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Hi, this is a conversation about a case study of three girls. We are Action Research Lab Team #1.

I’m Robin Rogus [Gapinski] and I teach math, and I’m Stephanie Solis and I teach English, and I’m Christine Hill and I teach science.

We want to discuss and talk about now is the re-formation of our Action Research Lab Team #1. Christine and myself have been on Action Research Lab team for five years, predominately focusing on project based learning.

We reconfigured our team with a new member and so Stephanie joined our team.

Robin: Stephanie, what were you interested in getting out of joining an Action Research Lab team this year? What were you interested in doing?

Stephanie: Well, when I first interviewed with Highland Park High School, I knew that action research was something that was alive and well here in the building and it was one of the things that actually interested me in pursuing a teaching career here. So, after my first year of teaching and not particularly being satisfied with my Learning Team, I decided that I would be interested in joining an Action Research Lab Team. With Bryan Ott leaving and no one else in the building really interested in joining a team Joe Senese suggested that maybe I’d be the third person on ARL Team #1and that one of things that the three of us had in common is that we were indeed interested in how girls learn differently than boys.

Robin: At the beginning of the year, we all thought that we wanted to look at gender issues within our classrooms and so that we looked at possible ways that we could survey girls and boys in our classes and look at their different learning styles.

I think we wanted to know why girls responded in a certain way in one class in one subject area and responded quite differently in another subject area. I think we were focusing more on how do girls learn and can we increase their learning in subjects that predominantly girls don’t continue in – math and science: So, we were wondering if there was anything that we may learn by studying girls and boys to see if we could increase student learning through addressing a certain learning style.

So, we devised an initial survey and we decided that we would all three administer the survey among our students. You will find the attached survey at the end of this transcript along with a graph of the results.

We spent a considerable amount of time just addressing just what is it that we wanted of students. Since all three of us teach sophomore students, we decided that we would conduct our survey with whatever classes we had with sophomores.

So, I’m Robin and I teach geometry – so I did these surveys with my sophomores in those classes. I have three classes of geometry.

I’m Stephanie and I conducted my surveys among my sophomore English classes.

And, I’m Christine and I teach science and I have three sections of biology.

Robin: We conducted our surveys in our particular classes and then we kind of did a tally/comparison between the boys and girls based off of each question that you will see on the survey. This is what we concluded after we graphed using a bar graph, the comparisons and what we kind of concluded from the research – the qualitative research that we gathered from our classrooms.

Christine: We noticed that – we thought there was a pattern between the amount of time the students spent studying and how they perceived themselves in the subject. By that we mean it seemed as though they were studying more for a subject they perceived themselves as being weaker. For example, girls said overwhelmingly that they were studying more in science, but, they also thought they were weaker in science. We also saw that in math; Math seemed to be the favorite subject and boys were studying less in math and girls were studying more.

Robin: But, we found a direct correlation between the amount of time spent preparing for the class and their interest level in the class. Meaning that the less time they had to spend on something, the more they seemed to enjoy it and like it.

Christine: One other neat thing that came out of our survey was seating preferences in the classes and that girls overwhelmingly preferred to sit at the front or the middle of the classroom, whereas boys either didn’t have a preference or they like to sit more towards the back. So, that was a neat interest that came out of conducting this survey.

Robin: As a result of conducting the survey I think we were kind of in limbo in terms in what direction we wanted to take with all this information and what we could do in our classroom as a result. And, it came about from a discussion on one of our Action Research Lab meeting days that we shared three girls in common between our classes that we teach. So, we decided with Joe’s encouragement to go in depth on examining the girls and their behavior, and their attitude, and how they learn and engaged in these three classes throughout the remainder of the school year. So, we spent time observing students, conducting another survey with them and interviewing them. As a result, this conversation will detail the work and the research that we did in regard to the specific case study on these three girls.

Christine: In my biology class, all three girls are in period three. There are 17 students in the class, 14 of those students are girls and three are boys and the three girls that we have been studying sit either in the front or in the middle of the class. Two of the boys sit in the back.

