Five Things I learned from having an all-girls STEM class

This year I was lucky enough to have 24 girls in an all-girls STEM class. It was an idea I proposed to my principal almost 3 years ago and for the 2014-2015 school year we were able to make it happen.

I loved having my all-girls class. I loved them for a million reasons and I learned a lot from just teaching girls (and I was used to having almost all boys in my classes)—so they were a welcome change.

1. Girls love working in groups even more than boys do. I think it is the social aspect, but I never heard them complain when I assigned them to a group and I never had anyone ask me if they could “just work alone.”
2. Girls love to see how engineers make a difference in the world. The idea of an engineer being a super hero really resonated with them. If you haven’t seen this video, you have to check it out. https://vimeo.com/86537339
3. Girls will bring in their own materials from home. For example, when we would do Genius Hour, my girls class was the most organized, the most on task, and they brought in the most materials. I had one girl who made a dress, and bought the materials at Hobby Lobby—I had another group make ice cream and bring in all the supplies they would need—another group made a birdhouse and used some leftover materials from their recycling bin.
4. Girls can be nice to each other. Maybe it was my group of girls—they were just not the catty type?  My experience in the past with girls (even coaching them) was that they were really mean and kind of awful. My girls in my STEM class were amazing.
5. Girls don’t need boys to work with in a class. In fact, if they don’t have the boys as a distraction, they seem to be more at ease working with tools, they aren’t afraid to take the lead on the project; they are more willing to speak their mind.
    
   I don’t think I will be able to have another all-girls class this year, but I really feel that being able to have them for one year was amazing and a great experience for them and me. I know they will do great no matter what class they take or who their teacher is, but I hope we started planting some of those seeds to get them excited about a future career in STEM.

Transforming your classroom with Genius Hour

Along with recruiting girls in STEM, Genius Hour is one of my most favorite topics to talk about.

Today I had the pleasure of presenting to some of my colleagues in my district about Genius Hour, for district run conference, called Hays Fusion. I talked about transforming your classroom with Genius Hour. I have been doing Genius Hour in my classroom for the last two years. My top ten pieces of advice for doing Genius Hour are the following:

1. The launch of "doing" Genius Hour is  very important. Your kids need to buy into Genius Hour.



2. Genius Hour is not really a new idea. It has been around for quite some time (I found information that dated back to 3M’s 15% time in the 1950’s.)
   
   
3. Genius Hour can and will transform your classroom if you do it properly.
   
   
4. To do Genius Hour properly--Make sure your students understand what a guiding question is and have your students do some sort of presentation. (An authentic audience lends itself to greater presentations, if students know that they will be presenting to an audience, they will do a better job.)
   
   
5. However, there is no wrong way to do Genius Hour. If you get stuck or it is not working to your liking—REVISE it! Make changes until you are happy.
   
   
6. Do not abandon Genius Hour. Your kids really do enjoy it. (Even if you feel like they are “wasting time,” they are doing important stuff.
   
   
7. Genius Hour is not a time for you to catch up on your grading. (You need to meet with students and work right along with them. You can model your own Genius Hour projects, so they can get more ideas.)
   
   
8. If you want to do Genius Hour, join Twitter.  Some of the nicest and most helpful people are on Twitter and they WILL help you!



9. You need a supportive administrator to have a successful Genius Hour. They should know that when they come in your room, if it looks like chaos—students are learning.
   
   
10. Genius Hour can open the door for your classroom to start Project Based Learning.
     
    One way I plan to improve on my students Genius Hour experience this year is that I am going to have my students find state standards of the projects that they want to work on. That way, they can see the connections to their learning (and my administrator can see the cross curricular work). This will help them with their guiding questions.
    
    
    
    I could write so much more, but I won’t. If you would like to view my presentation it is on slideshare at the link here: http://www.slideshare.net/kcampbell2/transforming-your-classroom-genius-hour-presentation
    
    
    
    Please feel free to let me know if there is anything I can do to help you and your class with Genius Hour!