The Newton ‘Girls Who Code’ club is recruiting software engineers and computer scientists to volunteer as instructors for the 2015-2016 school year. The club serves girls in grades 6-12 and aims to inspire, educate, and equip them with computing skills for the 21st century.
They meet for 2 hours each week, and follow a curriculum published by the national Girls Who Code organization. They work in Scratch, JavaScript, AppInventor, and HTML/CSS, to build a range of projects from graphics to video games to artificial intelligence to cryptography. They also host guest speakers, go on field trips, and develop soft skills like collaborating and presenting your work. Club volunteers are passionate about closing the gender gap in technology and getting girls into this rewarding field.
The Newton Free Library currently hosts two club sections with over 30 girls. Hoping to expand to a third section for 2015-2016 and host up to 60 girls, they need more volunteer instructors to do so. Instructors deliver short lectures, run discussions, and help girls with their coding projects during Make Time. The club provides the curriculum and all the instructional material (slides, code examples, assignments), though instructors are also welcome to design and use supplements. The club schedule is flexible: if you can commit to volunteering on a regular basis, they can create a section that meets at a 2-hour afternoon, evening, or weekend time that fits your schedule. The club year starts in October 2015 and runs through May 2016.
To qualify as an instructor you must:
* Be proficient in at least one backend programming language.
* Have intermediate knowledge of data structures and algorithms.
* Be able to pass a background screening.
* Commit to volunteer 2–3 hours per week.
Both men and women instructors welcome. Volunteers who have some experience working with youth (e.g. as coaches, teaching assistants, camp counselors, or tutors) are preferred but this is not required. Each section has 1 or 2 instructors, so consider volunteering as a co-instructor if you think you are not up to running a section by yourself.
Visit www.newtongwc.org for additional information. To learn more about volunteering or to arrange a time to see the club in action, please contact newtongwc@gmail.com.
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