Robin: I have geometry; I have Mary in 5^th period geometry, she is in a class that is predominately dominated by girls. Out of a class of 24 there are eight boys. Her seat changes every chapter, every month – pretty much, so, she is all over the classroom in terms of location. In 9^th period I have Greta and Jessica – I have the exact opposite situation. Jessica is a ___. Greta and Jessica don’t sit by each other. They rarely interact with one another. Greta prefers to sit at the front, Jessica generally prefers to sit more toward the back, and that’s the class of 26 and once again, I do have eight girls in that class and the other 18 are boys.

Stephanie: I have Jessica, Greta, and Mary in my 1^st period sophomore English class and the class has 24 students, with nine boys and 15 girls. The seating chart changes every quarter and so the girls have been distributed in all different places throughout the room over the course of the year.

Stephanie: What we decided to do next was to visit each other’s classes and just observed the girls in different settings. We came up with an observation form that the three of us would use and then we planned to meet and talk about what we saw. We’re going to take one girl at a time and discuss what we saw in all three classes.

The first student that we are going to go ahead and talk about is Greta. We are going to first talk about Greta in Christine’s biology class. One of the things that I noticed was that she appeared to be tired and a bit uninterested. I came to this conclusion due to her body language. She seemed to be kind of slumped over in her chair, she was yawning a lot; her face also demonstrated a little understanding that this was a class that was somewhat difficult for her. She doodled a lot and stopped watching the film from time to time. She played with her hair, she played with her pen, she started to pack up before the bell rang. She actually turned to her peers to ask a lot of questions, so she wasn’t necessarily asking Christine so many questions, but when she didn’t understand something she would turn to a peer. However, she became much more interested when Christine brought the skulls out. It seemed to be when something was hands-on Greta became more interested, and she did ask a couple of questions of Christine at that time.

Robin: When I observed Greta in science class, I noticed that the day that I observed they were reviewing for a quiz they were going to be taking. Greta rarely if ever looked up and made eye contact with Christine. She really was kind of not engaged. She was looking down in her lap. She was playing with her nails and a pen. At one time she had turned around and asked a girl a question to try to get an answer for her worksheet. But, other than that she was really kind of occupying her attention on something else. I also did notice as Stephanie remarked with her body posture. She was pretty much hunched over the whole time. Just playing with her nails and her pen prior when they took the quiz then she took the quiz.

Christine: When I observed Greta, I saw her in both Robin and Stephanie’s classes. I saw a big difference between Greta and how she was in Robin’s class versus how she was in Stephanie’s. In Robin’s class, they were doing a group work sort of thing and Greta relied on her partner who happened to be Jessica for many of the answers. She paid attention, she took notes, she was slumped over a little bit, but, she didn’t seem as though she was as focused maybe as she might have been or compared to other students in the class. In Stephanie’s class I noticed that Greta participated more. She sat forward in her seat. She did a presentation and she was very interested and active in that presentation. She seemed very engaged in the activity that was going on. It seemed by her body language that she likes English and she thrives in that environment.

Robin: I agree. I observed Greta in Stephanie’s English class as well. She often was looking at the teacher. She made lots of eye contact. She seldom took notes. It was as though she felt very confident. Her body posture was erect. She was sitting back in her chair. She seldom ever needed to ask questions. She just sat back and did a lot of listening and observing of her classmates. She followed along as an essay or a paper was explained to the class.

With her pen she just pointed throughout the explanation to the requirement and what was to be expected in this assignment. She listened. She just spent a lot of time listening. She read through the form by herself. She showed a lot initiative and did raise her hand at one time to get Stephanie’s attention regarding a question that she had. But, she did not engage specifically in conversation with her peers. She pretty much kept to herself in that English class.

Christine: I also noticed that she seemed very serious about the presentation that she was getting. She just seemed very interested in everything that she was doing in that class and that was something that I had not observed in my own class – in biology.

Robin: Let’s talk about Jessica now.

Stephanie: I observed Jessica in Christine’s biology class and Jessica seemed very engaged in the film that was being shown. She made noises – "Ahhhh" noises to show that she demonstrated understanding. She was eating her lunch at the same time and completely, again, seemed engaged in the film. She didn’t miss a beat. She really didn’t take any notes, but, it appeared to me it was because she didn’t need to take the notes. I didn’t know that she wasn’t taking the notes because she was eating, or because she didn’t need to take her notes, but, she definitely was very, very engaged. She took notes when the teacher made a point that this was something important. She would go ahead and take her notebook out and go ahead and take notes and she would continue to add to them throughout the period.

