This summer, the Center for Technology and School Change worked with some amazing teachers and educators in Yonkers to plan and implement a one-month STEM Academy, focused on practicing math skills for the next school year. With some inspirational leadership and dedicated workers (thanks @YonkersSTEAMAcademy!) we planned an incredibly engaging unit focused on using fractions to design interactive game experiences.
Students had the option to create either a physical game board or a digital game experience using Scratch. This was my first experience helping 5th graders get started with coding, and they finished with flying colors! It was so amazing to see them envision their games, begin the drafting process, and self-adjust their games after receiving peer feedback.
This was also an excellent opportunity to encourage girls without any coding practice to get involved. Some of my these male students were most confident because they had experience coding through games (particularly Minecraft). However, organizations like Girls Who Code and Girl Develop It are providing more opportunities for female students to gain confidence coding. Resources like the amazing picture book How to Code a Sandcastle by Josh Funk (a Girls Who Code book) are providing more girl-empowered entry points that help females become familiar with the principles of computer science and coding. Looking at the field of developers, it's clear that we need to make some changes in our curriculum and teaching materials to prepare females for STEM futures, too!
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