Boys and girls learn differently?

[Hoppinggreen]

DD’s School Facebook page has proudly announced that this morning the teachers attended a workshop on “how boys and girls learn differently “
Is this true? I know it used to be accepted theory but hasn’t it been debunked? If so does anyone have any credible sources ?
I’m not saying there aren’t innate differences in the sexes (penis vs vulva) but surely our brains are actually the same?
Happy to be told I’m wrong but if I’m right I wouid like some concrete info before I tackle it with The Head

One of the problems with "Girls learn this way and boys learn that way" thinking is that if you happen to be a girl or boy who learns the "wrong" way you can end up marginalised and excluded from being acheive your potential. I know I do much better at exams than coursework and in retrospect I am really pissed off that my school did an experimental split of girls and boys for English GCSE and put us on a different pathway. I only achieved a C in English whereas I know I'm capable of much better than that.

A quick Google search seems to suggest there may be differences.

Studies show that boys learn differently than girls. Brainscans tell part of the story. In general, more areas of girls' brains, including the cerebral cortex (responsible for memory, attention, thought, and language) are dedicated to verbal functions. The hippocampus a region of the brain critical to verbal memory storage develops earlier for girls and is larger in women than in men. This has a profound effect on vocabulary and writing.

In boys' brains, a greater part of the cerebral cortex is dedicated to spatial and mechanical functioning. So boys tend to learn better with movement and pictures rather than just words. There are also biochemical differences. Boys have less serotonin and oxytocin hormones that play a role in promoting a sense of calm than girls. That's why it's more likely that young boys will fidget and act impulsively.

Oh goodness, you can't just dump a random google extract with no source as "evidence".

I’ll throw in an analogy I’ve made before. You are picking a basketball team and you know that there’s a statistical correlation between height and ability. Asians are statistically shorter than Europeans. What do you do? Do you only pick Europeans for your team? Do you pick all the tall kids irrespective of their ethnicity? Or do you hold a tryout and pick the kids who are actually good at basketball? Height is a better predictor of ability than race but you might still end up with a team full of lanky incompetents. You have to test individual abilities.

When it comes to learning styles, I learn better if I can picture something in my head. I can’t listen to someone drowning on and I can’t remember lists. I can’t remember formulae. But give me a model or a diagram and I get it.

I understand that there are people who can absorb verbal information or mathematical formula and they don’t need to be able to ‘see’ something in their head.

Maybe this correlates with sex differences but it’s two overlapping distributions, not two distinct groups. Separate the sexes and you disadvantage the girls who think visually and the boys who learn verbally.

When I was training to coach a sport, we were told that if you are showing something, think "lift your leg like this," and you lift your right leg, that girls will tend to mirror you by lifting their left and boys will copy and lift their right.

This had no value judgement, nobody saying that one way was better, just something to bear in mind. Obviously it wasn't 100% applicable either, just a trend but I would say, as a coach, it's around 80-90 per cent true and we have similar numbers m/f in this sport. I have tried to think about the socialisation in this instance and I'm not sure how it factors in. I have noticed that in a mixed group, the girls are more likely to modify their behaviour and change leg in line with the boys, but the mirror/copy first response thing I just find interesting.

This is also quite interesting although I've only skim read it. Surprised it's not been posted before the.

Researchers have discovered almost 100 major differences between male and female brains.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/hope-relationships/201402/brain-differences-between-genders%3famp

It's all about the overlap of the distributions, Scott.

Such cognitive differences as have been measured tend to have d-values less than 0.5 (see neuroscientist Lise Elliott's Pink Brain, Blue Brain for details).

Suppose (made up example because my copy of Elliott is on loan to a friend at the mo.) that by age 5 girls have on average a vocab of 2200 words, and boys have on average a vocab of 2100 words. This means diddly squat in terms of how one would set about teaching a class of 15 girls and 15 boys if, for e.g., 45% of the boys know more than 2200 words, and 45% of the girls know less than 2100 words. The large variations in performance in each of the sexes considered separately swamps the tiny difference in means between the two populations.

That's why blanket statements about means, without any information about variances, are sod-all use to anyone, especially to the people drawing up educational policy.

A quick Google search seems to suggest there may be differences.

Those are still statistical differences, not absolutes. It’s still ‘in general’ this, and ‘tends to’ that.

Those are still statistical differences, not absolutes. It’s still ‘in general’ this, and ‘tends to’ that.

Well, of course there will always be exceptions to the rule.

No, not exceptions. As FermatsTheorem has explained, the majority of all boys and girls will be in the same overlap area of distribution. Meaning their sex tells you nothing useful about them, as per Aspie's analogy.

Suppose (made up example because my copy of Elliott is on loan to a friend at the mo.) that by age 5 girls have on average a vocab of 2200 words, and boys have on average a vocab of 2100 words. This means diddly squat in terms of how one would set about teaching a class of 15 girls and 15 boys if, for e.g., 45% of the boys know more than 2200 words, and 45% of the girls know less than 2100 words. The large variations in performance in each of the sexes considered separately swamps the tiny difference in means between the two populations.