Once the film was over and Christine began a question and answer type of session – she asked seven questions of Christine during the class, without raising her hand, again showing that she is kind of a go-getter in that class. that’s the word that I would use to describe her. Again, her question demonstrated a solid interest in the film. She also laughed at jokes made by the peers that had something to do with the class, but, all in all, Jessica seemed to be very interested in biology.

Robin: I observed Jessica only in English in Stephanie’s class, and I have to tell you I saw a considerable contrast to what you described in science. She appeared and looked overwhelmed. When this assignment/essay was being explained to the class, she mostly either stared at Stephanie while she explained it or she was frantically trying to take notes in the margins as the essay was being explained and described to the class.

During the time when they were asked to come up with the research of the background regarding that question and how they were going to approach it with specific quotes, she was turning to the girl next to her trying to ask a question about, "What format are you going to do?" The girl next to her kind of knew what she was doing and Jessica was still very lost. She was trying to find out how she could get an edge – looking for that level of confidence that maybe she had in science, but was lacking in English. She didn’t really raise her hand only until the very end when Stephanie was going around and specifically answering individual questions that the kids had. She wanted to know Stephanie’s e-mail address. She was playing with her nails, though she was listening and waiting to get a response from Mrs. Solis. And then she pretty much at one point, before she started writing she had a hard time focusing on what her topic or what format she was going to use and she was asking students around her what they were going to do for spring break. And then towards the end of the class when everybody else was engaged and really beginning to initiate their paper, then she slowly began to start writing by herself.

Christine: I also observed Jessica in both Stephanie’s and Robin’s classes and Jessica in Stephanie’s class was studying in a forward position, kind of almost sitting off the front of the chair. She was kind of straddling the chair and she was, like Robin said, she was frantically taking notes. She seemed very interested, but at the same time just did not act like she knew what was going on. So, she was taking notes every time Stephanie would say something, she would write that down. There was a point in the lesson where

Stephanie assigned a chapter for the next day and a couple of kids said, "Oh that’s a lot." And Jessica said, "Oh that’s no big deal." She didn’t think that was a lot so maybe she’s not reading for depth or something. Everything that Robin said I noticed as well as far as she blurted out answers four times. She did not raise her hand. She was playing with her fingers a little bit and that’s basically it.

Then in Robin’s class, they were going over a worksheet in the class and Jessica again, every time she had an answer would say the answer. She seemed very interested. She gave answers to other peers as they were working. They were trying to figure out a something with tangents and arches and angles. She was very good at getting the answers and then sharing with the people that she was working with. Her posture in that class was the same. She was sitting forward, kind of on the edge of her chair. She was taking fewer notes than she did in Stephanie’s class. She does not raise her hand, she just blurts out the answers when she thinks of them.

Robin: Let’s talk about Mary. O.K.

Stephanie: I observed Mary in both Christine’s and Robin’s class. Mary seemed very similar in Christine’s class as she does in mine. She seemed to wander during the film, not really be paying much attention to the film. She did some doodling. She even stopped watching the film from time to time. She seemed to be much more interested in her food and playing with her pencil and her hair. She only took notes when the teacher would actually make a point. And, she seemed to be very interested in her peers. There were a couple of boys in the corner that were making noises and laughing and telling some jokes and she seemed to be much more interested in them than what was going on in the class. Again, she turned to her peers a couple of times to ask some questions, and she only really asked one question. Just kind of blurted out a question during class. But, overall she seemed to be somewhat blasé about the class.

Robin: I observed Mary in both English and science. I noticed a striking difference between her behavior. In English and science. English she seemed more comfortable in the classroom. Although she didn’t initiate her inquiry or her level of learning in the class, she was hesitant. She had ideas, but she lacked the confidence to go about saying, "This is what I want to do."

The majority of the class period when they were waiting to speak with the teacher one on one, she had her hand raised; She was talking to the people around her, asking them what they were doing, and she kept her hand raised – looking for that approval – looking for further clarification – wanting to make an appointment with the teacher. But, throughout the whole class period, she played with her hair. She rested her head on her chin with her elbow. She played with her hair. She probably put her hair into three different ponytails during that class period.

