learners can succeed. Understanding the variety of learning styles that students bring to a science classroom will not only help some students learn more science, but also help more students learn any science.

LEARNING STYLES: RAISING AWARENESS OF THE DIVERSITY AMONG LEARNERS

Do not then train youths to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

- Plato

To provide open access to science learning and encourage a broader spectrum of students to pursue studies in the sciences, we-as teachers, instructors, and faculty-must begin to address the diversity of learning styles among the students in our classrooms. So, what is a learning style? An individual's learning style can be defined in many ways, including, "the complex manner in which, and conditions under which, learners most efficiently and most effectively perceive, process, store, and recall what they are attempting to learn" ( James, 1995 Sarasin, 1998 ). From a biological perspective, the brain is the organ of learning, and as such, a learning style is likely to be a complex, emergent interaction of the neurophysiology of an individual's brain and the unique developmental process that has shaped it through experience and interaction with the environment. Learning style, thus, is a phenotypic characteristic of an organism like any other. Given the plasticity of the human brain and its propensity to learn and likely change synaptically over time, learning styles should be considered to be flexible, not immutable-an individual's learning style could be actively adapted, to a certain extent, to different learning environments. ) or, alternatively, "the preference or predisposition of an individual to perceive and process information in a particular way or combination of ways" (

The study of human learning styles is a well-established field within the discipline of cognitive psychology. Shelves of books and hundreds of papers by leading researchers in the field are beyond the scope of this short introduction to learning style theory. To provide entry into the core ideas for interested science faculty, we have chosen to briefly explore three accessible frameworks for characterizing differences in the way learners prefer to learn: the VARK, Multiple Intelligences, and Dimensions of Learning Styles in Science. No one school of thought is superior or inferior to the others, and those presented here are but a sampling of the ideas in this field of cognitive psychology research. There are many common strands and themes among these examples. Other approaches to describing and categorizing learning styles have been proposed that are not dissimilar to the ideas presented here ( Honey and Mumford, 1982 Kolb, 1984 Meyers and McCaulley, 1986 Meyers-Briggs, 1980 ). It is important to keep in mind that all of these frameworks and research literature on understanding learning styles are attempts to simplify what is fundamentally a complex issue; namely, who we are and how we learn. ; , 1994). In particular, Isabel Briggs Meyers and her mother, Katherine Briggs, adapted the theories of Carl Jung to produce the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment, which explores the connection between personality, temperament, learning style, and career choices and is commonly used in both corporate and academic environments ( ;

Sensory Modalities of Learning: The VAK Framework

Perhaps everyone has heard the refrain, "But I'm a visual learner" or "I'm an auditory learner." One of the oldest characterizations of learning styles has been to define a learner's preferred mode of learning in terms of the sensory modality by which they prefer to take in new information. VAK is an acronym that stands for three major sensory modes of learning: visual, aural, and kinesthetic, depending on the neural system with which a learner prefers to receive information. More recently, this sensory framework has been expanded to VARK to include reading/writing as an additional type of mixed-sensory learning modality ( http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp). Although all learners can use all of these sensory modes in learning, one mode is often dominant and preferred. Visual learners learn through seeing and prefer to learn through drawings, pictures, and other image-rich teaching tools. Auditory learners learn preferentially through hearing and are adept at listening to lectures and exploring material through discussions and might need to talk through ideas. Reading/writing learners learn preferentially through interaction with textual materials, whereas kinesthetic learners learn through touching and prefer learning experiences that emphasize doing, physical involvement, and manipulation of objects. In fact, as we progress through schooling in the United States, pedagogy often emphasizes kinesthetic learning with young children through the use of models and manipulatives, moves on to more visual learning as language develops in the elementary school years, and culminates in primarily aural learning in the form of lectures, accompanied by increased reading and writing, in the high school and college years. An exception is often the college laboratory setting, which continues to offer opportunities for mature learners to use manipulatives in building science knowledge. Most instructors organizing introductory science courses will find that the material can be organized to include all of the above types of learning modalities, but the reality of large class enrollments and limited budgets can make this a challenge.

Developed in 1987 by Neil Fleming, the VARK Inventory is a tool for assessing where an individual's preferences for learning lie within these sensory domains (see http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/vark.htm).

