Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

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Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#61

Post by edtechdev » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 10:03 PM UTC

skolos wrote: post #42

edtechdev wrote: post #8

The sad thing is there are already many well-researched strategies for improving the success of all students in calculus and significantly reducing any gaps between student groups. Things like: * Teaching the math in context instead of abstractly. See https://engineering-computer-science.wright.edu/research/eng... * Give students opportunities to learn from one another in groups, using techniques like peer instructio…

The study showed that the problem is not in performance, but in confidence levels. So the strategies that you mentioned won't solve the problem.

Teaching strategies and teachers/tutors have an effect on student confidence, motivation, self-efficacy, attitudes, and performance.

The first link (teaching math in the context of engineering) increases the confidence of female students (along with many other benefits): https://www.aacu.org/sites/default/files/files/tides/Klingbe...

Peer instruction narrows the gender gap http://mazur.harvard.edu/research/detailspage.php?rowid=9

Inquiry based learning in math helps female students http://www.colorado.edu/eer/research/steminquiry.html

and so on

confidence (and related concepts like self-efficacy and sense of belonging) can be taught directly or positively influenced indirectly. See for example interventions that teach 'growth mindset' in math: http://www.aauw.org/2011/05/26/growth-mindsets-and-stem/

This video explains growth mindset the best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN34FNbOKXc

And Jo Boaler has written a great deal on how growth mindset can improve girls' performance in math classes: http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/boaler-math-min...

Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#62

Post by tmptmp » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 3:55 AM UTC

sotojuan wrote: post #58

tmptmp wrote: post #50

>>“When women are leaving, it is because they don’t think they can do it – not because they can’t do it,” said study co-author Bailey Fosdick in a press release. Very aptly put. It reminded me a quote by Henry Ford: "If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." We must encourage the women (and also the men) entering STEM courses to persist even in case of initial difficulties. Another…

You know what's interesting? Our grade school math sucks and a ton of people get scared of college math... yet we have some of the top math universities and both graduate top scientists/engineers and attract foreign talent. I wonder how many more good mathematicians we'd have if we taught it well.

>>I wonder how many more good mathematicians we'd have if we taught it well.

Yes, but teaching is just one aspect, what matters for the school going children more though is the overall cultural and societal stance/attitude about math. Unfortunately, it seems that the US society in general avoids/abhors/hates/ignores/undermines/fears math mostly and this attitude gets inculcated in the children too. So such children lack motivation to put in the required amount of efforts to learn math.

It's great that despite all this US is doing well at university level math. Also, the US stood first in IMO 2016, that is also great. [1]

[1] https://www.imo-official.org/results.aspx

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