Even at one time she asked the girl next to her about a zit on her cheek. She was looking through a book of quotes, but she was lacking the confidence to really take the initiative and the ownership of her learning in this class. In science she almost appeared as a deer caught in headlights. She almost had a level of, I don’t know how to say it, just more timid, wanting to do well, and asking questions. She took lots of notes, even though she wasn’t sure how to organize her thoughts on her notes. She took lots and lots of notes at random.

There was a boy behind her that was giving her a hard time and seemed to really be intimidating her and I kept observing her during this period – I questioned if maybe he was somewhat threatening her level of comfort in this class to really learn and to feel confident with the pacing at which she learned. She appeared to have a good rapport with both of her teachers and appeared to feel quite comfortable in asking questions in both of those classes. She made lots of eye contact. However, I did notice that she did react in a different way in the science class than she did in her English class.

Christine: Some of the things that Robin said, I also observed. She changed her ponytail at least maybe three times, maybe four. She doodled a lot. She did a lot of doodling on the side of the paper. She asked three questions and she seemed interested, she seemed engaged. But, she looked at her peers a lot. She was looking around the room as well as looking at the teacher, but she would really watch what was going on with her peers and her focus seemed to be switching kind of constantly. Robin had mentioned something about her in the biology class and this is interesting, I just found this out this morning. The boy that was sitting behind her is now an ex-boyfriend. That may have been something to have to do with this. I don’t know if that impacted – it probably did impact things for her. But, she did – she played with her hair a lot. She seemed interested, but just not really aggressively focused on English. Greta looked a lot different than Mary.

Stephanie: However, the big difference was with Mary in geometry. I saw a different completely Mary in the math class. Mary seemed to be confident. In fact, during partner work, she seemed to definitely be the stronger of the two. Almost seemed to be carrying the other one. Answering all of the questions for this other student. She took notes during the student explanation, she checked her homework, she followed along. If she didn’t have eyesight of the overhead she would completely crank her head around to be able to see it.

She followed along with the quiz, she watched the board, she nodded that she understood, although she did play with her hair every once in a while. That was definitely not the focus. Math definitely seemed to be her focus. I saw her raise her hand to answer questions, to ask a question. The teacher called on her a couple of times. Mary definitely seemed to be in her comfort zone and in her strength area when she was in geometry. I definitely noticed a different Mary in math than I did in either science or in my own English class.

Robin: Basically, I noticed that Jessica said that she doesn’t need to take notes when she understands. However, when she doesn’t understand, she takes frantic notes in hopes of trying to understand. With Greta, I felt a big difference between her classes was her body posture. In English she just sat back very confident. She wasn’t taking many notes. In science and math, I didn’t really see much note taking either, but she was hunched over and she really wasn’t sitting back looking confident in terms of her behavior.

Christine: We said that Mary seems to be very affected by the other people in the class and her other peers. She tends to be very aware of what goes on with them and she seems to be having some sort of interaction, either positive or negative with those students in the class.

Any observations you made Stephanie?

Stephanie: Well, one of the things that I also did was I went and took at look at both Mary and Greta in a Spanish class and I saw a very similar Mary and Greta in that situation. Mary seemed to be very preoccupied with her peers in that class. She talked to others during class, she laughed when people didn’t know the answers, almost making fun of them. When the Spanish teacher asked her a question she was caught off guard because she wasn’t paying attention. She was very preoccupied with her peers and in addition she constantly played with her hair. As far as Greta was concerned, Greta seemed to have the body language in Spanish that she did in English. She seemed to be much more interested and engaged in that class. She kept her chin on her hands. She sat with her body forward. The teacher actually called on her a lot, whether Greta had her hand raised or not, which demonstrated to me that Greta was definitely one of the better students in the class, because Cathy the Spanish teacher, seemed to rely on Greta somewhat and she definitely seemed to be interested in that class. So, I would agree with Christine and Robin’s analysis of the three girls overall.

For our final portion of the research we decided to take each girl aside to interview them individually. So we developed an exit interview and actually this morning we spent some time with each girl asking them the following question. We will state the question and then discuss their answers.

