Strategies for Teaching Boys and Girls -- Elementary Level E-Book

Michael Gurian

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 353

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

In his best-selling classic Boys and Girls Learn Differently, Michael Gurian explained the origin and nature of gender differences in the classroom. His important book explored the behavior teachers observed and the challenges they faced with both boys and girls in their classrooms. Taking the next step, Strategies for Teaching Boys?Elementary Level: A Workbook for Educators and Girls offers teachers a hands-on resource that draws on the Gurian Institute's research and training with elementary schools and school districts. The workbook presents practical strategies, lessons, and activities that have been field-tested in real classrooms and developed to harness boys' and girls' unique strengths. The workbook is designed to help teachers build a solid foundation of learning and study habits that their students can use in the classroom and at home. It covers the key curricular areas and offers proven techniques to make learning, no matter what the subject, more engaging for all students. The workbook is an essential resource for all teachers who want to improve their practice and get the most from all students?whatever their gender.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Jossey-Bass Teacher

PREVIOUS BOOKS BY MICHAEL GURIAN

Title Page

Copyright Page

About This Book

The Authors

About the Gurian Institute

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Chapter 1 - The Science of Boy-Girl Learning Differences

Boys and Girls Learn Differently!

What Are the Differences?

Looking at the Male-Female Brain Spectrum

Gender Difference: A Path to Success

Chapter 2 - Keep ’Em Moving

Brain-Body Connections for Learning

Wisdom of Practice: Teachers Talking

Common Teacher Questions and Concerns

Practical Ideas for Your Classroom

Chapter 3 - Make It Visual

Understanding the Strengths of Their Brains

Practical Ideas for Your Classroom

Talk Less! Sample Lesson Formats

Chapter 4 - Empower the Learner

Why Giving Choice to Students Works

Practical Ideas for Your Classroom

Common Teacher Questions and Concerns

Chapter 5 - Get Them Learning Together

Why Social Interaction Works

Practical Ideas for Your Classroom

Activities You Can Use Immediately

Chapter 6 - Making It Matter

Why It’s Important to Make Learning Matter for All Kids

Focusing on Purposeful Teaching

Practical Ideas for Your Classroom

Engaging Real-Life Scenarios

Chapter 7 - Art Smart

Why the Arts Work

Wisdom of Practice: Teachers Who Use the Musical Arts

Using Technology with the Visual Arts

Focusing on the Performing Arts

Practical Ideas for Your Classroom

Chapter 8 - Connecting with Your Students

Why Personal Connections with Students Work

Being the Charismatic Adult

Practical Ideas for Your Classroom

Chapter 9 - Building Character

Why Character Education Works

Common Teacher Questions and Concerns

Practical Ideas for Your Classroom

Chapter 10 - The Home Stretch

Why Home-School Partnerships Work

Effective Communication with Parents

Practical Ideas for Your Classroom

Epilogue

Sources

Index

Jossey-Bass Teacher

Jossey-Bass Teacher provides educators with practical knowledge and tools to create a positive and lifelong impact on student learning. We offer classroom-tested and research-based teaching resources for a variety of grade levels and subject areas. Whether you are an aspiring, new, or veteran teacher, we want to help you make every teaching day your best.

From ready-to-use classroom activities to the latest teaching framework, our value-packed books provide insightful, practical, and comprehensive materials on the topics that matter most to K-12 teachers. We hope to become your trusted source for the best ideas from the most experienced and respected experts in the field.

PREVIOUS BOOKS BY MICHAEL GURIAN

PARENTING

Nurture the NatureThe Wonder of Children (previously published as The Soul of the Child)The Wonder of GirlsThe Wonder of BoysA Fine Young ManThe Good SonWhat Stories Does My Son Need? (with Terry Trueman)

PSYCHOLOGY

What Could He Be Thinking?Love’s JourneyMothers, Sons and LoversThe Prince and the King

EDUCATION

The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons from Falling Behind in School and Life (with Kathy Stevens)

Boys and Girls Learn Differently!: A Guide for Teachers and Parents (with Patricia Henley and Terry Trueman)

The Boys and Girls Learn Differently Action Guide for Teachers (with Arlette C. Ballew)

BUSINESS/CORPORATE

The Leading Partners Workbook (with Katherine Coles and Kathy Stevens)

FOR YOUNG ADULTS

Understanding GuysFrom Boys to Men

FICTION AND POETRY

The MiracleAn American MysticThe Odyssey of TelemachusEmptyingAs the Swans Gather

PREVIOUS BOOKS BY KATHY STEVENS

The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons from Falling Behind in School and Life (with Michael Gurian)

Leading Partners (with Michael Gurian and Katharine Coles)

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Gurian. All rights reserved.

Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741—www.josseybass.com

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ISBN: 978-07879-9730-4

PB Printing

About This Book

STRATEGIES for Teaching Boys & Girls: A Workbook for Elementary Level Educators is an invaluable resource for teachers working with students from preschool through fifth grade. It weaves together brain science and classroom strategies in a way that is both easily understandable and immediately applicable. This is the kind of book that teachers want—one that combines the right balance of “just enough” theory to help teachers become knowledgeable and a “whole bunch” of practice so that they can jump right in with the strategies on Monday morning.

We’ve organized this book around several important strategy domains so that you can go right to the sections that you need. We do suggest that you start with Chapter One to lay a foundation about the brain. After that, feel free to skip around to the parts you most need as a teacher. You’ll find chapters on movement, visual teaching strategies, social interaction, offering choice, art and music integration, making learning relevant, and more. Each of these chapters provides a fascinating look at how the brain works and illuminates why these strategies are so important for all learners. Central to each chapter is an exploration of the differences between the male and female brain and the connection of these hard-wired differences to gender-specific teaching strategies. We think you’ll appreciate the comments from students about their own learning, as well as the anecdotes from teachers about what works in the classroom.

The highlight of this book is the extensive lists of classroom activity and strategy ideas that span all content areas. We wanted to create a book for teachers that can be read and re-read many times over and that will be a source of creativity and inspiration for years to come. We hope that our ideas may infuse a new level of excitement, curiosity, and student learning in your classroom.

The Authors

Michael Gurian is a social philosopher, family therapist, corporate consultant, and the New York Times bestselling author of twenty books published in twenty-one languages. The Gurian Institute, which he co-founded, conducts research internationally, launches pilot programs, and trains professionals.

As a social philosopher, Michael has pioneered efforts to bring neurobiology and brain research into homes, workplaces, schools, and public policy. A number of his groundbreaking books in child development, including The Wonder of Boys, Boys and Girls Learn Differently!, The Wonder of Girls, and What Could He Be Thinking?, as well as The Minds of Boys (coauthored with Kathy Stevens), have sparked national debate. His newest work, Nurture the Nature (2007), provides a revolutionary new framework, based in neurobiology, by which to understand and care for children all the way from birth to adulthood.

A former university instructor, Michael has worked as a consultant to school districts, families, therapists, community agencies, and other organizations. He keynotes regularly at conferences and has lectured at such leading institutions as Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, and UCLA. His training videos are used by Big Brother and Big Sister agencies throughout North America.

Michael’s work has been featured in various media, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, Time, Educational Leadership, Parenting, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and on the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, PBS and National Public Radio.

Kathy Stevens, executive director of the Gurian Institute, is an international presenter and coauthor of The Minds of Boys. Her work has been featured in national publications including Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, Educational Leadership, Education Week, National School Board Journal, and Library Journal.

Kathy has over twenty-five years of experience working in the nonprofit sector, focusing on children, youth, families, and women’s issues. Her professional experience includes teaching music in Pre-K-8, designing and administering programs in early childhood care and education, domestic violence, juvenile corrections, adult community corrections, teen pregnancy prevention, cultural competency, and women’s issues. Much of her early work was done in economically disadvantaged minority communities.

In addition to her work with the Gurian Institute, Kathy has designed and delivered training for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Virginia Department of Corrections, Girl Scouts, U.S. Navy Ombudsman Program, Disproportionate Minority Confinement Task Force and a variety of nonprofit organizations. As a diversity trainer, she was honored to participate in the Children’s Defense Fund’s Institute for Cultural Competency at the former Alex Haley Farm in Tennessee.

Kathy lives in Colorado Springs with her husband. She has two sons and seven grandchildren.

Kelley King, director of the Gurian Institute’s education division, has been a classroom teacher, special education teacher, teacher of the gifted, and a school administrator for twenty years.

While a school principal, Kelley initiated and led her school through an improvement process targeted at closing the gender gap, including the analysis of the data, professional dialogue and training, and the identification and implementation of effective strategies. Through action research, she has been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of The Minds of Boys and Boys and Girls Learn Differently! theory to enhance the achievement of all students.