This reminds me of how Brexit was reported. To listen to the news you’d think that everyone over 40 voted Leave and everyone under 40 voted Remain. To listen to ‘comedians’ like Frankie Boyle ‘one good winter’ (haha) would have swung the vote the other way.

The same with the North and South, everyone north of the Watford gap being supposedly opposed to Europe because reasons.

But as soon as you look at the actual statistics you can see what bullshit this was. It wasn’t two distinct groups separated by age or geography, it was a close run contest where age and geography overlapped.

The whole idea of catering to supposed different learning styles is questionable anyway.

For one thing, if individuals have a weakness in a particular area, then they are likely to benefit from more practice in using that area in order to develop it, because real life won't necessarily cater to that weakness (obviously there are some exceptions to this where a weakness is severe). So boys whose verbal abilities develop later need more exposure to verbal stimuli, not less.

I'm certainly not well enough researched to conclusively argue either way, but a lot if the articles seem to posit that the brain differences do indeed affect the way each gender learns, and they seem largely to agree consistently on the scientific reasons.

I thought that the idea was that different people learn in different ways - listening, reading, visualiging, doing etc

And that mixing a variety of these styles is best to assure that most people get the info in a way that lands best with them.

Is that out of date?

Can't be more out of date than "boys are like this and girls are like that" and "oh let's have the girls sitting quietly in a corner reading while the boys run around outside and then they will all be super happy" and all that sort of thing?

These are the assumptions >> boys are like this and girls are like that >> that lead to boys who are not like this and girls who are not like that having a fucking awful time of things which has consequences obviously.

It's about gender nonconformity.

Fuck gender. Throw it away. Let boys and girls do the things that work for them and make them happy.

This has always been the fight that feminists have been fighting. The pushback is constant. The idea that children might not be 2D stereotypes, and men and women too, but mainly women, is deeply uncomfortable for a lot of people.

There are different learning methods but it has nothing to do with sex of the kids. Some kids react better to visual learning, others to listening or writing. For me listening was enough I rarely took any notes and even when I did I'd record myself reading it and then play that instead of re-reading notes.

What examples are used do factor into how easy something is understood by someone though, and best is to prepare a variety of examples and present all. As someone without a drivers permit (yet at least) I strggled with physics or programming tasks that asked how much fuel was used during X and Y in conditionds Z.

There are different learning methods but it has nothing to do with sex of the kids.

But there seems to be a wealth of scientific evidence to suggest that the sex of the kids does have a significant impact.

keesstrel not so sure

I recently found out that most people can see things in their heads - their "minds eye". I had no idea this was literal It's not that uncommon at all - but only recently it's been realised it's a thing that people are different on. Reading about it made some of my traits make a lot of sense - I have never been able to learn anything by rote, but if I can understand things then I will always know them. This had a big impact on the subjects I chose for a level and onwards.

I do think people have different brains that work in different ways, and that it needs to be accepted and understood that different people simply are different and some will nto be able to do no matter how much you flog them as their brain just doesn't work that way.

It''s an interesting aside probably but like I say a new one on me and is a bit of a revelation!

Nothing to do with sexed brains though.

This constant search to prove that brains are sexed. Why? I think we all know why.

"But there seems to be a wealth of scientific evidence to suggest that the sex of the kids does have a significant impact."

The wealth of scientific evidence you found when you googled?

Well, of course there will always be exceptions to the rule.

Think about height again. Men are statistically taller than women. Men in the UK average 5’10’’ and women 5’4’’. But the standard deviation for men is about 4’’ so about two thirds of men are between 5’6’’ and 6’2’’ and about 95 percent between 5’ and 6’6’’; the standard deviation for women is about 3.5’’ so two thirds of women 5’0.5’’ and 5’7.5’’.

If I told you my next door neighbour was 5’6’’ could you tell me what sex they were? What if I told you they were a doctor?

So what are girls like then Scott?

How do we learn?

We are all agog, please inform us

I don't want links thanks I want you to tell us in your own words what girls brains are like and why they are different to boys brains and how this comes out in for example learning how to do calculus or doing a piece of creative writing.

Ta.

""But there seems to be a wealth of scientific evidence to suggest that the sex of the kids does have a significant impact." - a significant impact, eh? Is there really.

Apologies if my maths is wrong. I went for height because it’s easier to picture but that unfortunately lumbered me with the imperial measurements most people use and I’m shit at doing them in my head.

{I don’t think I a lack of understanding of statistics is confined to the education system. It’s endemic.}
In most fields everyone is expected to be 'above average' otherwise they are deemed substandard or a failure.
The government's attempts to 'rate' everything simply causes division.
The aspirations we had for our daughter were to be 'outstandingly average, but happy.

"In most fields everyone is expected to be 'above average' otherwise they are deemed substandard or a failure."

Yes lol it's great isn't it!