Stephanie: I am going to first talk about Jessica. I asked Jessica what her favorite subject was and why. They were allowed to chose any subject they wanted, not just math, science, or English. And Jessica replied that acting was actually her favorite subject because she just absolutely loves it, she finds it to be fun, and also laid back. However, she did want me to include that as far as academics is concerned, math was definitely her favorite subject. Which is interesting because as we observed in all of the classes, Jessica was a different Jessica when she was in math class.

That definitely seemed to be her comfort zone. She explained that math was her favorite subject because it comes to her easily and quickly and always has. Which I guess that it is no surprise that when I asked the question what was your strongest subject and why, it was, of course, math. And again, because she has always been good at math. She’s good with numbers and she’s good with shapes. I then asked her about her weakest subject and why it was her weakest subject and she actually explained that it was English. That was because of the writing component, which I find interesting. When Robin came to observe my class on the day that I was introducing a major paper, she was indeed frantic with trying to get down all of the notes and showed an obvious confusion with the assignment because this is one of her weak areas.

She said she loves to read; She feels that she likes all the books that we read. She understands what she reads, but because of writing, English is definitely her weakest subject. She has problems with transitions, vocabulary, (and interesting enough, like math which has always been her favorite – she has always been good at math) she described herself as being always a weak writer. This is something she has struggled with for years. I asked her on the average how much time she prepares or spends on her homework. She said the most that she does in any given night would be an hour. Unless, of course there is some major project going on. She doesn’t really do any homework during the day, except maybe possibly visiting the Math Lab or a science lab. She doesn’t actually like to do her homework during the day.

When I asked her about how she spent or divided her time on a typical school night, she actually claimed that I would be disappointed in her because she loves TV. She loves to watch a lot of TV. If she works, she goes to work first, she comes home, she eats dinner, she does her homework, and then of course watches TV, then will possibly go on the computer. If she doesn’t work, she begins the afternoon with a snack and TV, a little bit of homework, some dinner, some more homework, and then a lot more TV. When I asked her if her peers affected her, influence her attitudes and actions, she said that she felt that her peers had no real effect on anything, but, if anything it would be helpful. She did say that in English, because she is a weak writer, she enjoys getting suggestions from her peers regarding her writing and she takes their suggestions seriously.

I asked her if her teachers in her classes affect her, influence her attitude or actions in that subject, and she actually said that she felt that all of her teachers influenced her very positively. She is not afraid of any of her teachers. She said she feels very lucky because she feels that all of her teachers are very helpful and very nice. She said that none of them are easy, but that she has all very good teachers this year and she like that. I asked her how she felt attendance directly affected her performance in school. She said she felt it was very important, although she kind of laughed and said, "You know I like to stay home once in a while. It’s kind of fun to be home." She also said that when she is not in school it feels like she missed a week, because it feels like she misses that much. And, when I asked her...

I think probably one of the most interesting things that came from Jessica and for me probably, now that I’m thinking about it, was probably one of the most important things that I gained from this Action Research. When I asked her if she thought that her grades reflected her ability, effort, and performance, she said, "Well, sort of." She said that they definitely reflect her ability. She said, "You know, when I get a C in something, I know it’s because I did C work and that’s an accurate reflection. But, she said, "I really do put a lot of effort into my grades," and she felt she had a really good attitude. She said, "You know, I feel that teachers are lucky to have me in their class because I always participate, I’m always anxious to ask questions or to see what’s going on." Then she said something interesting and she said that she really likes learning and she feels like she learned a lot even though her grades might not reflect that, and so that the letter grades themselves do not accurately reflect how much she’s learned. And she said she feels that way probably most because her parents don’t put pressure on her to get good grades. This was the part of the study that I think was really interesting. She said that because her parents don’t pressure her, she can really focus on learning and not the letter grade and she realizes that letter grades don’t tell the whole picture.

Robin: I did my interview with Greta and I asked the same questions and I got considerably different responses. Her favorite subject is as we described earlier based on her behavior, on body posture was evidently English. She has a full load with Child Development, and Acting, and Spanish; she still loves English. She loves to write. She has always loved to write. She loves the whole set-up and the style in which the class is taught. There is a lot more discussion, so she is able to understand. She feels that classes where it’s harder to have a discussion in class, she doesn't get as involved. She likes discussions specifically because everyone’s input is able to be made in the discussion. She can hear multiple viewpoints, multiple perspectives, and she really benefits and thrives on that.

