WomenTech Educators Training - 10/13-14 in San Francisco

Could your female students be considering dropping out of your STEM class this week?

Even if it is too late for students to officially drop out of your program this semester, there are a lot of ways for students to drop out besides talking to their counselor or going online and officially leaving the class. They can drop out by not paying attention, by not showing up, or by deciding that technology and science is just not for them and not taking another course in it.

Here is the critical thing you need to know to stop that from happening: it is so important for your female students to feel welcome, by you and their classmates, and to feel that they fit in and that they believe they'll be able to do the work in your class successfully.

So how do you know if the female students in your class feel welcome? I so often hear people use that term but they don't actually tell you what that looks like in implementation. Well now I'm going to tell you what that looks like during these first weeks of your classes in particular.

Let's say you have just a few female students in your class. Here are the steps you can take:

1. Pull the female students aside separately, one at a time out of earshot of the other students, and just do a check-in with them in those beginning weeks. I know that your classes have been in session already for a couple of weeks, that's okay. You can still go ahead and say, "Sue, I just wanted to check in with you about how things are going. I'm really happy that you're in my class and I want to just say that I like what I've seen, I really know that you can be successful in this class in the coming semester."

2. Ask her how she is feeling about things and really pause and listen.

3. This is a chance for you to provide encouragement to her, and to send that strong message: even if she doesn't have much background, she can still be successful and you can provide her with some resources that she can use to help get up to speed.

I have so much more that I want to share with you about how to make sure your female students feel welcome in your classes, and how to increase the number of female students you have overall.

If this is something that's important to you, then I'd like to invite you to our WomenTech Educators Train-the-Trainer workshop that's coming up on October 13 and 14 in the San Francisco Bay Area.

See more information about the WomenTech Educators workshop, including the agenda and sample video clips of me doing this training.

At the end of our two days together, you will have: a realistic recruitment plan that will enable you to create the reality of having women and girls in your STEM classrooms; a retention plan for your school that will increase the completion rate of your female and male students; and the knowledge and confidence you need to put these plans into action, right away. Plus, to make it even easier for you to attend, we have a special offer for newsletter subscribers only: Bring two people to the workshop and the third person will come for free! To take advantage of our 3 for 2 deal, enter this code when you register: 3FOR2TRAINING.

I'm excited for our training, and I look forward to seeing you there!

Warmly,
Donna

PS When you register for the WomenTech Educators Training, don't forget to use the code 3FOR2TRAINING to take advantage of the special offer. Get more information about the workshop here: www.iwitts.org/workshop.

Here's what one participant said about a past WomenTech Educators training:

"I have been very successful with recruiting more girls for my programs. Thanks for providing the [workshop]; I really got a lot out of it."
~ John Singer, Technology Education, Wilmington, DE