Does gender affect teaching styles?

Question

Various studies have suggested gender differences emerge in middle school when it comes to achievement in certain subjects and behavioral problems. Different reasons have popped up to explain this gap- biology, psychology, child rearing practices, or teacher biases- but as a teacher what do you think? Would you plan a lesson differently if you had a room full of boys versus a room full of girls?

Answer 1

Good question.

I tend to teach the same way regardless of gender in my room. I think this is becuase I've been trained in the inquiry model.

Look up info on The International Bacalaureat Organization.

Answer 2

i believe that gender does affect how I teach. If I had a class full of boys, I would probably plan tighter lessons in which there's a ton of hands-on stuff.

In my experience, boys have a harder time sitting still and if they're not engaged, they play around.

Girls on the other hand are often people pleasers by nature and extremely eager to please the teacher. So even if they are bored out of their minds by your lecture, they will sit quietly and do their best to pay attention.

Answer 3

Your own learning style as a teacher affects the way you teach, more so than your gender.  For example, if you favor learning analytically and factually (left hemisphere), you tend to teach the same way. This means your students who most prefer to learn in a holistic and humanistic manner (right hemisphere) will likely not be as emotionally engaged in learning what you are teaching. The most effective teachers understand how to constantly keep changing teaching strategies every few minutes from one hemisphere to another.

Students in every class represent a mixture of learning styles regardless of whether it's a class of all boys or all girls, so you have to gear your teaching to address all styles.  Otherwise learning and behavioral problems begin to emerge

The message here is that your own learning style affects the way you teach and the way students learn.  It's not a matter of gender.  All too often teachers talk about student learning styles without first understanding their own learning style.

Answer 4

I used to think that gender didn't matter in the classroom, and then I was assigned an entire class of freshmen boys.  The difference between the all boy class and the mixed classes are striking.  I'm not sure if they act differently because there are no girls around to impress. (I'm too old to worry about impressing.)  But they are much louder, less focused and much more energetic than the girls.  We have a rotating block schedule, so it isn't that I always have them last block or after lunch or anything, it's the kids.

We spend a lot more time in this class doing physical activities in this class.  My other classes are much more willing and able to do paired review or independent work, whereas this class really needs structure, so we tend to do whole class activities that require movement.  

There are all sorts of arguments both on how boys are cheated by schools and on how girls are cheated by schools, and I don't think either is entirely right, but I do think that assuming that all kids learn in the same ways is shortsighted.  You need to figure out what works for your classes.