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Not long ago I was asked to develop some trainings for teachers based on the latest research on how boys and girls learn differently.

The following is a summary of some of the materials teachers have found most useful.

I provided a 12 hour block of training on current topics in June of 2007. Our course explored many of the ramifications connected to recent findings that indicate boys and girls learn in distinctly different manners. Further exploration indicates that teachers who are aware of, and incorporate these differences into their instructional technique can greatly enhance the learning of both boys and girls.

Due to long-term disparities in the performance of boys and girls, teachers were most interested in techniques designed to enhance the performance of the boys in our classes while continuing to provide the best instruction to our girls.

There were three specific areas in which the teachers expressed most interest:

• Research indicates when boys are provided more personal space in the instructional environment they develop fewer disciplinary and behavioral issues.

• Research indicates that the average attention span for a language heavy set of spoken directions (or instruction) for boy’s falls somewhere between 8 and 12 minutes.

• Research further indicates that providing a non-obtrusive manipulative to some boys (such as a stress ball) can alleviate some of the disengagement boys fall into by providing additional stimulation.

Teachers found practical application of the personal space principal was a simple rearrangement of classroom furniture and seating placement. They made certain that their most “antsy” boys were provided the opportunity to sit in locations that provided them open space on at least two sides. The result being, they were more able to spread out without infringing upon the space of others and conflict arising from this type of disagreement did diminish.

The second practical application took more effort to implement. Rather than providing the entire sequence of instructions for an extended activity teachers began to compartmentalize our instruction in to phases (ex phase one direction, phase two directions etc). They incorporated digital timers into our program making certain we kept our verbal direction to less than 12 minutes whenever possible. Trends indicate the boys are more able to maintain effective transitions and hold focus when instruction occurs in this fashion.

Our third and final implementation concentrated on the use of unobtrusive manipulative design to lengthen the attention span of the boys. Preliminary results indicate that while some boys benefit from the use of a manipulative in their non-dominant hand that others find it yet another avenue for distraction.

Overall, teachers report they found the course and the techniques it suggested to be very useful and practical. Based on this high approval and increased demand I have planned and constructed a second 12 hour phase which is due to become available in April.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 10:26 am and is filed under behavior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.