Deconstructing Intelligence: Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

In contrast to other characterizations of learning styles, Howard Gardner's approach to defining learning styles stems from the notion that the concept of intelligence has been too narrowly defined. Gardner argues that psychologists, in defining intelligence and designing instruments to measure and compare intelligence across individuals, have focused on a singular, unitary notion of intelligence. In Gardner's view, the dominant formal IQ test only measures one type of intelligence, yet humans can excel in multiple areas of intelligence. In his 1983 book Frames of Mind, Gardner introduced his now widely discussed Theory of Multiple Intelligences. In addition to linguistic-verbal intelligence and mathematical-logical intelligence, the two major cognitive skill sets tested by IQ instruments, Gardner proposed another initial six domains of intelligence (see Table 1 ). Gardner points out that although these categories of intelligences might only represent a subset of the range of human abilities, they are likely to be a more accurate representation than a singular notion of intelligence. In exploring the multiple intelligence framework of Gardner, one will find vestiges of the sensory modality approach to learning styles described above. Visual-spatial intelligence is characterized by facility with images and graphic information and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence involves facility with physical manipulation of objects, the body, and other modes of physical interactions ( Gardner, 1983 Gardner, 1999 ). Again, an introductory science course can readily be organized to draw on most of these diverse intelligences by including a variety of learning activities throughout a course, such as lectures rich with visual information, discussions that promote student-student interactions, group projects and presentations that allow for creative elements, and laboratory investigations that engage learners in the physical doing of science. ). In addition, Gardner proposes two intelligences that are characterized either by particular talents in understanding and interacting with others (interpersonal intelligence) or by a talent for self-perception and metacognition about oneself (intrapersonal intelligence). To define a category of intelligence, Gardner's theory requires that several criteria be met, including distinction of intelligences through psychological tests, the potential for localization in the brain, the existence of savants who excel within the realm of a single intelligence, and a potential evolutionary history. This last aspect of defining intelligences is particularly intriguing biologically, given the existence of acute spatial skills in reptiles and insects and the evidence of adept musical skills in birds important for marking territory and attracting mates (

Dimensions of Learning Styles in Science: Felder and Silverman

The VARK sensory modality model and Gardner's Multiple Intelligences schema, along with other theoretical frameworks not presented here, provide approaches for thinking about diverse learning styles in a classroom. However, they do not specifically address aspects of learning styles that could be particularly relevant to science education and the issues of inclusion and exclusion of learners in science classrooms. Inspired by Sheila Tobias' study of why some capable students are self-selecting out of introductory science classes, Richard Felder and Linda Silverman attempted to construct a framework for learning styles to highlight the disconnect between diverse learning styles and the traditional teaching styles in science courses. Their Dimensions of Learning Styles in Science was originally proposed as a framework for analyzing teaching and learning in engineering fields; however, its usefulness extends throughout the scientific disciplines.

Felder and Silverman ( Felder, 1993 Felder and Silverman, 1988 ) propose four dimensions of student learning styles, each of which relates to students' preferred modes for receiving information, including 1) the type of information they receive (sensory or intuitive), 2) the modality in which they receive it (visual or verbal), 3) the process by which they receive it (actively or reflectively), and 4) the order in which they receive it (sequentially or globally). These dimensions are useful in considering the diversity of learning styles and how teaching strategies in science classrooms do or do not regularly provide access to learning for these different types of students. ;

Science coursework, regardless of the pedagogical style of the instructor, is generally rich in the amount of information being presented. In their model, Felder and Silverman propose that students can differ substantially in the types of information they prefer to receive during learning. At one extreme are sensory students-those who prefer to receive facts, are adept at memorization and details, and prefer clear expectations and well-established routines in learning. Dichotomous to them are intuitive learners, who prefer to receive concepts, see relationships among ideas, explore complexities and exceptions, and welcome innovative and varied approaches to problems. Felder and Silverman emphasize that there is certainly a continuum of preferences between the extremes of sensory and intuitive learners as described above but argue that the distinction is helpful in considering the match or mismatch between these two learning style dimensions and an instructor's pedagogy in a science course. Both types of learning are essential if a student is to acquire both the needed knowledge base and the desired skills to apply that knowledge in thinking creatively about scientific problems.

