Surprised to see this as a topic?
if you have met smart species from both planets, you shouldn’t be. boys and girls have different approach toward study and anyone who is working in a coed environment would agree. much like their physical growth follows a different curve, their cognitive capabilities have interesting characteristics too. in the same grade level, girls always seem to be ahead of boys. girls are into details, actively participate and show more awareness for surroundings in general. their expressions, emotions are takings turns on peak and valleys so you better be on your toes to handle those spontaneous outbursts. on the other hand, boys do not appear to be in any rush to achieve new heights , they are content and busy being their usual themselves, they appear as cool and easy going. winning or competing is not on top of their list yet. they are silent observers, by now they have figured out their way to work through challenging work. they do not express emotions as much, so in short, they keep you guessing all the time.
Over years, i saw a pattern in what type of presentation gets either of these groups excited towards the subject. let me share specific examples. I used to take printed sheets of riddles to my class. overall, it was a fun activity, so couple of times its was a huge hit. third time, girls were bored, boys were still quite happy. so i took out few match sticks and told girls they could solve same riddles by rearranging the match sticks to solve the equation. matchamagic is an official app by the way, quite fun one. girls faces were lit up instantly. they welcomed that variation.
Boys and girls have a different view on concept of being done. given a problem, boys will find a solution and then, they are done. they will turn their work in and move on . they are ready for next challenge, previous one is already history for them. Girls do not seem to have a concept of being done for most part. they will be the first one to start but last ones to turn theirs in. even after most of the class is done, you will find few girls wanting to finish before they turn it in. they are busy improvising constantly, they are convinced they can do this better, given more time or better team. see what i am saying?
I am not saying these patterns make either of them a superior class over other, but as a coach, you need to acknowledge and organize their material accordingly. you need to let them be themselves in their own way to tackle the same problem. you can achieve better results from girls team on creative, fun and well presented variety of problems. you will see boys team opting into a challenge similar to what they have done before. according to them, they have done it ones, they liked it , so let’s do it again. this is very visible when coed team compete in competitions like Science Olympiad, FLL and OM. want to know what will suit you kid the most? Stay tuned, we will discuss those next.