education

Lessons I Learn From Being An Educator

education written on a blackboardI never thought I would become an educator, but through my work with Global Wire Associates, I organized approximately 80 classes a year around the world teaching a variety of subjects, from basic computer literacy to digital journalism to interactive multimedia and 3D modeling.  I have instructed all types of people  –  teenagers interested in STEM topics, stay-at-home moms starting online businesses, working journalists updating their digital skills, recent immigrants, special needs persons and senior citizens who want to learn basic computer literacy and nonprofit managers needing better engagement with their online constituents.

In September I am going back to New York again during UN Week to teach web development classes to journalists from developing countries.  I may be continuing my STEM empowerment classes into the fall if we are able to secure funding.

Teaching is tough work, but it is also very rewarding.  I have learned a lot about myself and my strengths and weaknesses instructing others.  I learned a lot from other educators who have mentored me.

Here are my lessons from the last 10 years:

Meeting other people where they are at:  Being a web developer, I forget sometimes that most people are not tech savvy and using all the latest tech gadgets and programs.  This is where I have had to leave my ego at the door and learn how to be patient and comfortable with helping students on different learning curves.

Learn from doing:  I am a big fan of project-based learning.  I always hated it when a teacher just droned on for the entirety of a class session.  I think students learn more effectively by actually doing the work.  For example, if I am teaching web design, my students will actually build a website in class.

Learn from each other: With project-based learning, my students generally work in teams. Putting students in teams forces them to learn a variety of skills like communication, as well as take ownership of their learning.   

Culturally Responsive:  The classroom is becoming more diverse, and it is more than likely your students don’t share the same background.  This is why it is important to listen to, build relationships with and get feedback from your students in order to figure out nuanced ways to make education equitable.

Things don’t always go as planned:  Sometimes I create a well-prepared curriculum, only to have to toss it out and do something totally different. Things don’t go the way I planned it all the time, and that can be a good thing sometimes.  Some of the best teaching moments I have ever had come from unexpected moments.

Let students help with the curriculum: I am a fan of democratic education.  Having student input gives me a better understanding of my students’ needs and how I can improve my teaching abilities.  I always encourage questions during lessons or ask them to tell me to spend more time explaining a specific topic.

Admit when you don’t know something: I don’t pretend to be a know-it-all.  If I don’t know something, I will say that to the student.  In my experience, students appreciate the candor because we are all human.

Make sure everyone learns one thing: I try not to cram a lot of things into my courses because technology subjects tend to be overwhelming enough, especially if the students are new to computer literacy.  I encourage my students to make sure that they walk away from class learning at least one new thing, and make sure that one thing is something that could impact their life.

For instance, I taught a class on basic computer literacy five years ago, and one of the students recently moved to Boston from Haiti.  She knew very little English and very shy, but she was able to understand most of my class.  I told her at the beginning that she should focus on learning one thing that she understands and can be useful.  Her one, useful takeaway was how to log into, read and send email.  This class took place a couple of weeks after the earthquake in Haiti, and some of the student’s relatives evacuated to southern Florida, but she didn’t know where actually. However, she did know that the relatives had Gmail accounts.  She was able to locate and make first contact with her relatives who were found in Miami by email.

Every once in a while, I bump into my former student in my neighborhood.  Her English has greatly improved, and she says that she is now taking classes in Microsoft Office at a local community college.  She is always thanking me for helping her with her email.  It doesn’t seem like a big deal to many people these days to know how to send an email, but that class made such an impact in her life.  She always says “Thank you, Talia, thank you very much for your help and patience.”

Sometimes the smallest things can make a big impact in another person’s life.       

A Few Thoughts on President Obama’s Community College Plan

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President Obama Community Colleges
Last week President Obama announced that he wanted to make the nation’s community college system free of charge to students.  Under his not-so-detailed-yet plan, $60 billion will be spent over the next 10 years to make this possible.  I already have a bachelor’s degree, but I went back to school at my local community college recently to get certification in web development and programming.

