A difference between boys and girls...

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     I finished watching the video of a lesson I taught.  First about the lesson....What was supposed to happen is that students were going to get data on para and diamagnetic items, define those terms, get that unpaired is paramagnetic and paired is diamagnetic and then link that experimental evidence with orbital diagrams and bonding in compounds.  It was too much and too many links.  Instead, I am going to have students get information on a few metals and compare it to the orbital diagrams and see if they can link it to Hund's rule.  Keep it simple...

     However, that was not the most shocking part of the video.  The most shocking part is the disparity between how boys and girls do science.  I had to break the class into two groups.  One group was doing research as the other half of the class was getting data.  The video showed the evidence...the boys got the data and the girls watched.  When left to interact on the research, overwhelmingly people chose to split up into groups...mostly all boys or all girls.

     A key part to scientific method is actually doing the science, collecting data, and collaborating.  The film was able to catch what I could not see at the time.  My goal is to be more sensitive to this, look for it and to correct it.  I will definitely take a more active role in assigning tasks and monitoring.