She participates most in English. If she doesn’t understand, she won’t participate. She really benefits and likes the Socratic seminars. She’ll often volunteer to be a leader. Specifically because she really loves this class. Therefore, you can see the strong reason as to why this is also her strongest subject, English. The reason why is just that she simply enjoys it. She loves the whole style of English, in all dimensions of it, from the reading to the writing to the way the class is structured.

Her weakest subject is math. She considers math to be her weakest subject because of the challenge she feels in trying to understand and think critically of the various scenarios in which you take a problem or a theory or a concept and you have to apply to different figures for different situations. She has tremendous difficulty in synthesizing to a higher level of her understanding of a math concept other than seeing the same problem with different numbers. She feels bad if she has to take that whole concept and apply it to a completely different situation. She falls apart. She can’t do that. She struggles with the whole problem solving aspect of math.

In science she feels she’s average. She’ll take it or leave it – science. She feels that overall this year she’s done considerably better, which is quite interesting in regard to seeing her behavior and how she engaged in the class. But, it’s not her favorite, not her worst. She really has no particular feeling on science. So, I found that kind of interesting in regards to what we have observed. On average, she said she does spend a lot of time on homework. But, on average it’s two hours a night. Generally, she’s involved in sports after school. She does track until about 5pm. Then, she eats and showers and then she begins her homework around 7:30 and usually finishes around 10:30. She tries to take a couple of breaks, whether she’ll make a phone call, talk to a friend, or something like that. But, generally, she will go to bed around 11:00 – 11:15 at night. And, so said she does have difficulty in getting up and going to school in the morning, so she feels that she’s really tight on time and what she can devote to studying and preparing for her classes.

She also said, like Stephanie remarked in regards to Jessica, she really doesn’t feel any influence from her peers in regards to her attitude or her actions in a particular subject. The only that that she remarked that she did feel a certain level of influence or intimidation was by the freshmen in the math class. She found that a little – she kind of felt not as smart because they’re freshmen taking the same subject who are doing really, really well and she was struggling considerably in math. So, she said that was the reason she was reluctant to participant and ask a lots of questions when she didn’t understand.

She said that teachers definitely did influence her attitude and her actions in a subject. She said that if she didn’t understand something and she didn’t feel the teacher didn’t engage her as much in the class, then she wasn’t as motivated. However, she said that with English, because she loved the class so much, that regardless of the teacher, she probably would have still done well, but she wouldn’t have been as motivated to participate in kind of a leadership role, whether it was a Socratic seminar or to have offered her opinions in discussions. She would have sat back considerably more. About her missing attendance, she strongly, strongly said that she feels overwhelmed when she misses class. She will try to do everything she can to be in class, because she feels that there’s always some info that she misses when she’s not in class that she can’t get from someone else’s notes or reading the book – that she can only get if she’s in class. So, if she misses class, she feels really, really behind.

About her grades – she feels that her grades do reflect her ability, effort and her performance. She feels she puts in a considerable amount of effort. Specifically, more during 2^nd and 4^th quarter, because she’s the most motivated then, because finals are coming. She knows that she’s nearing the end where she’s got to put it all together to get her final grade. I found it interesting – there were a couple of things that did come out, that didn’t pertain to a question. I did ask her about the boys versus the girls and how it might have influenced her level of learning in her classes. It was interesting that she regarded that boys are a lot more motivated to do well in math because it’s more challenging. And, I said, "Well, that was interesting; Why would you not consider English to be challenging? She said because English she considers to be more of her own style and not so much critical thinking. In her classes like, biology, if girls are more the dominant number, she felt they conducted the class at the pace that which the girls were at. She also regarded a certain style of learning. She said she prefers lectures.

