Topic 3: Cognitive Development
In this reflection I explore the adolescent brain and how it learns.
One aspect of this discussed in class were the "Brain Rules" which highlight 12 factors that play a role in how the brain learns. My personal favourite is Rule 11: male and female brains are different (Medina, 2008). What I thought was particularly intriguing was that there were differences in prevalency of certain mental disorders and differences in how they handle mental processes, like emotion (Medina, 2008). This leads into the reflection question: what is ONE way I can design my classroom or lessons to be more "brain rule" friendly?
In order for my lessons to be brain rule 11 friendly, the one thing I must do is consciously make an effort to differentiate my teaching for boys versus girls. To differentiate means to customize, alter, and adapt my teaching based on differences in student need (Hall, 2002), and the needs for girls in the classroom differs greatly from the needs of boys. For example, studies have shown that girls are better at computational math whereas boys excel at abstract math theory (Hyde, Fennema, & Lamon, 1990). If an exam was weighted more heavily toward one preference, one sex may recieve a lower grade, on average, compared to the other. Therefore, as a teacher, it is my responsibility to understand the intricacies of these differences and teach accordingly, because although every student is equal in the education they deserve, they are certainly not equal in how they recieve it.
This YouTube video shows a middle school where they have segregated boys and girls into sex-differentiated classrooms for only math (CNN, 2005). The educators in the video seem to understand that girls and boys excel in different areas of math and there is benefit in separating them for the purposes of tailored lessons for each sex.
Although this system of complete separation may be impractical to implement in my classroom all the time, I agree with its central idea: you need to actively take a differentiated approach when teaching girls from boys. A website I found has great information and suggestions on how I might differentiate my lessons in science, which is excellent because I am a biology major; it states that for activities such as labs, assign as many mixed-sex lab partner groups as possible and then assign each person a role that is specifically designed to either challenge their sex-related brain preference (Baker, n.d.). For example, girls have been traditionally given the role of recorder while boys often get assigned a leadership role, so there could be much benefit in assigning girls as the team leader and boys as the team recorder for the majority of the teams (Baker, n.d.). This allows both sexes to practice a role or behaviour that they may have little experience in, thereby broadening their scope.
Further, a study in the American Physiological Society journal shows that the modality by which I deliver my instruction will have significant impact on sex-differentiated learning as well; the majority of female students reported preferring a singular mode of instruction whilst the majority of males perferred multimodal instruction (Wehrwein, Lujan, & DiCarlo, 2007). This means that I need to present the lesson's content in varying modes to accomodate both genders. For example, when teaching my students about the human digestive tract, I would start out by writing out the notes on the board (visual mode) while lecturing simultaneously (auditory mode). Then, if the girls are satisfied, I would get them to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts by constructing a model of the digestive tract with clay, thereby getting them to encode the information in a new mode (tactile mode) which has been shown to improve learning (Wehrwein, Lujan, & DiCarlo, 2007). For the boys, after the model building, I would show them a website I found which has transformed the human digestive system into an interactive game. This is a great way to help boys encode information in a new modality; the game has an added bonus because it may encourage intrinsic motivation for the student to beat the game, thereby learning more about the digestive system in the process.
Meta-reflection: How does knowing about adolescent development help me teach?
Lev Vygotsky developed a teaching concept known as "the zone of proximal development," or, ZPD (McMahan & Thompson, 2015). It suggests that learning mastery over a task is best attained when the difficulty of the task lies just beyond the students' internal capabilities. This area is the ZPD (McMahan & Thompson, 2015).
In the context of cognitive development, this means that in order to maximize the effectiveness of my teaching, I must try to do it by accessing the student's ZPD. For example, if a student was showing difficulty in using proper scientific vocablulary, it may indicate that he has problems in memorizing long words. Thus, instead of pushing the word "photosynthesis" on him at once and asking for the meaning, I should break down the word into its components: photo and synthesis. Then I would ask him, "what does 'photo' mean?" The student would reply that it has something to do with light. I would repeat the process with "synthesis" and guide the student's response toward the idea that "synthesis" means to make or create. It may be that the whole word was too long to process, but by breaking down the word, it is presented to the student in his ZPD. Ultimately, he would come to the conclusion that "photosynthesis" was the making of energy using light.
We can tie this into brain rule 11 (females and male brains learn differently). For example, if two students -- a boy and a girl -- were both displaying trouble with memorizing definitions, although their symptoms are very similar, their causes may differ greatly. This is because each may be stumbling in different areas of the word acquistion process; the differences in where they are stumbling exactly might be due to brain rule 11. Therefore, a method that works for the boy may not necessarily work for the girl simply because their ZPDs don't overlap.
Knowing that students have varying strengths, learning styles, and ZPDs allows me to be mentally prepared for what I can expect from my students. Consequently, I can prepare a stronger, more memorable lesson by tailoring my instruction to meet as many students' ZPD as possible.
Additional Resources
1. YouTube video about ZPD and how it can be utilized by teachers in schools - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjLUiVRIqRc
2. YouTube video of Brain Rules creator, Dr. Medina giving a speech about brain function - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK1nMQq67VI
3. Scientific American article about differences in neurological wiring between male and female brains - http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v292/n5/full/scientificamerican0505-40.html
4. American Psychological Association article about differences in cognitive functions between male and female brains - http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/36/8/892/
5. Star Tribune article about the academic discrepancies between boys and girls in the U.S. - http://www.startribune.com/girls-beating-boys-in-academics-is-it-a-guy-thing-or-a-failing-system/304770691/
6. Oakland Post article about the trends in teaching boys versus girls - http://www.oaklandpostonline.com/life/article_f39ec4b0-f76a-11e4-8fd9-fb326128a74b.html
7. Online image: "Genderbread man" - https://transgenderally.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/1600-genderbread-person.jpg
References
Baker, D. (n.d.). NARST: Publications - Research Matters - to the Science Teacher. Retrieved May 13, 2015, from https://www.narst.org/publications/research/gender.cfm
CNN. (2005). Gender and Learning(CNN Student news).flv. Retrieved May 13, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzO72OjBzMk
Hall, T. (2002). Differentiated instruction. Wakefield, MA: National Center on.
Hyde, J. S., Fennema, E., & Lamon, S. J. (1990). Gender differences in mathematics performance: a meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 107(2), 139.
McMahan, I. & Thompson, S. (2015). Adolescence: Canadian edition. Toronto: Pearson.
Medina, J. (2008). Brain Rules: Brain development for parents, teachers and business leaders | Brain Rules |. Retrieved May 13, 2015, from http://www.brainrules.net
Wehrwein, E. A., Lujan, H. L., & DiCarlo, S. E. (2007). Gender differences in learning style preferences among undergraduate physiology students.Advances in Physiology Education, 31(2), 153-157.
Image: public domain - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Bathroom-gender-sign.png