The second dimension of learning styles proposed by Felder and Silverman relates to the actual sensory modality through which learners get information, similar to the VARK framework described above. Visual learners are characterized by a preference for learning from demonstrations, pictures, diagrams, and graphs, whereas verbal learners prefer opportunities to explore new material through language-based processes such as talking, writing, explaining, and discussing. Felder points out that much of college-level science teaching relies heavily on the use of the lecture as a pedagogical tool, often bereft of more visual materials, a practice that consistently would hamper access to learning by a preferentially visual learner. In the life sciences, visual resources are becoming increasingly available, ranging from illustrations provided in several formats by textbook publishers, to libraries of electronic resources including animations and videos (see the archives of Cell Biology Education features such as "Video Views and Reviews," as well as " WWW.Cell Biology Education").

Also relevant to the dominant pedagogy of science classrooms, Felder and Silverman's third dimension of learning styles draws a distinction between active learners and reflective learners. They proffer that active learners prefer to learn while doing and being actively engaged in investigations, group work, discussions, and other opportunities for student-student and student-instructor interactions. Reflective learners, on the other hand, are more likely to prefer opportunities for reflection, individual work, and a chance to digest information in the absence of a social context. Harkening back to Gardner's framework, the active learners in Felder and Silverman's framework might possess high interpersonal intelligence, whereas reflective learners might excel in the domain of intrapersonal intelligence. Ideally, opportunities for both individual and group work should be part of any introductory science course.

Finally, Felder and Silverman propose a dimension of learning based on the preferred manner in which a learner builds new knowledge for themselves, describing the dichotomy between a sequential learner and a global learner. Sequential learners are described as individuals who prefer a well-ordered, linear pathway to new knowledge, which is presented as a series of smaller pieces that fit together. Global learners, in contrast, prefer to establish an overview of the larger concepts and then proceed to undergird these ideas will smaller details. In traditional science courses, sequential learners might likely excel, and might be able to do so in the absence of understanding the systems and interconnectedness of major concepts. In these same environments, however, global learners could get lost amid the facts and fail to grasp the larger picture which is essential to them in knowledge building.

In summary, Richard Felder (1993) argues:

Students whose learning styles fall in any of the given categories have the potential to be excellent scientists. The observant and methodical sensors, for example make good experimentalists, and the insightful and imaginative intuitors make good theoreticians. Active learners are adept at administration and team-oriented project work; reflective learners do well at individual research and design. Sequential learners are often good analysts, skilled at solving convergent (single answer) problems; global learners are often good synthesizers, able to draw material from several disciplines to solve problems that could not have been solved with conventional single-discipline approaches.

To assess where your own preferences lie on these four dimensions of learning, access the Felder's Index of Learning Styles tool at http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/ILSpage.html. Felder also emphasizes that shifts in instruction to increase access to science learning need not be major shifts. The use of both pedagogical strategies that provide time for students to think and reflect in class and strategies that structure student-student interaction during a course will vary instruction and allow for experiences that are optimal at different times for both reflective and active learners. Simply introducing the larger concept of harvesting energy from food prior to the detailed presentation of the process of cellular respiration could provide the necessary conceptual overview to engage the global learner and aid the sequential learner in connecting these chemical processes to the macroscale functions of living things.

LINKING LEARNING STYLE THEORIES TO THE CLASSROOM

The teaching of math and science suffers from being all scales and not enough music.

- Sheila Tobias

Differentiating Science Instruction

Combining the research on why students abandon science courses and the frameworks for categorizing learning styles, the challenge seems clear. To reach diverse audiences of learners, science teachers must differentiate and diversify their own teaching styles and the pedagogical approaches used in science courses. In most cases it is neither possible nor desirable to tailor coursework to the individual learning styles of each student. How students characterize their learning style and with which framework they characterize it might not even be so critically important, although it could contribute to their academic success by promoting self-awareness and the use of learning strategies that work for their learning style. What is essential, however, is that an instructor's teaching style provide access for students with different learning styles during the experiences of a science course. The key to avoiding Instructional Selection and retaining a broader swath of students interested in science is differentiated instruction, a teaching style that derives from multiple pedagogical approaches and not a singular approach.