She likes getting the point down. She doesn’t enjoy or learn as much from group or lab group. She feels that in groups or lab work, whenever she’s working on projects or experiments in science, there’s always one person’s opinion or another. She doesn’t feel it’s really as collaborative as she would like and she really gets frustrated with that. She said she benefits more from discussions. It’s a lot easier to get multiple opinions. In a discussion she feels she gets more of the big picture and is able to examine an issue from many different perspectives, rather than working on a project and she only hears from the opinions of three people. She gets very frustrated in a group when she’s working on a project, because she feels that one person overpowers the other person’s perspective or point of view. So, lectures she really likes because it’s laid down for you. But, she likes opportunities where she can share everything and see everybody else’s dimension or attitude regarding the topic that they are examining in the class. And, she wants to be a Special Education teacher when she finishes.

Chris: I interviewed Mary, and the first question that I asked her was, "What is your favorite subject and why?" She said that at first she thought she had to pick either math, English, or science. She said math and that was because she liked problem solving. She said it always came easier to her. She loves geometry. But, then she said, well maybe it was not her favorite subject, but, then in the end she decided it was, even when she had a choice of all the other subjects. She also sort of liked Spanish. She said she likes Fashion Design. She had a class in Fashion Design and she really likes creating things and designing things and doing things that make her think.

The next question I asked her was, "What is her strongest subject and why?" She said that she liked biology a lot, but, it depends on your teacher. She hates reading. So, English is not her strongest, but, she thinks that math is probably her strongest and that’s because you can teach it to yourself. She likes the teacher a lot. She said the teacher makes it easier for her to understand. She can get outside tutors, she can go to the Math Lab, there’s lots of outside help that’s available and she liked being able to get help outside of class as well as in the class.

The next question I asked was, "What is your weakest subject and why?" She said English; It’s not that she doesn’t like to read, it’s just that she didn’t like the book. So, she kind of contradicted herself, because at first she said she hated to read, then she said it was that she didn’t like the books she had to read. She said that she liked reading Julius Caesar, but she did not like Their Eyes Are Watching God. When I asked her why she did not like that book, she said that it was because it brought her grade down a lot. So, it seems as though she’s very focused on her grade and her grade determines whether or not she likes the class. She said she feels comfortable in English class. She likes the students that are in there, but paper writing has never been easy for her and that she needs to get a lot of help when it’s time to write papers.

The next question I asked her is "On average how much time do you prepare or spend on your homework?" She said that English is by far her most time consuming class. In math she spends about half and hour or 15 minutes each night at home, but, she also does work during the day. When it’s time to take a test, she studies for an hour or an hour and half. In biology she studies the hardest for the test. On the average every night she spends two hours. Typically she would go home and do homework right after school.

The next question I asked her was, "How do you spend or divide your time on a typical school night?" She said that as soon as she gets home she does busy work like worksheets first and then studies later. Then she has dinner, but she likes to do it as soon as she gets back from school. She commented that she has too many projects this year for final exams.

The next question I asked was, "How do your peers in your classes affect or influence your attitude and actions in that subject?" She said that a lot of her friends are in her classes. In the beginning she wanted to be in classes with her friends, but, when her friends got better grades then she felt really bad. But, she said that it was good to have her friends in the classes for when they do project or group activities. She said that at the beginning of the year boys would tease her a lot about her grades. They apologized and now they help her. We talked a little bit about how she got them to help her and she said that they realized that they had not been treating her nicely. She said "Sometimes guys know more and can help you." Because she was talking about whether or not there was some kind of a gender thing in the classroom, she said that she likes being in classrooms with guys because they can help her and sometimes she said stereotypically that in math they sometimes know more.

The next question that I asked was, "How do your teachers in your classes affect or influence your attitude and actions in that subject?" She said that in English she goes in for help, but she gets help from the teacher and she likes the teacher. She said she gets help but sometimes she still doesn’t do well on the paper and I asked her what bad was – and she said, "C" is something she would not consider to be a good grade. In math she said that everything she understands very clearly and that the teacher explains it clearly. What she likes a lot about math are the projects and at first in the beginning of the year, she didn’t think that the projects had anything at all to do with math, but as she did the projects she realized that the math was integrated into the project and it did help her learn it a different way and she really like the projects. She especially liked going on a field trip in that class. In science she felt like her teacher cared about her, and that I wouldn’t give her below a "C" grade. She liked the labs and the projects.

