Using Local and National statisitical data in my teaching
I have been looking at how pupils at GCSE perform in ICT over this year. I have noticed that there is a trend that boys tend to under perform in the course work related subjects of which one is the GCSE OCR national’s option.
According to the article from the bbc below it indicates how boys are under achieving. I also have had a look at the results from my home school http://bit.ly/mPy6DD
Gender gap
Boys continue to lag behind girls in most subjects, a trend of more than two decades.
The gender gap was at its widest in the early 2000s for A*-Cs, and in the middle of the decade for A*-As.
Explanations for the gap vary, although it is widely thought that girls perform better than boys in continued assessment and coursework. Other reasons given for the gap in GCSE performance are maturity and motivation.
However, a higher percentage of boys get A and A* grades in economics and additional maths than of girls. Boys also pulled ahead of girls at these top grades in maths last year, and in physics at A grade – and managed to maintain the edge in both in 2010.
The main solution to tackle boys under achieving is to chunk and segment coursework into manageable tasks that can be achieved each lesson one by one. We have been creating out OCR nationals work with small slides that each pupil can complete each lesson and I have been implementing this in my year 9 teaching of databases.
I have personally seen how this really works well for in class activities however it is tough when pupils don’t completed all the work that they need to do in lesson as this as ramifications later on in term as areas can depend on other areas.
Please see my POT 3 TEACHING for YEar 9