Astronomy
- Aaswomen Newsletter For July 25, 2014
AAS Committee on the Status of Women AAS Committee on the Status of Women Issue of July 25, 2014 eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, & Elysse Voyer This week's issues: 1. Why So Few? Spatial Skills2. Survive Academia with this...
- Why So Few? Growth Mindset
The 2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), finds that girls? interests in math and science are shaped by social and environmental...
- Give Her A Dolly That Laughs And Cries
The holiday gift season is winding down now, which is a big relief to me. I even managed to avoid stepping foot into Toys R Us this year. Why do I despise Toys R Us so much? Because when you walk in, the store is neatly divided into the PINK half, and...
- What Can I Do? Give A Talk On A Women-in-science Topic
Many graduate students and postdocs would like to do something to promote women in astronomy and help create a female-friendly workplace, but their time for such activities is limited. This is the second in a series of monthly posts with suggestions...
- Aaswomen For September 17, 2010
This week's issues: 1. Invitation 2. 3-D Spatial Visualization: Why a Gender Gap?3. Strategies for Addressing Harassment and Prejudice4. Mentoring Vital To Nurturing Future Female Scientists5. Conference for Undergraduate Women6. Building a Better...
Astronomy
Why So Few? Spatial Skills
The 2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), investigates the area of spatial skills learning. One of the largest and most persistent gender gaps in cognitive skills is found in the area of spatial skills, where boys and men consistently outperform girls and women on average. Spatial skills are thought to be critically important for success in fields such as engineering, and many people believe that they are innate and, therefore, some believe that the gender difference in spatial skills explains why there are so few women in engineering, for example.
Research highlighted in the report, however, shows that spatial skills are not fixed and can improve dramatically in a short time with training. This picture shows a sample question on mental rotation, one example of spatial skills. Do you know the right answer? It is D.
Research conducted by Dr. Sheryl Sorby with first-year engineering students at Michigan Tech, shows that individuals? spatial skills can improve dramatically in a short time with a simple training course. Dr. Sorby found that when college students who failed a spatial visualization test took a 10-week training course that met just 4 hours a week, their scores improved from an average of 52% before the course to 82% after taking the course. This is a much bigger improvement than would be expected from just taking the test a second time with no training and bigger than the improvement seen for students who took the test after taking a course in engineering graphics, for example.
Having good spatial skills can help to retain women in engineering and encourage girls to pursue their interest in science and math because we use spatial skills to interpret diagrams and drawings in math and science textbooks from as early as elementary school.
So what can be done to help children, especially girls, develop their spatial skills, which can increase their interest in studying math and science subjects? All kids should play with building toys?such as Legos or blocks?where they take things apart and put them together again. Drawing can help children develop spatial skills.
[Here are two building toy favorites that were not around when I was a kid: (1) Goldie Blox, engineering toys for girls; and (2) Magformers. My take on this: it does not matter if boys build forts for soldiers and girls build castles for princesses. The important thing is that they build! ? JTS]
Note: much of this text is from the AAUW ppt describing highlights of the Why So Few? report.
- Aaswomen Newsletter For July 25, 2014
AAS Committee on the Status of Women AAS Committee on the Status of Women Issue of July 25, 2014 eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, & Elysse Voyer This week's issues: 1. Why So Few? Spatial Skills2. Survive Academia with this...
- Why So Few? Growth Mindset
The 2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), finds that girls? interests in math and science are shaped by social and environmental...
- Give Her A Dolly That Laughs And Cries
The holiday gift season is winding down now, which is a big relief to me. I even managed to avoid stepping foot into Toys R Us this year. Why do I despise Toys R Us so much? Because when you walk in, the store is neatly divided into the PINK half, and...
- What Can I Do? Give A Talk On A Women-in-science Topic
Many graduate students and postdocs would like to do something to promote women in astronomy and help create a female-friendly workplace, but their time for such activities is limited. This is the second in a series of monthly posts with suggestions...
- Aaswomen For September 17, 2010
This week's issues: 1. Invitation 2. 3-D Spatial Visualization: Why a Gender Gap?3. Strategies for Addressing Harassment and Prejudice4. Mentoring Vital To Nurturing Future Female Scientists5. Conference for Undergraduate Women6. Building a Better...