Reflecting on Your Own Teaching Style

Although less well developed than the many theoretical frameworks for considering learning styles, tools are emerging to characterize and examine the variety of teaching styles of instructors. In his 1996 book, Teaching with Style: A Practical Guide to Enhancing Learning by Understanding Teaching and Learning Styles, Anthony Grasha (1996) proposes five teaching style clusters and evaluates how flexible each can be in addressing the needs of multiple, divergent learning styles in one classroom: Expert, Formal Authority, Personal Model, Facilitator, and Delegator. Each style varies mostly in the extent to which instruction is teacher-centered or student-centered. Rarely is any one instructor adequately represented by a single teaching style, just as no student is characterized by a single learning style. However, Grasha's proposed categories provide a framework for exploring and assessing one's own teaching style. In your own teaching style, to what extent do learners have access to material not only through auditory-based lectures, but also through visual means such as graphs, charts, and opportunities for students to draw their own diagrams? When do predominantly kinesthetic learners get to explore materials, participate in simple demonstrations, or develop creative presentations? To characterize their teaching style further, readers can take Grasha's Teaching Style Inventory and peruse his analysis of the relationship between different teaching styles and different learning styles ( http://longleaf.net/teachingstyle.html). The teaching style of an effective instructor need not always match a student's preferred learning style; an additional goal for students is to help them in expanding their own repertoire of learning skills.

Being Explicit About Diverse Learning Styles

Finally, perhaps the simplest step toward reconciling diverse learning styles and more singular pedagogical styles is to explicitly acknowledge the issue and the existence of different learning styles. Many resources now exist on most college and university campuses to aid students in understanding their own learning style. Beginning a course by directing students to tools that can assist them in becoming metacognitive about their own learning processes and preferences can go a long way. Once a student understands that they are a more visual learner, they can work toward translating information into pictures, diagrams, and charts, even if the information is not initially presented to them in that mode. The self-assessment tools referenced above can be a good place for students to start.

So, we return to where we began. Teachers aspire to have all of their students learn. The thing is, we just might not know how best to teach each of them, especially in one classroom. To engage students of diverse learning styles in our classrooms, we likely must reach beyond the ways of teaching that worked well for us as learners and find new approaches that open the door to science learning for a broader variety of students. And expanding the repertoire of one's teaching style is not an immediate, major shift, but rather an incremental process that can be approached in small steps, trying new methods one at a time and perhaps for just a class period. Drawing a more diverse group of students into science will enrich our own experiences and bring a new strength and diversity to our scientific enterprise.

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Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning: Learning Styles and the Problem of Instructional Selection-Engaging All Students in Science Courses

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Teachers aspire to have all of their students learn. This aspiration of reaching all students spans disciplines, age levels, and all varieties of institutions. Most teachers do so out of a genuine love for their discipline and a desire to share the wonder of their chosen field with others.

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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Start with a list of 12 familiar ways to learn course content: reading texts or other printed material; writing term papers, participating in group activities in class, doing major team projects, doing cases, taking multiple choice exams, giving presentations to the class, learning about different theories, doing practical exercises, solving problems, doing library research, or exercising a lot of creativity. Now hypothesize as to which learning style prefers which of these approaches to learning.

Over the years a variety of work has theorized about and empirically looked for connections between particular learning styles and learning preferences. Some of the theoretical work made a good case for certain connections, but empirically the connections look much weaker. In the work referenced below, they were all but non-existent.

This researcher used Kolb's work on learning styles which, via a 12-item instrument, places learners in one of four categories: accommodators, who learn from hands-on experience and gut feelings; divergers, who excel at seeing multiple options and viewpoints; assimilators, who learning by putting information into concise logical forms; and convergers, who do best when they can find practical applications for ideas and theories. The question then is which of the 12 ways of learning course content would be preferred by each of these learning styles.

After using Kolb's inventory to ascertain the learning styles of 201 students in eight different undergraduate management classes, the researcher used those scores to create four additional groupings that represented combinations of the four basic learning style categories. Each individual was asked to identify which of the 12 ways listed above they preferred to use to learn course content.

Only three of the 12 ways could statistically be linked to a learning style, confirming earlier research which also found weak relationships between assignment preferences and learning styles. Researcher Loo writes, "In this sample, all learning styles and types showed a dislike for writing major term papers, giving presentations to the class and doing library research, but showed a liking for doing practical exercises, solving problems and participating in groups." (p. 107)

He theorizes that strong links between learning preferences and learning styles do not exist because of large individual differences within each learning style and type (the various combinations of the individual styles). Some of his statistical results support this conclusion.

As for implications of this finding, he recommends that faculty use a variety of learning methods in every class and that they encourage students to be receptive to different methods rather than equating particular approaches with their learning style. This recommendation builds on Kolb's notion that no one learning style is better than another. Rather, skilled learners match styles to tasks and are not locked into their preferred style.

