One of the characteristics of successful strategies to increase the participation of females in science courses and careers has been to focus on the skills identified in research that might cause the problem. Thus there is a strong emphasis on developing spatial ability, problem solving ability and mechanical skills. Another trend in successfull strategies is the emphasis on mathematics. Researchers realized that students needed to take mathematics in secondary school in order to pursue science courses of study in college. This focus on math became known as the 'critical-filter' idea. Science teachers can play an important role by counseling students into math, as well as integrating math in an appealing way into science classes.
Let's take a closer look at the strategies and characteristics of successful programs that are applicable to the science classroom.
Successful Program Characteristics.
In summarizing a report published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science on programs that increased access and achievemnent of females and minorties, Cole and Griffin point out that results are hopeful in producing positive outcomes. They listed the following as characteristics of programs that raised the achievement level and increased science career choices of females and minorities:
• Strong academic component in mathematics, science, and communications, focused on enrichment rather than remediation.• Academic subjects taught by teachers who are highly competent in the subject matter and believe that students can learn the material.
• Heavy emphasis on the applications of science and mathematics and careers in these fields.
• Integrative approach to teaching that incorporates all subject areas, hands-on opportunities, and computers.
• Multiyear involvement with students.
• Strong director; committed and stable staff who share program goals.
• Stable long-term funding based with multiple funding sources.
• Recruitments of participants from all relevant target populations.
• University, industry, school cooperative program.
• Opportunities for in-school and out-of-school learning experiences.
• Parental involvement and development of base of community support.
• Specific attention to removing educational inequities related to gender and race.
• Involvement of professionials and staff who look like the target population.
• Development of peer support systems.
• Evaluation, long-term follow-up data collection.
• "Mainstreaming"---integration of program elements supportive of women and minorities into the institutional program.
Successful Teaching Strategies.
A number of strategies has proven to be successful in influencing female attitudes and achievement in science and mathematics. In general these strategies support a hands-on approach, in which students work in small learning teams, and have opportunities for "academic discussions." But there is a great deal more than this general approach that seem to enhance female participation in science. Let's look at some specific stategies.
1. Content and Activities
Barbara Smail has suggested that science classes need to provide more experiences which she calls "nurturative" to provide a balance to the "analytical/instrumental" activities which she suggests characterize most school science (Figure 1)
Analytical/Instrumental Nurturative Interest in
rules Interest in
machines Interest in fairness
and justice Views world as
hierarchy of relationships (competitive) Emphasis on
analytical thought Interest in
controlling inanimate things Interest in
relationships Interest in
people Pragmatism Views world as
network of relationships (co-operative) Emphasis on
aesthetic appreciation Interest in
nurturing living things
The comparions of analytical/instrumental with nurturative characteristics is similar to the left brain to right brain dichotomy that was discussed in Chapter 2. Proponents of left brain and right brain thinking such as McCarthy suggest an integration resolution to this dichotomy, as Small recomends. Students should be exposed to a variety teaching activities as suggested in Figure 1. A balanced selection of content and activities would result in an array of creative activities.
For example, one school she worked with suggested changing writing assignments and examinations to reflect the following:
• Instructions on how to make something, such as an electric motor.• Descriptions of solutions to problems in unusual situations (building a distillation apparatus from bits and pieces available on a desert island.
• Letters to friends describing experiments or concepts.
• Letters to newspapers expressing ideas on social implications of science (e.g. dumping of nuclear wastes, seal-culling, vivisection).
• Newspaper reports (e.g. of acid tanker accident, hazards and clean-up).
• Advertisements (e.g. for Bunsen burners and other laboratory equipment).
• Imaginative accounts (e.g. carbon or nitrogen cycle from the point of view of an atom involved, expeditions into ears, blood stream).
• Diaries.
• Script for TV interviews if inventors.
• Poems on scientific phenomena.
2. Social Arrangements
Another strategy that appears to enhance females interest in science, and contributes positively to academic performance is altering the work arrangements in the classroom. There is considerable evidence that cooperative, mixed ability group processes enhance learning and cognitive development in some circumstances. However, there is a potential problem in the use of student led small groups, as has been pointed out by Cohen. Although learning of content in a small peer group is positively related to frequency of interaction, frequency of interaction is correlated with social status in the classroom. There is the danger that the high status students will dominate peer groups, leaving out the low status students, who often times are students with low socio-economic status and low ability.
Proponents of cooperative learning have devised management practices in which leadership roles in peer groups are rotated, thereby giving students of varying status the opportunity to play out leadership roles.
3. Confidence Building
Skolnick, Langbort and Day (1986) have described strategies that teachers can implement to build confidence in the ability to solve science and (mathematics) problems. As they point out, expert problem solvers believe they can do it. It is crucial that middle and junior high school science teachers employ these methods, since this is the time that students (boys and girls) will be influenced into or out of mathematics and science courses at the high school level. They suggest five strategies that they think will build the self-esteem girls have in being science and mathematics problems solvers:
4. Sex-role Awareness
One way of discovering that students perceive science roles as masculine is have students draw pictures of scientists (See Inquiry 1.3). She reported that only 10% of rural American boys and twenty-eight per cent of the girls drew women scientists. Males and females think that science is a male profession. In order to help students see new possibilities the teacher must take an active role in a number of awareness type activities so that the options are multiplied for students. Skolnick, Langbort and Day suggest two categories of strategies:
Content relevance means choosing and using science content to help students see the relevance of science in their lives now, as well as a potential career option later. For instance, Smail reports that science programs should capitolize on the fact that girl's who have a positive view of the effects of science on the environment and humans, were more likely to choose courses in the physical sciences. She points out that in Britian, new curiculum goals emphasized:
• a study of those aspects of science that are essential to an understanding of oneself, and of one's personal well-being. The renewed empahsis on "human biology" for the middle school science curriculum an example of putting this goal into practice.• a study of key concepts that are essential to an understanding of the part science and technology play in the a post-industrial and technological society.
• appreciation that technologies are expressions of the desire to understand and control the environment and that technologies change in response to changing social needs. This goal and the previous goal underscore the importance of emphasizing the science-technology-society theme (Chapter 6) in science education.
Content relevance and modeling new options can be directly tied to career awareness. Connecting science courses to careers in science and engineering is an important content dimension of all science courses. Skolnick, Langbort and Day suggest how the content in a science or mathematics course can do this:
"The content of math and science problems can provide a fundamental kind of career education. It can develop new perspectives on work and on the abilities of both sexes. Word problems can inform children about occurpations unfamiliar to them and provide information about the labor market, such as jobs and salaries, women's postion in the work force, and math and science courses they will need for particular careers. Illustrating many kinds of content relevance, creative math and science problems encourage girls' pursuit of nontraditional occupations."
Although there are a number of excellent resources to help plan activities, the teacher in the final analysis is the most important. The day-to-day modeling that the teacher provides will overshadow any "special" program that is provided by the school or science department.
One program that teachers should investigate for ideas about planning activities in their own classroom is SPACES: (Solving Problems of Access to Careers in Engineering and Scieince.
This program was developed at the Lawerence Hall of Science and includes math and science activities for elementary and secondary students designed to stimulate students' thinking about scientific careers, develop problem solving skills, promote positive attitudes toward the study of mathematics, increase interest and knowledge about scientific work, strenghten spatial visualization skills, and introduce language and familiarity with mechanical tools.
The topics developed in the SPACES program include
• Design and construction• Visualization
• Tool activities
• Attitudes and personal goals
• Job requirements and descriptions
• Women in careers