According to a recent article in the Washington Post, a new online school called the Online School for Girls will soon be going live. Apparently, the new school is the brainchild of the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda and is being offered because the consortium feels girls will enjoy more benefits from an Internet curriculum if the course offerings are restricted to girls only.

“There’s been a lot of research done on how girls learn differently with technology than boys,” said the director of Holton-Arms’s technology, Brad Rathgeber. “Part of this is a little bit of theory that we’re trying to put in practice to see if it really does play out.”

Four different schools will be participating in the collaborative effort, including Harpeth Hall in Nashville, Laurel School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut and Holton-Arms. Classes that did not generate enough student interest or teacher support at any one school will be offered to students of all three schools through the online experience. Ultimately, the schools hope the experience will encourage more students to participate and will be able to offer the courses to girls around the world.

According to experts, there are a number of potential benefits associated with having all-girl classes. Namely, girls tend to do better when their teachers utilize teaching strategies that are geared specifically toward females. In addition, girls prosper in this setting because they can pursue their interests without fear of gender stereotyping. Researchers have also found that girls tend to participate in classroom discussion more frequently when boys are not in the same classroom.

This online experience isn’t the only place where separation of the sexes is gaining in popularity. In fact, a growing number of public educational institutions are experimenting with girls and boys only classrooms. In 2002, for example, only 11 schools throughout the United States reported having single-sex class offerings. Today, more than 500 schools are engaging in the practice.

“Girls thrive best in environments where connectivity is valued,” said Laurel School’s director of strategic programming, Larry Goodman. “There’s no one out there who’s thinking with a specifically feminine audience in mind.”

How the benefits will translate to an online “girls only” class, however, remains left to be seen. Some experts remain skeptical about how this type of separation will pan out and if it will actually provide any benefits to the female students.

“If they’re in an online environment where they’re going to be doing wikis and blogs, that would serve the girls,” commented Frances R. Spielhagen, who is an assistant professor of education at Mount Saint Mary College in New York. “The online capability is as good as, and only as good as, the educational experience that the teacher has crafted.”

Regardless, those behind the program are quite excited by its possibilities. During its first year, the program will offer six different courses, with two being offered this fall and four in the spring. Class offerings will include calculus and differential equations as well a women in art and literature and each class will have a cap of just 20 students.