Reference: Loo, R. (2004). Kolb's learning styles and learning preferences: Is there a linkage? Educational Psychology, 24 (1), 99-108.

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Is There a Connection Between Learning Styles and Preferences? - Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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Start with a list of 12 familiar ways to learn course content: reading texts or other printed material; writing term papers, participating in group activities in class, doing major team projects, doing cases, taking multiple choice exams, giving presentations to the class, learning about different theories, doing practical exercises, solving problems, doing library research, or exercising a lot of creativity.

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Strategies for Teaching Boys Effectively

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Strategies for Teaching Boys Effectively

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We empower educators to reimagine and redesign learning through impactful pedagogy and meaningful technology use. We achieve this by offering transformative professional learning, fostering vibrant communities, and ensuring that digital tools and experiences are accessible and effective.

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We create practical, timely, affordable professional learning to help educators and instructional leaders provide students with a modern, equitable, and quality education.

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Gurian, M., Henley, P., & Trueman, T. (2001). Boys and girls learn differently! A guide for teachers and parents. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/John Wiley

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Gurian, M., Henley, P., & Trueman, T. (2001). Boys and girls learn differently! A guide for teachers and parents. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/John Wiley

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Baron-Cohen, S. (2003). The essential difference: The truth about the male and female brain. New York: BasicBooks.

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Baron-Cohen, S. (2003). The essential difference: The truth about the male and female brain. New York: BasicBooks.

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Educational Leadership With Boys and Girls in Mind *brain differences

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November 2004 | Volume 62 | Number 3
Closing Achievement Gaps Pages 21-26

Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens

New positron emission tomography (PET) and MRI technologies enable us to look inside the brains of boys and girls, where we find structural and functional differences that profoundly affect human learning. These gender differences in the brain are corroborated in males and females throughout the world and do not differ significantly across cultures.

It's true that culture affects gender role, gender costume, and gender nuances-in Italy, for example, men cry more than they do in England-but role, costume, and nuance only affect some aspects of the learning brain of a child. New brain imaging technologies confirm that genetically templated brain patterning by gender plays a far larger role than we realized. Research into gender and education reveals a mismatch between many of our boys' and girls' learning brains and the institutions empowered to teach our children.

We will briefly explore some of the differences, because recognizing these differences can help us find solutions to many of the challenges that we experience in the classroom. Of course, generalized gender differences may not apply in every case.

The Minds of Girls

The following are some of the characteristics of girls' brains:

A girl's corpus callosum (the connecting bundle of tissues between hemispheres) is, on average, larger than a boy's-up to 25 percent larger by adolescence. This enables more "cross talk" between hemispheres in the female brain.

Girls have, in general, stronger neural connectors in their temporal lobes than boys have. These connectors lead to more sensually detailed memory storage, better listening skills, and better discrimination among the various tones of voice. This leads, among other things, to greater use of detail in writing assignments.

The hippocampus (another memory storage area in the brain) is larger in girls than in boys, increasing girls' learning advantage, especially in the language arts.

Girls' prefrontal cortex is generally more active than boys' and develops at earlier ages. For this reason, girls tend to make fewer impulsive decisions than boys do. Further, girls have more serotonin in the bloodstream and the brain, which makes them biochemically less impulsive.

Girls generally use more cortical areas of their brains for verbal and emotive functioning. Boys tend to use more cortical areas of the brain for spatial and mechanical functioning (Moir & Jessel, 1989; Rich, 2000).

These "girl" brain qualities are the tip of the iceberg, yet they can immediately help teachers and parents understand why girls generally outperform boys in reading and writing from early childhood throughout life (Conlin, 2003). With more cortical areas devoted to verbal functioning, sensual memory, sitting still, listening, tonality, and mental cross talk, the complexities of reading and writing come easier, on the whole, to the female brain. In addition, the female brain experiences approximately 15 percent more blood flow, with this flow located in more centers of the brain at any given time (Marano, 2003). The female brain tends to drive itself toward stimulants-like reading and writing-that involve complex texture, tonality, and mental activity.

