PROFESSOR PETER CUTTANCE cuttancebigpond'net'au

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ACTIVITY-BASED LEARNMING FOR BOYS
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• Gender differences relevant to schooling
• Lessons from BELS

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DISTRIBUTIONAL DIFFERENCES
GIRLS
More boys than girls in the tail
BOYS
50 60 65 85
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DISTRIBUTIONAL DIFFERENCES
More girls than boys in the tail
BOYS
50 60 65 85
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DISTRIBUTIONAL DIFFERENCES
More girls than boys in the tail
BOYS
50 60 65 85
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DISTRIBUTIONAL DIFFERENCES
More girls than boys in the tail
BOYS
50 60 65 85
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ZERO DIFFERENCES

• Reading
• Verbal reasoning
• Abstract reasoning
• Numerical reasoning
• Mathematics
• Communication skills
• Happiness
• Helping behaviours

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REAL DIFFERENCES IN FAVOUR OF GIRLS/FEMALES

• Writing
• Spelling
• Language
• Perceptual speed
• Facial expression processing

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DIFFERENCES IN FAVOUR OF BOYS/MEN

• Mechanical reasoning
• Spatial reasoning
• Ascribing failure to effort
• Assertive speech
• Verbal aggression
• Self-esteem
• Body-esteem
• Depressive symptoms

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LARGE DIFFERENCES IN FAVOUR OF BOYS/MEN

• Physical aggression
• Aggression in real world settings
• Grip strength
• Throw velocity
• Throw distance
• Sprint speed
• Activity level

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AVERAGE WEIGHT
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SUMMARY OF DIFFERENCES

• 78 of gender differences are small or close to
  zero
• Exceptions
• Writing
• Mechanical ability
• Activity level
• Motor performance
• Aggression

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HOW TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR BOYS

• Recognise that most boys are achieving as well as
  girls
• Develop multi-strategy projects
• Look for a clear impact on boys behaviour
• Ensure that teachers implement the strategies
• Impact for boys comes from changes in practice
• Target specific groups of boys

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WHAT (YR 10) BOYS SAY ABOUT SCHOOL

• Its more about getting credentials than learning
• School work is boring, repetitive and irrelevant
• Doesnt offer courses needed for employment
• Homework intrudes on more valued aspects of their
  lives
• Years 810 waste too much time
• The workload is excessive in Years 11 12

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(cont)

• School poses too many contradictions and
  debilitating paradoxes
• school expects adult behaviour but doesnt
  deliver an adult environment
• school pushes the rhetoric of education (eg
  fairness, respect, flexibility, a celebration of
  difference) but produces the opposite in
  practice

5a
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WHY SOME BOYSFIND SCHOOL DIFFICULT

• School is irrelevant to them
• School is boring and uninteresting to them
• School imposes too many unreasonable rules
• The boys lack the requisite social skills
• They lack resilience
• They lack the literacy skills required
• Schooling is too physically inactive for them

15b
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BEHAVIOUR
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BEHAVIOUR DATA FOR A PRIMARY SCHOOL
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RESILIANCE

• Push boys beyond their perceived limits
• physically
• emotionally
• Provide access to male environments
• Tackle bullying

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RESILIENCE

• Resilience is the happy knack of being able to
  bungy jump through the pitfalls of lifeability
  to rebound after adversity of hard times
  (Andrew Fuller)

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BUILDING RESILIENCE

• Develop the boys sense of belonging connect
  boys to others whom you feel care about them
• Develop their self-efficacy and optimism by
  seeking out positive experiences
• Develop their emotional regulation habits of
  concentration, focusing and calming
• Develop their sense of personal mastery

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ACTIVITY-BASED LEARNING

• Focus on literacy, behaviour, social outcomes
• Link literacy to the real-world of their future
• School/industry/community collaboration
• Give boys a taste of real life
• Develop capacity for resilience collaboration
  in demanding situations

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MENTORING ROLE MODELLING
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MENTORING

• Older boys reading to younger boys (Year 7 Year
  1, Year 10 Year 6)
• Older boys listening to younger boys reading
• Grand dads
• Working with Year 10 boys
• Yarning to Year 3 boys
• Young adult working with Year 8 boys

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PURPOSES OF MENTORING

• Learning a skill matching young people with
  older people to assist with learning reading
• Establishing networks to assist transition to
  work or further study, or to increase employment
  opportunities
• Social inclusion through community involvement,
  and social, leisure and sporting programs
• Establishing a sense of agency and engagement
• Rehabilitation students who have been excluded
  from school for some reason
• Provision of role models personal development

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CASE STUDIES

• Mirani Cluster
• Disengaged low SES boys
• Rural setting
• Bribie Island Cluster
• Disengaged low SES boys
• High proportion of single parent families

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CASE STUDY

• Bribie Island

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CASE STUDY EDEN MARINE CLUSTER
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EDEN CLUSTER

• Concern about boys aggressive style of relating
  to people and their disengagement with learning
• At-risk boys in Grades 5/6 experiencing
  difficulty managing their behavior and coping
  with learning demands
• Project involved hands-on pushbike repairs
• Secondary boys (trained by retired community men)
  tutored Grade 5/6 boys
• Two levels of mentoring retired community men
  mentored secondary boys who mentored Grade 5/6
  boys

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EVIDENCE OF THE CLUSTERS SUCCESS

• Resilience - stayed on task when jobs became
  challenging (teacher reflective journals)
• Respectful and positive relationships with older
  men (interviews)
• Transfer of task commitment to classroom (student
  work samples)
• Turnaround in classroom behaviour no
  disciplinary actions (discipline records)

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ICT

• Mainly used as an ancillary strategy
• eg. writing and presenting using the computer
• Resulted in enhanced engagement for some boys
• Structured demanding programs effective
• Software supported learning
• Text-to-speech
• Grammar spelling checks

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AUDIT TEACHING STRATEGIES CURRICULUM

• Identify current school strategies that
• support learning for these boys?
• do not support learning for these boys?

15b
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ENGAGING BOYS

• What are their interests of the target group of
  boys?
• Which strategies and contexts engage them?

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SCHOOL-LEVEL STRATEGIES TO ENGAGE THESE BOYS

• Which current strategies can you build on for the
  target group of boys?
• What new strategies might you try?

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CLASSROOM PROGRAM LEARNING

• Which current strategies can you build on for the
  target group of boys?
• What new strategies might you try?

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AN INTEGRATED APPROACH
Rules/boundaries Scaffolding Explicit
teaching Spatial/mechanical
Male environments Hands-on Relevance to
future Workplace orientation Resilience Involve
the community
Structured physical activity Rules/boundaries Stud
ent responsibility Linking to community
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KEY LESSONS

• Make schooling relevant
• Address boys need for physical activity
• Provide access to good role models
• Introduce boy-to-boy mentoring
• Provide the necessary level of scaffolding
• Make assessment multi-modal
• Ensure that boys have the literacy skills to
  thrive
• Give them a taste of the real world of their
  future

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A RANGE OF RESOURCES ON BOYS EDUCATION ARE
AVAILABLE AT

• www/radii.org/search/swish