Problems of boys in lab

Q. Thanks for the suggestion to put girls with girls in lab, I’ve tried that, but then the boys who are working together do the lab, but never take notes and so their lab reports are not good. What now?

A. Boys will blame you for their inability to complete their lab reports (because you won’t let them work with girls), but do not let them get away with that. Boys can be a little like electricity – they take the path of least resistance! If they can get away with not doing the report, they will. However, they really like doing lab, so put one boy in charge of collecting data and rotate that job. You shouldn’t ever let girls pick the person they are going to work with, and you should assign specific jobs for boys.