Through her work with the Gurian Institute, Kelley presents at schools and conferences across the United States. Her work has been featured in national publications including Newsweek and Educational Leadership, and she is regularly interviewed by local and national media.

Kelley and her husband, Chris, live in Superior, CO with their two children.

About the Gurian Institute

IF you would like to help your school and community better understand how gender affects learning and living, please contact the Gurian Institute. Through our four divisions—Education, Family, Human Services, and Corporate—we provide training and services to schools, school districts, institutions of higher education, parent groups, businesses, youth-serving organizations, juvenile and adult corrections, medical and mental health professionals, religious organizations, and others serving boys and girls, and men and women.

We also provide keynotes and breakouts at conferences worldwide. There are Gurian Institute trainers throughout the United States, and in Canada, Australia, China and France.

We are committed to helping school districts, corporations and agencies become self-sufficient through internal training-of-trainer models. These are ongoing and serve populations over the long term.

A highlight of our training year is our annual Summer Training Institute, in Colorado Springs. Professionals join together for four days of training and networking. Some individuals become certified on the fifth day.

The Institute also provides books, workbooks, training videos for educators and parents, newsletters for parents and teachers, online courses and live chats, as well as other products.

For more information on services, products, and our philosophy, please visit www.gurianinstitute.com.

Acknowledgments

TEACHING is both a craft and an art. Each new teacher arrives in the classroom with a toolbox filled with ideas, strategies, passions, and hopes that will be transformed into opportunities for children, boys and girls, to learn how to read, add, subtract, think, ponder, and dream. With every passing school year teachers add new tools to their toolbox—they learn from professional development opportunities, from each other, from mentors, and they learn from the children.

The Gurian Institute has been invited into classrooms around the country, meeting wonderful educators who have honored us by allowing us to help them expand their toolbox. They have been the motivation and inspiration for this book. Dedicated administrators and teachers are working every day to understand how boys and girls learn differently, and by so doing help every student reach as high as she or he can. This book is richer as a result of teachers sharing their successes and students adding their voices. We are grateful to each and every one of them. We especially must acknowledge:

• Our Gurian Institute certified trainers, whose expertise and dedication carries them to hundreds of schools every year, sharing their knowledge and experience with their colleagues, practicing what they preach, improving the odds for each boy and girl who enters a classroom. Many of our trainers are educators just like you—principals, classroom teachers, curriculum specialists, school counselors—working in schools rich in diversity, challenge, and success.

• The outstanding educators in the Boulder Valley School District, especially Ellen, an exceptional mentor and role-model, and the magnificent teachers and staff of Douglass Elementary School.

• All the schools, teachers, administrators, and students who shared their wisdom and feelings with us—they make the book more real.

• The professionals who took time in their already over-booked lives to review the manuscript and offer invaluable feedback.

• The editorial staff at Jossey-Bass is simply the best in the business! The wisdom and support of Lesley Iura, Julia Parmer, Margie McAneny, Natalie Lin, Kate Gagnon, Pam Berkman, Dimi Berkner, and, as always, Alan Rinzler have combined to make it truly a better book than it would have been without their help.

Dedication

Michael: For Gail, Gabrielle, and Davita, and all the teachers.

Kathy: To all the teachers who dedicate themselves daily to offer each girl and boy a chance to develop to her or his fullest potential. I am in awe!

Kelley: I could not have participated in writing this book without the patience, understanding and support of my family. My husband, Chris, coached me to take it one step at a time as I pondered the magnitude of writing a book on top of being a full-time school principal. My children, Connor and Roxanne, were always so understanding when I sequestered myself in the study for long periods of time. They have been my greatest teachers about gender differences—as evidenced by my son’s exasperated inquiry one night, “Why do you have to write a book? That just means that people like me have to read it.”

1

The Science of Boy-Girl Learning Differences

A primary concern for nearly every teacher is the difference we each intuit in the males and females we teach. We all know that there is immense overlap between the genders, and that each child is an inherently sacrosanct individual not to be limited by a gender stereotype, but we also know that boys and girls learn differently right before our eyes.

—Michael Gurian

IN the past couple of decades one question has taken on more and more significance when we consider how ready an individual child might be for entering school: Is the child a boy or a girl? Exciting and ongoing research into the living brains of boys and girls is showing us that not only are boys and girls different at the organic level, but how they learn is different in many, many ways from the day they are born.