I was blessed to work with the YWCA of Lincoln last semester, leading a SMART Girls afterschool program at Park Middle School. SMART Girls俱乐部的成立是为了鼓励女孩们在一个积极和安全的学习环境中探索STEM学科. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, 在去年秋天恢复俱乐部之前，有许多障碍需要克服. Typically, the club leader goes into the classroom after school gets out, 为一群8-12岁的中学女生教授有趣的STEM课程. 小组环境有助于领导者以有意义的方式与学生建立联系. As I could not attend the club in-person, 在上第一堂在线课之前，我不得不对我的计划做一些重大的调整.
First, 我修改了SMART Girls现有的一些课程，并开发了一些新课程，使它们更适用于远程学习. Mind you, up to that point, I had only taught one lesson before this opportunity arose, 除了在大二时在数学教室观察了一个学期. As the leader of a SMART Girls club, 我现在负责多个STEM领域的教学，除了数学之外，我没有任何相关经验. When developing the lesson plans, 我还想确保我可以在网络环境中与女孩们联系. 公园中学的课后项目确实有一位现场导师，他是我在社团会议上的共同老师. Unfortunately, I was not able to meet with her in advance. 我面临的另一个挑战是学生的年龄从六年级到八年级不等. 所以，我必须找到适合所有年级女孩的活动.
The first lesson I taught was from the existing SMART Girls curriculum. 我选择在第一周这样做是为了更好地理解我的角色, my classroom, and my co-teacher. The lesson went terribly. The difficulties were due to technical problems and not the lesson itself. 一开始我被告知，我的照片会被显示在一个大屏幕上，让所有的学生都能看到, in turn, would be able to see them as a group. 这种特殊的设置在他们的俱乐部位置是不可用的-所以，我们适应了. We tried having all the students join the Zoom meeting on their Chromebooks, even though they were all sitting in the same room. This method was also not very effective, as there was too much sound reverberation in their room for me to hear. 我们将在今后的会议中继续寻找更好的方法来讲授这些课程. 除了技术上的困难，学生们和我的同事老师都很棒. We used private messaging in Zoom a lot that day so that my co-teacher, the students, and I could get to know one another.
第二节课是现有课程的另一节课，而且非常成功. The experiment analyzed which type of bridges are sturdier: beam vs. string bridges. I had two co-teachers during this session- one gave instructions, and the other held the laptop so I could see the activity taking place. This was amazing because there were no sound issues, and I could be involved in the discussion and see everything. Only four girls showed up to the club that day, so that wasn’t a permanent solution when more students came. Incidentally, 女孩们了解到，梁桥比弦桥更坚固，因为它能容纳更多的硬币. 我喜欢他们自己做桥，还有装硬币的滑轮. To test the strength of their bridges, the girls added one penny at a time until the bridge collapsed.
第三次扶轮社会议是由我在澳门威尼斯人网址的指导教授. Jennifer Lorenzen, and the Project SERVE coordinator, Mark Bogen. 那一周的课程是我根据现有的SMART Girls课程修改的. 我开发了一个涉及数学分数的活动，但结合了好时巧克力棒来概念化分数. 最后，我们还做了一个有趣的复习游戏，叫做“垃圾篮球”。. Click here to see the lesson plan, the activity sheet, and google slide presentation. 我认为大多数学生以前可能都用过彩色的分数条，他们可能会喜欢一个现实生活中的例子，用一个熟悉的整体的部分组成分数——尤其是因为它是一个美味的糖果棒! 我是在澳门威尼斯人网址上的一节名为《威尼斯人官网》的课上了解到这个活动的, and I was eager to try it out. I personally think that the lesson went really well, 作为学习活动的一部分，学生们很喜欢收到糖果棒. However, 我的观察员指出，在这节课的主要活动部分有很多安静的时间. While the girls were doing the activity, 我真的没有办法和学生们单独交流，直到结束的时候. 在过去的几周里，我已经学会了适应这种沉默，因为我们遇到了太多的技术难题. The students went to my in-person co-teacher if they had questions. 这个问题是我需要进一步考虑的，如果我发现自己在未来通过Zoom教学. 在远程学习的情况下，教室里可能没有和学生一起工作的老师.
I taught several other lessons last semester, and they also went very well. One issue was I had no idea how many girls would be there from week-to-week. Sometimes there were three, other times, the group was as big as twelve. We did lessons related to many different STEM topics, including lava lamps, chromatography, the scientific method, cloud in a jar, and the human heart. I am so glad I did two experiments for the chromatography lab; one was with skittles and water, while the other utilized a coffee filter, food coloring, and a straw. Through this module, 我们证明了有时实验会失败——这也是在STEM中学习的重要一课. 由于我无法亲自演示，所以我试着播放一段视频来解释实验室. 我希望我也有材料和他们一起做实验，或者有能力在他们的实验室之前尝试实验——提前解决所有的问题. These are lessons that will help me as a teacher in the future, whether I am teaching online or in-person.
Now that I am reflecting upon this experience, 我认为事先和我的合作老师见面会有很大的帮助. 我相信让显示器只显示我和我的共享屏幕也会对学生有益, but we were able to overcome that problem. Also, 我希望我有更多的背景知识和对其他STEM主题的理解，我正在努力制定教案. Lastly, 成对或小组放大是减少声音混响的好方法, along with muting everyone except the person talking.
我很感激我有这个独特的教学机会，尽管它并不总是容易的. I want to thank Myeisha Essex, the director of the SMART Girls program at the Lincoln YWCA, 感谢Project SERVE团队给了我参与这个奇妙项目的机会. 这是第一学期每周的亮点，我玩得很开心. 女孩们真的很了不起，我在公园中学的同事老师也很了不起.
Ariel Ortiz (’22) is a Noyce scholar at Doane University. 她计划毕业后在一所高需求的中学教数学.
