"Math Is Hard"

A recent Washington Post article discusses why learning math can be so difficult for students. More and more research suggests how important gender differences can be:

JoAnn Deak, a psychologist and author of "Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters," said most schools approach math in the early grades "as if there is one kind of brain" -- though neuroimaging suggests that most girls develop language skills faster and most boys develop spatial and visual abilities faster. This helps explain why boys traditionally have been seen as "better at math," and why some girls have steered away from it.

Different teaching approaches early in a child's life can make up for these gender differences, Deak said, but most teachers don't try.

Have any of you who are math teachers had any success with trying different approaches to teaching math based on gender?

It'd be interesting, too, to do a study with Gizmos to see if they benefit one gender more than another in learning new math skills.