On the other hand, because so many cortical areas are used for verbal-emotive functioning, the female brain does not activate as many cortical areas as the male's does for abstract and physical-spatial functions, such as watching and manipulating objects that move through physical space and understanding abstract mechanical concepts (Moir & Jessel, 1989; Rich, 2000). This is one reason for many girls' discomfort with deep computer design language. Although some girls excel in these areas, more males than females gravitate toward physics, industrial engineering, and architecture. Children naturally gravitate toward activities that their brains experience as pleasurable-"pleasure" meaning in neural terms the richest personal stimulation. Girls and boys, within each neural web, tend to experience the richest personal stimulation somewhat differently.

The biological tendency toward female verbal-emotive functioning does not mean that girls or women should be left out of classes or careers that use spatial-mechanical skills. On the contrary: We raise these issues to call on our civilization to realize the differing natures of girls and boys and to teach each subject according to how the child's brain needs to learn it. On average, educators will need to provide girls with extra encouragement and gender-specific strategies to successfully engage them in spatial abstracts, including computer design.

The Minds of Boys

What, then, are some of the qualities that are generally more characteristic of boys' brains?

Because boys' brains have more cortical areas dedicated to spatial-mechanical functioning, males use, on average, half the brain space that females use for verbal-emotive functioning. The cortical trend toward spatial-mechanical functioning makes many boys want to move objects through space, like balls, model airplanes, or just their arms and legs. Most boys, although not all of them, will experience words and feelings differently than girls do (Blum, 1997; Moir & Jessel, 1989).

Boys not only have less serotonin than girls have, but they also have less oxytocin, the primary human bonding chemical. This makes it more likely that they will be physically impulsive and less likely that they will neurally combat their natural impulsiveness to sit still and empathically chat with a friend (Moir & Jessel, 1989; Taylor, 2002).

Boys lateralize brain activity. Their brains not only operate with less blood flow than girls' brains, but they are also structured to compartmentalize learning. Thus, girls tend to multitask better than boys do, with fewer attention span problems and greater ability to make quick transitions between lessons (Havers, 1995).

The male brain is set to renew, recharge, and reorient itself by entering what neurologists call a rest state. The boy in the back of the classroom whose eyes are drifting toward sleep has entered a neural rest state. It is predominantly boys who drift off without completing assignments, who stop taking notes and fall asleep during a lecture, or who tap pencils or otherwise fidget in hopes of keeping themselves awake and learning. Females tend to recharge and reorient neural focus without rest states. Thus, a girl can be bored with a lesson, but she will nonetheless keep her eyes open, take notes, and perform relatively well. This is especially true when the teacher uses more words to teach a lesson instead of being spatial and diagrammatic. The more words a teacher uses, the more likely boys are to "zone out," or go into rest state. The male brain is better suited for symbols, abstractions, diagrams, pictures, and objects moving through space than for the monotony of words (Gurian, 2001).

These typical "boy" qualities in the brain help illustrate why boys generally learn higher math and physics more easily than most girls do when those subjects are taught abstractly on the chalkboard; why more boys than girls play video games that involve physical movement and even physical destruction; and why more boys than girls tend to get in trouble for impulsiveness, shows of boredom, and fidgeting as well as for their more generalized inability to listen, fulfill assignments, and learn in the verbal-emotive world of the contemporary classroom.

Who's Failing?

For a number of decades, most of our cultural sensitivity to issues of gender and learning came from advocacy groups that pointed out ways in which girls struggled in school. When David and Myra Sadker teamed with the American Association of University Women in the early 1990s, they found that girls were not called on as much as boys were, especially in middle school; that girls generally lagged in math/science testing; that boys dominated athletics; and that girls suffered drops in self-esteem as they entered middle and high school (AAUW, 1992). In large part because of this advocacy, our culture is attending to the issues that girls face in education.

At the same time, most teachers, parents, and other professionals involved in education know that it is mainly our boys who underperform in school. Since 1981, when the U.S. Department of Education began keeping complete statistics, we have seen that boys lag behind girls in most categories. The 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress finds boys one and one-half years behind girls in reading/writing (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000). Girls are now only negligibly behind boys in math and science, areas in which boys have historically outperformed girls (Conlin, 2003).

Our boys are now losing frightening ground in school, and we must come to terms with it-not in a way that robs girls, but in a way that sustains our civilization and is as powerful as the lobby we have created to help girls. The following statistics for the United States illustrate these concerns:

Boys earn 70 percent of Ds and Fs and fewer than half of the As.

Boys account for two-thirds of learning disability diagnoses.

Boys represent 90 percent of discipline referrals.

