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Understanding learning differences between boys and girls Changing how students are assessed could help to address the problem of boys dropping behind at school, a visiting educational psychologist says. JoAnn Deak is this year's Independent Schools of New Zealand visiting scholar and spent three weeks in May working with parents, teachers and students at schools in Christchurch, Auckland and Wellington. US-based Dr Deak said that, if judged by exam marks, boys may not be seen to be doing so well, but in terms of their conceptual- and pattern-thinking they were not doing badly. "Girls are better at memorising and spitting back information but in terms of deeper learning I do not think it is true that there is a gap between the genders - males are still far exceeding females in business and in advanced learning there is not a gender difference," Dr Deak said. Changing the grades-focused assessment methods at school level could be key to lifting boys' achievement. In the US, assessment methods had not changed for 50 years. Dr Deak said New Zealand's NCEA was moving in the right direction with its mix of external and internal assessment. It was also important to recognise and understand boys' and girls' differences "from the neck up" and to build that understanding into teaching programmes. In literacy education, for example, boys could not physically hear the difference between certain vowels until a couple of years after girls were able to. Therefore, the phonics approach was unsuitable for boys until they could hear those sounds, and teaching boys using visual memory was the best way to start. Dr Deak said New Zealand education had a good emphasis on "deep thinking," which boys did well at, but there was still little recognition that boys and girls should not be taught as if they were the same unit. "The male brain uses one side at a time but a girl's brain is wired to both sides with a good connection between them. So in class, boys will do things serially whereas for girls it is not so difficult to multi-task," she said. Dr Deak said most girls learnt better in a girls-only situation, while boys often did better in a co-educational school because they learnt from girls. "Having males and females in a class is great if you have a really talented teacher. If not, you get problems."
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