podcast take 2 (1)

The speaker discusses their inquiry question: Do boys learn differently than girls through play? They share their personal experience working with a little girl named Olivia and a boy named Theo. Olivia was good at understanding verbal instructions but resistant to reading, while Theo was less engaged in activities but strong in reading. The speaker found that boys tend to learn better with movement and pictures, while girls benefit from talking with peers and have larger verbal memory. Girls sit longer, have larger vocabularies, but may need help with physical activities. Overall, the speaker concludes that boys and girls do learn differently. Hello, and welcome to my podcast. Today I'll be discussing an inquiry question. Do boys learn differently than girls do play? That is the question, and truthfully, I don't have an exact answer. Yes, children are different. This is proven through science and research that every child is a different person. They learn differently, they adapt differently, they come from different homes with different traditions. I chose this topic because of the difference that I know between a little boy and a little girl that I teach. This relates back to the topic that I chose, since I take interest in the difference of learning between the genders of children. And as someone who grew up with two younger siblings, one sister and one brother, and who currently teaches younger children, this inquiry is particularly interesting to me. The research of learning differences is something that I notice in my everyday life, within younger and older ages, in areas such as social, emotional, and mental differences between the two. Throughout the course of Child Development 12, I've had the opportunity to work with the sweetest little girl named Olivia. Doing the work with Olivia was quite easy the majority of the time, not always, unfortunately. For example, on the first day that I met Olivia, she basically did not speak. She didn't want to talk to me, nor my partner, she was very closed off, didn't want to answer any questions, and I couldn't figure out if that was because she was too nervous to answer them, or she truly didn't have a response for the questions. I did my best to try to encourage her to answer them, just so I would have just an ounce of information to go off of, and try to relate back to her, since this is a method that I often use when I'm working with my younger ones, to be able to get to know them, and allow them to feel that they're in a safe space. Obviously, when I first met Olivia, she was not very verbal. She was very disengaged with the activity, and overall really shy, which led me to my next question. What was I going to do if she chose not to open up to me? The best I could do was encourage her to try to open up to me, make it a safe, encouraging community, but I could not force her to talk to me. And so, there was a little bit of worry about what I would do if she chose not to talk. I was fortunate enough that I didn't have to find a solution to this problem, because she did a total 180 at our next visit. Not only was she a lot more verbal and extroverted, but she had also taken the time thinking about me to make me a picture and gave it to me. This was so meaningful, and I was so happy that she had decided that I was a safe person to be able to talk around, and be around, and fully be able to act like herself around me. Because of this, I was finally able to go to my inquiry question and be able to research among her behavior, which is, what is the difference between Olivia and her male classmates? This is a tricky question, because my buddy and I are both the same gender. Overall, I began to take little mental notes as to Olivia's behavior, what she could do, what she couldn't do, and what she chose not to do. For example, Olivia was very good at being able to understand verbal instructions and adapt to how I explained activities, which can be a little bit unorganized at times. But she was very resistant to reading. Obviously, the best thing, and really the only thing that I could do was encourage her to read, asking her comprehension questions to make sure she was actually paying attention to me reading, because it is quite hard to keep an attention span at that age, and giving her the option to read, making sure that she knows that she can read as she would like to. But she always rejected that idea. She was not interested in reading. I suppose I assume that the majority of kids were like this at her age, seeing as I was not any better than Olivia, and actually dreaded reading when I was her age. With this mindset, I was completely sure that this was just something that they all did at their age. That was until I met Theo. Theo was a boy in Olivia's class, which I had not had the chance to work with before. At one of our visits, Theo was missing his buddy. Therefore, I had the opportunity to work with him and gladly took it. Because of this opportunity, I was able to fully analyze and visually see the difference between Theo and Olivia and their behaviors. Although Theo was less engaged in the activity and not as strong as understanding verbal tasks, he was very strong in reading. Whether that be because he had more practice, or if he was actually a year older and 6 compared to Olivia who was 5, I was not sure why there was such a big difference between the two, but it was exciting. If Theo was given the opportunity to read without the distraction of his classmates, he was a very strong reader compared to what I had overheard from the other kids in our class, or in my case, what I hadn't heard from Olivia. This begs the question, do girls really learn differently than boys through play? And in short terms, absolutely. From the initial research, which I did before getting to know my actual buddy, several sources, if not all, supported the question, such as it's found that boys' brains learn differently than girls. They use a part of their brain which is mainly used for the development of spatial and mechanical functioning, meaning that boys tend to learn better with movement and pictures rather than just words, which tends to teach girls more efficiently. This particular piece not only related back to my buddy, but also the time that I got to work with Theo. In this context, Olivia has shown several signs which confirmed the theory, such as her ability to understand instructions and her attention to detail, whereas Theo needed me to physically show him the instructions in order for him to understand what to do. Furthermore, I was able to find studies and research done on this topic. Boys tend to learn better when they have pictures, graphics, and physical movement to connect their understandings with their content. Girls often receive help from having the opportunity to talk with their peers about how to solve a problem and work with them to find the solution. Recent studies show that boys tend to be more focused on one particular task. In other words, they'll focus better if you're given one task at a time. On the other hand, girls generally can multitask better, unlike boys. An example of this could be the difference between a child's reaction to being given a variety of toys. Lastly, girls learn better through studying, reading, and writing, as their verbal memory is larger than boys. This is due to their hippocampus being larger and developing faster than boys. Girls are able to sit for longer periods of time and focus. Typically, girls have a larger vocabulary than boys do from a young age. This assists girls in schools as they develop and can pick up things faster than boys. Girls, however, can require more help with getting involved in physical education and activities. All these studies relate back to my buddy, Olivia, and how often she learns what would be known as the typical way which girls learn. With Theo, he is stronger in reading, which wasn't found in the study. However, he does still show several behaviors which are typically known for how boys learn at that age. Overall, I feel that this opportunity to work with younger children has allowed me to fully understand this inquiry question and be able to somewhat understand the difference between the two. This does help me later on long-term, short-term, both as I continue to work with younger children and among my siblings. This is my first time ever doing a podcast, so I hope that you enjoyed it. I would just like to note that all my notes, sources, citing, and information can be found in a Word document. I will have that linked to the Teams assignment if you are interested in looking through it, seeing the proper resources, etc. Thank you!