"How do you feel that your attendance affects your performance in school?" was the next question. She said that she rarely misses school. She said, "I hate missing school. You end up with two times the homework." Attendance helps her get better grades and she does not want to miss a test or something new and she talked about something she missed in her geometry class and she was really upset that she missed it. She thinks she understands it now, but she thought that if she would have been there she would have understood it better.

The next question I asked her was, "Do you believe your grades this school year reflect your ability and performance?" She said, That in some classes I try so hard, like World Cultures, and I still get a "B." and she said she wasn’t sure why she couldn’t get better than a "B" in that class. She said that in English she puts a lot of time and effort for it and she doesn’t do as well as she thinks she should, but, English is a hard subject for her. And in bio her grade is reflected, but her effort and ___________

Finally, I just asked her what teachers could do to help her learn better and that was not a survey question, but I thought her response was very interesting. She said that she likes to learn in different ways. She’s a visual learner. She likes to do projects. She likes seminar, she likes going on field trips. One of her classes took her up into A343 (a media presentation room) and she liked that because she could see Web pages and things like that. She said she liked teachers that are nice to you and that make you feel comfortable. She also commented that if the Science Department had a Science (make-up) Lab that would help her a lot, because it’s very difficult for her to get in to make up labs if she’s absent.

Robin: Seven is our Action Plan as a result of the case study that we conducted for this year.

Christine: "Robin, what do you think you’ve learned this year in the Action Research Laboratory?

Robin: "Quite honestly, Christine, I’m not sure. I have taken a look at the different roles and the behavior and the attitudes these girls have had in my classes as well as in your classes. I’ve seen interesting correlations between their behavior and they’re consistent – Mary playing with her hair in my class, to your class, to Stephanie’s class. I found it interesting, the seating chart preferences, with the girls; I guess I was surprised that I didn’t really learn more about how I can engage girls in general, more in the classroom. How I can increase their student learning. I was hoping to find some special style or way in which girls prefer to learn in comparison to how boys learn.

Or maybe they have one style that they prefer in one class, but a different style in another class. And, overall, what I’ve gathered is that a style that is based on a subject that they like the most, they enjoy learning the most. They participate the most in that class and whatever style of teaching is addressed in their favorite class is the style that they prefer in general, overall. It’s the way they would like to learn in all of their classes. So, that’s pretty much what I have taken from the case study.

Robin: "Christine, What did you gather?"

Christine: "I will second that. I learned the same thing, too. Actually, I think that, I can go with pretty much everything you said in that it seems like the students that feel comfortable in your class and that have a certain learning style sometimes do better. Many of the students have said that – they seem to perceive themselves when they’re spending more time in the class, studying, maybe they’re not as good in the class as their peers. But, I thought I heard it said a lot that the students overwhelmingly, if they like the class and they like the teacher, then they tend to like the subject as well.

Stephanie: That is something that I picked up this year. And, something else that I thought that I found interesting was that they perceive themselves as doing well in something if they had always done well over periods of time. Or, being weak in an area because they’ve always been weak in the area and I guess as Joe was telling us this morning when we talked about that maybe it’s because they’ve never experienced success before over the years and that maybe that’s something they need to look at. But, maybe because Greta and Mary or Jessica have never been particularly successful in English that maybe it’s my responsibility to be sure they are successful so that they have that success under their belt. But, I’m not exactly sure.

Robin: I also wonder based on the conference that we had attended in January, that NSCI Conference in San Antonio, when we were studying True Colors and the way in which we could regard different personality traits. I think now when we look at the big picture I see Greta being more of a Gold personality, someone who likes things highly structured, organized and is very responsible for her learning. Maybe, that’s why she has a preference for lectures. Whereas Jessica on the other hand, she’s more of an Orange. More adventuresome. Maybe that’s why she enjoys science. She doesn’t like to be contained, she wants to be more involved. Whereas Mary, I would say she’s more Blue. She’s more the harmonized, self-esteem. She likes peace and tranquility.

Christine: She probably does need to be more confident in all her subject areas.

Robin: So, in some sense the three girls that we studied, had very different personality styles that might have had a tremendous influence with the subject that was their strongest, their favorite, and perhaps their weakest, based on personality and the ways in which they learn.

Stephanie: And, possibly why we didn’t draw any large conclusions about gender differences, because the three girls we chose to take a look at, now that we are thinking about it, are actually three pretty different girls.