Boys dominate such brain-related learning disorders as ADD/ADHD, with millions now medicated in schools.

80 percent of high school dropouts are male.

Males make up fewer than 40 percent of college students (Gurian, 2001).

These statistics hold true around the world. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently released its three-year study of knowledge and skills of males and females in 35 industrialized countries (including the United States, Canada, the European countries, Australia, and Japan). Girls outperformed boys in every country. The statistics that brought the male scores down most significantly were their reading/writing scores.

We have nearly closed the math/science gender gap in education for girls by using more verbal functioning-reading and written analysis-to teach such spatial-mechanical subjects as math, science, and computer science (Rubin, 2004; Sommers, 2000). We now need a new movement to alter classrooms to better suit boys' learning patterns if we are to deal with the gaps in grades, discipline, and reading/writing that threaten to close many boys out of college and out of success in life.

The Nature-Based Approach

In 1996, the Gurian Institute, an organization that administers training in child development, education, and male/female brain differences, coined the phrase nature-based approach to call attention to the importance of basing human attachment and education strategies on research-driven biological understanding of human learning. We argued that to broadly base education and other social processes on anything other than human nature was to set up both girls and boys for unnecessary failure. The institute became especially interested in nature-based approaches to education when PET scans and MRIs of boys and girls revealed brains that were trying to learn similar lessons but in widely different ways and with varying success depending on the teaching method used. It became apparent that if teachers were trained in the differences in learning styles between boys and girls, they could profoundly improve education for all students.

Between 1998 and 2000, a pilot program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City involving gender training in six school districts elicited significant results. One school involved in the training, Edison Elementary, had previously tested at the bottom of 18 district elementary schools. Following gender training, it tested in the top five slots, sometimes coming in first or second. Statewide, Edison outscored schools in every subject area, sometimes doubling and tripling the number of students in top achievement levels. Instead of the usual large number of students at the bottom end of achievement testing, Edison now had only two students requiring state-mandated retesting. The school also experienced a drastic reduction in discipline problems.

Statewide training in Alabama has resulted in improved performance for boys in both academic and behavioral areas. Beaumont Middle School in Lexington, Kentucky, trains its teachers in male/female brain differences and teaches reading/writing, math, and science in separate-sex classrooms. After one year of this gender-specific experiment, girls' math and science scores and boys' Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) scores rose significantly.

The Nature-Based Classroom

Ultimately, teacher training in how the brain learns and how boys and girls tend to learn differently creates the will and intuition in teachers and schools to create nature-based classrooms (see "Teaching Boys, Teaching Girls" for specific strategies). In an elementary classroom designed to help boys learn, tables and chairs are arranged to provide ample space for each child to spread out and claim learning space. Boys tend to need more physical learning space than girls do. At a table, a boy's materials will be less organized and more widely dispersed. Best practice would suggest having a variety of seating options-some desks, some tables, an easy chair, and a rug area for sitting or lying on the floor. Such a classroom would allow for more movement and noise than a traditional classroom would. Even small amounts of movement can help some boys stay focused.

The teacher can use the blocks area to help boys expand their verbal skills. As the boys are building, a teacher might ask them to describe their buildings. Because of greater blood flow in the cerebellum-the "doing" center of the human brain-boys more easily verbalize what they are doing than what they are feeling. Their language will be richer in vocabulary and more expansive when they are engaged in a task.

An elementary classroom designed to help girls learn will provide lots of opportunities for girls to manipulate objects, build, design, and calculate, thus preparing them for the more rigorous spatial challenges that they will face in higher-level math and science courses. These classrooms will set up spatial lessons in groups that encourage discussion among learners.

Boys and Feelings

An assistant principal at a Tampa, Florida, elementary school shared a story of a boy she called "the bolter." The little boy would regularly blow up in class, then bolt out of the room and out of the school. The assistant principal would chase him and get him back into the building. The boy lacked the verbal-emotive abilities to help him cope with his feelings.

After attending male/female brain difference training, the assistant principal decided to try a new tactic. The next time the boy bolted, she took a ball with her when she went after him. When she found the boy outside, she asked him to bounce the ball back and forth with her. Reluctant at first, the boy started bouncing the ball. Before long, he was talking, then sharing the anger and frustration that he was experiencing at school and at home. He calmed down and went back to class. Within a week, the boy was able to self-regulate his behavior enough to tell his teacher that he needed to go to the office, where he and the assistant principal would do their "ball routine" and talk. Because he was doing something spatial-mechanical, the boy was more able to access hidden feelings.

