Emphasis on test-taking skills (and study skills in general) is crucial for boys too, I can attest.

Certainly group projects are generally cited as one of those girl-friendly teaching practices (this is also one of the places I part ways with being a girl ;).

Social history has certainly been much more in vogue among university intellectual circles of late; I assume that eventually has a trickle-down to elementary and secondary curriculum standards but, as I do not teach history, I can't tell you for sure. I can tell you that the (very popular) Latin textbook I use spends a lot of time talking about daily life and essentially no time talking about war or politics (which I think is execrable for a Latin textbook).