Going back to school after being out for so many years can be daunting, but I had a great experience.  There are many things to like about community colleges; they are inexpensive, you don’t feel like the oldest person in the classroom and there is a lot of academic support.  Many of the teachers at community colleges do everything to help you succeed.

While I think the president’s plan so far is ambitious and promising, I also have a lot of questions that I hope he will address during his State of the Union next week.

Class issues? – Nine million students will save money from this proposed plan; however, middle class students will most likely benefit, since low income students already have their tuition covered by the Pell Grant.  Maybe the money should be given to low income students who matriculate to a 4-year public college or university if tuition exceeds the Pell Grant and maintain a certain GPA.  Speaking of which…

Higher GPA, More $$$? – Obama’s plan proposes that community college students can retain free tuition if they have a 2.5 GPA, or a ‘B’ average.  I think money should be given on a progressive scale.  If you have a 4.0 GPA, you get full free tuition.  A 2.5 GPA would be half or three quarters payment for tuition.  I think incentives systems force students to achieve more by thinking about the value of their education.

First time, and second time around? – Most scholarships and grants, including the Pell Grant, are geared towards first time college students fresh out of high school.  There are a growing number of people who may already have bachelor’s or master’s degrees, but due to the changing economy or layoffs, have to go back to school and retrain in a new field.  There should be money for those who have been affected by the recession to help them get back on their feet.

Support high demand careers – It seems like Obama’s proposal supports students majoring in all subjects.  However, the country is lacking in graduating students who are pursuing in-demand careers in STEM and this is becoming more obvious everyday in the global economy.  Priority should be given to students majoring in fields that are actually in-demand and hiring right now.

Mobile STEM Truck Closes Education Gap

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Projected STEM Job Growth

As you already know, America’s standing as a leader in the global economy is endangered by the lack of American students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

STEM fields are seeing the highest rates in job growth, yet not many students are going in this direction. According to the U.S. Department of Education, only 16 percent of American high school students are proficient in math and have interest in pursuing a STEM career. “The United States is falling behind internationally, ranking 25th in mathematics and 17th in science among industrialized nations.”  AP computer science is only taught in five percent of American high schools.

One of the main problems here is the lack of resources in public schools, such as trained STEM teachers and equipment like computers to instruct students.  Also, 63 percent of K-12 schools still lack adequate Internet connectivity and infrastructure.

I happened upon this story about this innovative idea that might be a partial solution to the STEM education gap.  Aditya Kumarakrishnan, a physics and math major at Queens College, was awarded $10,000 from an incubator contest to assist him with launching his idea for Tesla Truck, a hands-on, mobile STEM lab and mobile maker space that will bring courses like robot-building, flight design, 3D printing and vocational training to schools and local communities.

He came up with the idea for his business last year while he was mentoring a group of students from the Bronx on robotics when he realized they didn’t have any resources.  Kumarakrishnan had to buy his own tools to use for his instruction.  He believes the Truck will be useful and cost efficient for schools that lack the resources to teach such classes.  Kumarakrishnan plans to use the money to purchase his first truck.

This is a great idea, and I would love to see where Kumarakrishnan goes with his truck both in physical distance and in creativity in the near future!

Here’s a short commercial for Tesla Truck:

What Black Females Think About STEM Education

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STEM careers

Lately there has been all this talk about the lack of racial and gender diversity in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers.  This was spurred on by Google revealing a breakdown of their employees by race and gender.  And to no one’s surprise, the tech giant’s workforce is largely white and male.  Yahoo and LinkedIn followed suit with their own diversity reporting with similar findings.

I’ve been a web designer for about five years, and I interact with people on projects with a wide variety of computer programming skills, ranging from talented web developers who build databases to hardcore programmers who can build with C++ and Java in their sleep.  When I go to tech conferences or networking events, I am almost always the only black female in the room.

I recently went back to school to get more formal programming training, and, again, there were very few women and minorities in those classes.  Interestingly enough, the few women and minorities in my classes were all foreigners from India, Russia and Nigeria.