Girls and Computers

The InterCept program in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is a female-specific teen mentor-training program that works with girls in grades 8-12 who have been identified as at risk for school failure, juvenile delinquency, and teen pregnancy. InterCept staff members use their knowledge of female brain functioning to implement program curriculum. Brittany, 17, came to the InterCept program with a multitude of issues, many of them involving at-risk behavior and school failure.

One of the key components of InterCept is showing teenage girls the importance of becoming "tech-savvy." Girls use a computer-based program to consider future occupations: They can choose a career, determine a salary, decide how much education or training their chosen career will require, and even use income projections to design their future lifestyles. Brittany quite literally found a future: She is entering a career in computer technology.

The Task Ahead

As educators, we've been somewhat intimidated in recent years by the complex nature of gender. Fortunately, we now have the PET and MRI technologies to view the brains of boys and girls. We now have the science to prove our intuition that tells us that boys and girls do indeed learn differently. And, even more powerful, we have a number of years of successful data that can help us effectively teach both boys and girls.

The task before us is to more deeply understand the gendered brains of our children. Then comes the practical application, with its sense of purpose and productivity, as we help each child learn from within his or her own mind.

For Elementary Boys

Use beadwork and other manipulatives to promote fine motor development. Boys are behind girls in this area when they start school.

Place books on shelves all around the room so boys get used to their omnipresence.

Make lessons experiential and kinesthetic.

Keep verbal instructions to no more than one minute.

Personalize the student's desk, coat rack, and cubby to increase his sense of attachment.

Use male mentors and role models, such as fathers, grandfathers, or other male volunteers.

Let boys nurture one another through healthy aggression and direct empathy.

For Elementary Girls

Play physical games to promote gross motor skills. Girls are behind boys in this area when they start school.

Have portable/digital cameras around and take pictures of girls being successful at tasks.

Use water and sand tables to promote science in a spatial venue.

Use lots of puzzles to foster perceptual learning.

Form working groups and teams to promote leadership roles and negotiation skills.

Use manipulatives to teach math.

Verbally encourage the hidden high energy of the quieter girls.

References

American Association of University Women. (1992). AAUW Report: How schools shortchange girls. American Association of University Women Foundation.

Baron-Cohen, S. (2003). The essential difference: The truth about the male and female brain. New York: BasicBooks.

Blum, D. (1997). Sex on the brain: The biological differences between men and women. New York: Viking.

Conlin, M. (2003, May 26). The new gender gap. Business Week Online. Available: www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_21/b3834001_mz001.htm

Gurian, M., Henley, P., & Trueman, T. (2001). Boys and girls learn differently! A guide for teachers and parents. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/John Wiley.

Havers, F. (1995). Rhyming tasks male and female brains differently. The Yale Herald, Inc. New Haven, CT: Yale University.

Marano, H. E. (2003, July/August). The new sex scorecard. Psychology Today, 38-50.

Moir, A., & Jessel, D. (1989). Brain sex: The real difference between men and women. New York: Dell Publishing.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2000). National Assessment of Educational Progress: The nation's report card. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2003). The PISA 2003 assessment framework. Author.

Rich, B. (Ed.). (2000). The Dana brain daybook. New York: The Charles A. Dana Foundation.

Rubin, R. (2004, Aug. 23). How to survive the new SAT. Newsweek, p. 52.

Sommers, C. (2000). The war against boys. Simon and Schuster.

Taylor, S. (2002). The tending instinct. Times Books.

Michael Gurian is Cofounder of the Gurian Institute, which trains education professionals in gender difference and brain-based learning. He is the author of The Wonder of Boys (Tarcher/Putnam, 1997) and The Wonder of Girls (Atria, 2003) and coauthor of Boys and Girls Learn Differently! (Jossey-Bass/John Wiley, 2001). Kathy Stevens is Director of the Gurian Institute Training Division and the Women's Resource Agency, both located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She coordinates the InterCept Teen Mentoring Program for Girls. The authors may be contacted at www.gurianinstitute.com.

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November 2004 | Volume 62 | Number 3 Closing Achievement Gaps Pages 21-26 Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens New positron emission tomography (PET) and MRI technologies enable us to look inside the brains of boys and girls, where we find structural and functional differences that profoundly affect human learning.