Research Topics

2022-2023

The Global Reset: New Opportunities for Educating Girls

Driven into quick pivots, experimentation, and navigating familiar approaches in fundamentally new settings during the COVID-19 pandemic, we will soon, with a period of reflection (and recovery) under our belts, consider what we learned about ourselves as educators and our students as learners. What have we been inspired to change and how are we going to measure the efficacy of that change?

What tools and pedagogical approaches, implemented during this global reset in education, resonated in spaces of girl learning? In what ways have educators shifted curriculum, subtly or dramatically, to what we believe girls need to know now? How have the ways in which we evaluate and measure understanding, and mastery of skills and materials changed based on what we learned while teaching girls during the pandemic?

As educators around the world, we have all navigated, or continue to navigate, the pandemic’s impact on education in many different ways. As we move to a more standard day-to-day life in our school communities, the Global Action Research Collaborative on Girls’ Education seeks Fellows eager to research their own “resets”—be they in the classroom, on the sports field, on the stage or in the art studio.

Sample research questions may include:

  • How are you using your space and time differently with students?
  • What changes have you made to your curriculum and what do you believe the girls will gain from it?
  • In what ways have you shifted your timing and methods of assessing your students?
  • How are you engaging your students in the learning process in different ways?
  • How do you know that these resets are having the impact you intend?

View the report Future Schools in COVID Context by Dr. Kevin Stannard, Director, Innovation & Learning at the Girls’ Day School Trust (UK), as an insight and inspiration into what possibilities lie ahead now that we have all discovered our own capacity for change and innovation within the contexts of our schools and education systems.


2021-2022

Building Problem-Solving Capacity, Confidence, and Skills in Girls

“If we are going to be part of the solution, we have to engage the problems.” –Majora Carter, Urban Revitalization Strategist

Girls are required daily to problem-solve constantly, be it in the classroom or the lunchroom, on the sports field or the stage, or at home and social gatherings. Today, more than ever before, the skills required to successfully tackle and solve problems are essential. Our schools around the world have demonstrated this by pivoting nimbly to respond to the impact of COVID-19 on our education infrastructure and school communities.

Often defined as the process of identifying the problem to be solved, developing possible solutions, taking action, evaluating outcomes, and making adjustments, problem-solving is the opposite of rote, formulaic test-directed learning. The keys to successful problem-solving are a willingness to embrace risk-taking and the ability to see failure as a steppingstone to a solution. Successful problem-solving requires curiosity to tackle open-ended questions, opportunities to experiment with new ideas, and space to share knowledge.

Problem-solving with both understanding and confidence is a vital skill in the toolbox of girls today and the women of tomorrow, yet international studies show girls are more reluctant to engage in problem-solving activities than boys. How do we as educators create environments in our classrooms, clubs, sports teams, and advisory groups for girls to foster a willingness to confidently embrace all aspects of problem-solving: the comfortable and the uncomfortable?

The Global Action Research Collaborative on Girls’ Education sought research proposals exploring strategies that build problem-solving willingness and capacity in girls thereby enhancing confidence, resilience, and healthy risk-taking.

Sample research questions may include:

  • By exploring opportunities to problem-solve, what strategies can be implemented to encourage an increase in healthy and creative risk-taking in girls in your classroom, on your sports team, or in other aspects of your programs?
  • How can educators embed problem-solving into the curriculum and in non-curricular activities?
  • Is there a way for problem-solving skills to be measured in assessment, both formative and summative?
  • What classroom experiences or strategies help girls to develop long-term, transferrable problem-solving skills?
  • What are the benefits of problem-solving outside of the classroom?
  • In what ways can we connect the problem-solving skills developed in the classroom with real-world issues and concerns facing our girls today?

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” ―Albert Einstein


Past Research Topics