So I wasn’t actually surprised about the lack of workforce diversity at these companies.  Many people have insinuated that racism and sexism has caused this problem.  I’ve never worked for any of these companies, nor do I know anyone who currently works for Google, Yahoo or LinkedIn, so I don’t have any real insight into what is really going on in these respective human resources departments.  I also don’t have any solid proof that there is hiring discrimination.

I just don’t know.

But my initial guess is that there aren’t that many women and people of color working for these companies because there aren’t enough qualified applicants in the job pool because there aren’t enough women and people of color pursuing STEM careers in the first place.  Only 18 percent of women and less than 10 percent of African-Americans and Latinos pursue computer science college degrees.

Before there can be a serious discussion about STEM workforce diversity, we have to look at the state of STEM education in the United States.  From my vantage point, there are many reasons for the lack of non-white guys in STEM industries.  While these apply to all science, engineering and mathematics careers, for the purposes of this article, I will focus on technology education and careers.

1. Lack of role models and mentors – Simply if you don’t see anyone who looks like you working in that field, you are more likely to not want to consider a career in that field.

2. Gender stereotyping – As far as women are concerned, there has been this longstanding stereotype that computer science is a guy thing, geeky and not “feminine.”

3. Lack of training opportunities – Most people working in computer sciences are first introduced to the field while in K-12 schooling.  If you are a girl of color or a low income girl of any color, you most likely attend a crappy public school that probably doesn’t have computers, let alone computer science classes.  Even if you are lucky to have access to computer science classes at your school, most likely those classes don’t count towards your graduation requirements, so there is no incentive to take the classes in the first place.

I remember I had to take a computer science class in high school, and I really hated it because the teacher was an old guy who fell asleep in class and it seemed really hard with all that math.  I never had any real interest in technology until I was already into my journalism career.  By the time I started my career, the writing was on the wall and journalism was being turned upside down by the Internet.  I first got interested in technology when I started to see how the Internet was democratizing the media and making it possible to be your own publisher.

In my spare time, I mentor a couple of 15-year-old African-American girls – Cynthia and Keyshia – and I asked them the other day specifically if they had any interest in STEM classes or careers. Cynthia attends an public school in Boston.  She says she has to take a computer class at her school, but she hates it because her teacher is “soooooo borriiiiing.”  Keyshia attends a suburban public school outside of Boston that offers AP computer science.  She said she doesn’t want to take the class because it seems too hard, too much math and they’re only boys in the class.

Coincidentally, Cynthia and Keyshia are very tech savvy, as their eyes are always glued to their iPhones either texting or posting pictures on Instagram.  However, their tech consumption doesn’t seem to translate to any interest in pursuing a tech career or even finding out how the Instagram mobile app was built.

I recently showed Cynthia and Keyshia how I designed my new website Women Talking, and they were fascinated not only by the design, but how easy and fun it was to design it.  I showed them a little HTML and CSS and how they worked together.  I then helped them to create a slideshow using jQuery for a different website.   Both girls said they were really interested in these web design techniques because they could instantly see the results of their coding in a browser.

“Why don’t they teach stuff like this in my school?” Keyshia said.

Maybe schools should teach computer science in a way that makes it relevant with things we do and use in our daily lives.  Teenagers love to text, maybe there should be classes on how to develop mobile apps for texting.  Video games?  How about a class that not only teaches JavaScript and other game design tools, but also require students to design their own video game by the end of the semester.

Considering the fact that not many American high school students – regardless of race or gender – are taking AP computer science classes anymore, schools need to get more creative about how they teach technology. This would not only expose more kids to possible STEM careers, but also to other traditionally non-STEM careers that now heavily rely on technology (like journalism).  I know if I had learned how to design and develop a website in high school, my career trajectory probably would have been different.

I know there is a lot more to making STEM education and careers more inclusive than I can discuss in this piece, but at least we are starting to have that conversation.

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