Education Week: Teaching Girls to Tinker.
Yet, even as girls open new gender gaps by outpacing their male peers in most subjects, men still receive roughly 77 percent of the bachelor’s degrees awarded in engineering and 85 percent of those in computer science. Why aren’t girls choosing to enter these critical fields of the future?
There are several familiar explanations: Girls lack sufficient female role models in computer science and engineering; girls prefer sciences that are clearly connected to helping others; girls are turned off by the “isolated geek” stereotype that dominates their view of computer science and engineering.
Here’s another explanation: Girls don’t tinker.
Be sure to read the rest of the article…Teaching Girls to Tinker
My Tinkering Towards Technology Fluency session at Educon 2.2 went very well. I’m waiting to hear if the recording glitches were solved or if it’s lost to eternity! (Don’t bother clicking on the Elluminate link on the session page, it just says the session is over.) I have heard, though, that they are working on putting up the links.
It was a great conversation. So many people participated and shared some really great ideas and stories. I will post some resources from the conversation soon.
Sylvia
Gracious this came to me through Tina from you, Sylvia. Small world. This is an important report. My husband is a master handyman and he puts it down to tinkering alongside his dad as a youth. I don’t think boys tinker much any more either. Tinkering is a natural extension of creative play, the kind of play that helps develop children’s “executive functions”. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=76838288
Hi Jane,
Yes, I agree, that many children don’t have any experience with tinkering and playing as they used to. Maybe even more reason for schools to pursue tinkering and play as strategies to enhance learning.