DO MEN AND WOMEN LEARN DIFFERENTLY: WHAT DOES
NEUROSCIENCE TELL US AND WHAT ARE
ITS EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS ?
~Lalit Kishore
Note: The paper which was once the part of a course at Harvard School of Extension is being reproduced on the occasion of National Women's Day, February 13, 2024
The research in neuroscience has shown the subtle differences in the functioning of the brains of men and women. Women's left and right hemispheres of brain get activated when exposed to new concrete experiences in an emotional setting. While in the case of men, it is the left hemisphere that gets activated whether experience is concrete or abstract. This has implications for learning environment and teaching techniques both. The emotionally charged learning environment coupled with cooperative learning and multiple intelligences approach to instruction are seen appropriate for making science and mathematics learning compatible to both girls and boys, a case for this position has been built in the paper.
Introduction
The last decade saw a spurt in research activities related to gender and education. Gender sensitivity and gender equity in education have become the key concern for many well-being educators and neuroscientists. On the basis of past lived experiences of men and women during their evolutionary periods, Pease & Pease (2003) explain the difference between men and women as follows:
"Men and women are different: Not better or worse – different. Just about the only thing they have in common is that they belong to the same species. They live in different worlds, with different values and different set of rules … Women criticize men for being insensitive, uncaring, not listening, not being warm and compassionate, not talking … Men think they are the most sensible sex. … Men and women have evolved differently because they had to. Men hunted, women gathered. Men protected, women nurtured. As a result, their bodies and brains evolved completely different ways … Over millions of years, the brain structures of men and women thus continued to change in different ways. Now, we know the sexes process information differently. They think differently. They believe different things. They have different perceptions, priorities and behaviours … Men and women should be equal in terms of their opportunities to exercise their full potential, but they are not identical in their innate abilities. Whether men and women are equal is a political or moral question, but whether they are identical is a scientific one."
Due to these differences high-lighted by Pease & Pease, the following conclusions are made:
1. Women have wider peripheral vision while men have tunnel vision;
2. Women have a better ability to predict outcomes of relationships;
3. Women are more touchy and feely;
4. Women have higher perceptiveness to concrete experiences, verbal, vocal and body language aspects.
Left, Right and Centre of Human Brain
In the last three decade, a lot of progress has been made in neuroscience-based understanding of human brain. With the new and sensitive brain scanning equipment and devices, neuroscientists have found which part and region and the brain handles which task. The functions of the two hemispheres of the brain are summarized in the following table.
Gorski (1987) has found that a woman's brain has a thicker corpus callosum as compared to that of man. The research shows that women have 30 % more connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Further the research also indicates that the female hormone estrogens promotes nerve cells to grow more connections within the brain and between its hemispheres. This implies that women have the following advantages: Ability for multi-track activities;
Intuition;
Larger range of sensory perceptions;
Faster transfer of information between two hemispheres of the brain;
Speech fluency.
Currently, the brain-scanning instrument can show the activities of the brain on a television or computer screen using the techniques of Positron Emission Topography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Using these techniques,
Shaywit & Bennett (1995) have found that there are different centres in the brain for seeing, hearing, generating and speaking words. And, men use mainly their left brain for these language tasks while women use both left and right. Thus, the brains of men and women operate differently.
Implications for Teaching – Learning Process
The emotionally charged and non-competitive learning environment along with use of cooperative learning (Slavin, 1980) and multiple–intelligences (Gardner, 1999) techniques of learning can be helpful for teaching subjects like mathematics and science so that both the brains get connected to appeal to women for learning these subjects well. It has been rightly said that what is good for women is also good in fore men but reverse may not be equally true. To project science and mathematics as abstract subjects and emphasize teaching techniques with linear logical thinking or left brain activities may be good for men but not for women.
References
1. Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century, New York: Basic Books.
2. Gorski, R. A. (1987). In Reinsch, J. M. et al (eds), Masculinity and femininity, Oxford University Press.
3. Pease, B. & Pease, A. (2003). Why men don't listen and women can't read maps, New Delhi: India Book House.
4. Shaywitz, S. and Bennett (1995). How is the brain formed ? Nature, 373.
5. Slavin, R. E. (1980). Cooperative learning. Review of Educational Research, 50 (2), 315.
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