15-minute writing exercise closes the gender gap in physics

Female Physicists

A university physics professor closed the gender gap in his semester-long class by having his students engage in two fifteen-minute periods of writing.  And the prompt had nothing to do with science.


As Ed Kim reports, in his blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science, participants were asked to write about what they valued most in life -- creativity, humor, family, achievement -- and a few sentences about why.  The effects were significant:  the women achieved as well, and better, in some cases, than the men in those classes.