With 17% more male students passing the Science TAKS test than females, how can we, as educators, claim we ensure equality for all learners? Our teachers would like to provide the best education for all learners at our school, but if data suggests that one or more populations are at a disadvantage, we must investigate! I have seen many female students shy away from performing a dissection in front of male classmates, but dive in with both hands during private tutorials. Girls seem interested in making sense of the written lab instructions, but then defer to males that are aggressively starting to investigate using the lab equipment. Whether science seems too hard for girls, or they are backing down because of ancient social norms, you come away with many wonderings by just watching males and females interact in a lab situation. I think it would be worth splitting a few classes of varying readiness levels into all male and all female labs to see if females perform with more confidence and ask more questions.
There are varying opinions of my original idea to separate males and females in lab situations, ranging from colleagues who say they have seen it work to colleagues who disagree with providing special circumstances for girls to excel because females have to work alongside males in college and in the work force, but still the question exists, how can we ensure that females are receiving the same opportunities as males in science. Anytime I Google "What are the top ten highest paying jobs?", at least seven of the ten usually have a prerequisite of obtaining some kind of science related degree, so exploration of this topic is vital in the area of social justice or equity in education. For this reason I plan to research ways of providing equitable science education to both genders.
When I started high school, I was placed into a girls only English class. I have to admit that I felt a little out of place. Most of the girls in class were what we call the "problem students." I was defiantly not one of them. I was ranked 2nd in my class, was involved in extracurricular activities and helped out my teachers whenever I could. By the end of the class, everyone became really good friends and the "problem students" that did not have a chance at passing were able to excel. It was mentioned that the success was a result of not having the "distraction" of boys in the class. This may be something to look at.
ReplyDeleteAwesome Jessica! I am actually working really hard to make sure the sample used in the research project has every "level" of student and every possible demographic. I am also going to be studying the effects the project has on males as well because the classes are going to be split; basically, two teachers will divide their current 1st, 2nd, or whatever period we decide, into one female and one male class. This will happen with as many classes/teachers as we can without disrupting too many learning environments, but ensuring that we have a large enough sample that has all populations included. I am getting excited as the day to look at schedules and make final decisions draws near.
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