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Case Study: High School Automotive Teacher Has Continued Success Recruiting and Retaining Girls Download PDF Now Phillip Jelinek, Automotive teacher at Monrovia High School in Monrovia, California is passionate about recruiting and retaining women in Automotive Technology. In 2007, 10 of his 125 students were female. In his 21 years of teaching this class, he has always had between 3 and 13 girls in his classes. When asked whether he had such successes because of certain strategies, he said that he didn't intentionally employ any particular ones. However, after speaking with him for just an hour, it was clear that he uses very specific recruitment and retention strategies.
Case Study: Open Lab Time as a Strategy to Increase Female (and Male) Retention Download PDF Now Always looking for new ways to improve their female retention rates, El Camino College recently began opening their welding and electronics classes to students looking for more open lab time. Students are now able to use the classroom to work on their own assignments while other classes are in session. This has been beneficial to all students, especially female students, who often need more time to learn lab tools and techniques, particularly those in introductory courses.
Developing Male Allies in Your Male-Dominated Field: Podcast Listen to or Download the Podcast Here The CalWomenTech Project presents a Podcast on "Developing Male Allies in Your Male-Dominated Field" with Lori Johnson, President of Ladies Start Your Engines, an automotive class for women. Listen as Lori gives your students tips for developing professional relationships with men in automotive technology as well as advancing their career. She also gives advice on networking at industry events and clearly describing your career goals.
PicoCrickets: Girl Friendly Kits that Teach Robotics and Engineering Skills See PicoCrickets in Action at WomenTechStore.com PicoCricket Kits engage your female students in robotics, programming, math, science, and engineering principles! PicoCrickets are tiny computers that can make things spin, light up, and play music! As your female students work on PicoCricket project themes, they learn important math, science, and engineering principles -- and gain a deeper understanding of the process of design and invention. Your girls (or boys!) can plug lights, motors, sensors, and other devices into a PicoCricket, then program them to react, interact, and communicate. Let your students' creativity thrive with the many possibilities that PicoCrickets provide!
Scigirls DVDs and Activity Guides: Science For Girls, By Girls Preview SciGirls Videos and Activity Guides at WomenTechStore.com DragonflyTV's SciGirls feature a group of hip, racially diverse girls from around the country having fun with science and getting down and dirty while explaining and demonstrating science concepts and serving as role models for your female students. Over four hours of videos, a 15-minute teacher-training case study, 18 profiles of female scientists, and 2 corresponding full color activity guides are available.
Teaching Spatial Reasoning to Improve Retention of Women in Technology: Webinar Access Webinar Here This webinar, presented by Sheryl A. Sorby, Ph.D., discusses the ways in which improving your female students' spatial reasoning skills increases their success in the technology classroom. The webinar includes a demonstration of Dr. Sorby's unique software, Introduction to 3D Spatial Visualization: An Active Approach, which you can find in our CalWomenTech Library under "Spatial Reasoning."
Time Management Tips for Women in Technology: Podcast Listen to or Download the Podcast Here The CalWomenTech Project presents a Podcast on "Time Management Tips for Women in Technology" with Jerri Barrett, Director of Marketing at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. It has been our experience here at IWITTS (and we've received feedback from the educator community) that many women tend to become too involved in the details of a project, which can slow then down. Listen as Jerri gives your students tips on efficiently managing their time to produce successful results.
Voices of Young Women in Engineering Download PDF Now Five bright female engineering students reveal that they're "tired of fighting" to fit into male-dominated classes that often feel hostile. Read the support strategies the authors recommend when there are very few females.
WomenTech Best Practices CD Read More... The WomenTech Best Practices CD s a step-by-step guide chock full of winning strategies for recruiting and retaining women into your school's technology programs. Based on the successful National Science Foundation WomenTech Project, this attractive, colorful, multi-media CD has tips, real-life examples and sample materials to help you quickly enhance your own recruitment and retention activities. There's even ten minutes of video footage of a Women Tech Career Expo, and lots of photos throughout. You'll easily navigate through the user-friendly CD, that works like a website, to develop a blueprint for your own school. The five sections - Recruitment, Retention, Employers, Institutionalization and Institutional Assessment - each contain how-to advice and sample materials you can easily tailor to fit your own school's needs.
The CalWomenTech Project is Funded by The Program for Research on Gender in Science and Engineering from The National Science Foundation - Grant no. 0533564
