Boys’ marks in school have been in a pretty serious slide in the last 15 years or so all through the western world. Nowadays, girls succeed better than boys in every area of pre- and post- secondary school, except physics and engineering. There are more women, with higher marks all through university, approximately 60% women-40% men, depending on the exact area.
However, boys seem to have a natural inclination towards info tech. Fairly often, you have some pretty seriously academically challenged boys, who are bored in school and chronically unmotivated in the classroom, but who are quite adept at info tech.
My idea for a field study is:
To what extent does info tech in the classroom improve academically-challenged students’ success?
2 responses so far ↓
1
jleong
// Jun 9, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Is the text above your comment or from the resource you’re linking us to? you might want to find an article or resource to back up or narrow your topic down.
What aspect of learning are you wondering about in gender differences? I know you’re a french teacher. Are you going to inquire about language and literacy acquisition? How are you measuring achievement? what is meant by academic success? motivation might also be a keyword you look up.
you might try just writing a page of questions that engage you.
Julia
2
grantmiller
// Jun 20, 2008 at 11:15 am
Mike, that is a wonderful Guiding Question in the spirit of IB’s MYP. I’ve been finding that special needs students can, with a bit of coaxing, do very well with technology – in fact, through the Approaches to Learning of MYP, the student can pick whatever technology they can use to show their understanding. If a student has problems with written language, let them do a podcast or have the student dictate it to a volunteer. The sky is the limit!
I’ll be looking forward to seeing more of your field study!
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