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Session 5. Girls in STEM and Your Whole Mini-Unit
Objective. Observe who handles equipment and who speaks, reduce gaps with simple routines such as rotating roles and wait time, and combine safe practical work, design, measuring and misconception checks into a five-lesson STEM mini-unit with evidence.
Most teachers want every pupil to take part, and most STEM lessons still end with a few pairs of hands doing the building. The reason is rarely unkindness. It is habit and set-up: one set of equipment per group, the first volunteer, the same hands in the air. This lesson goes beyond the key ideas: it shows how to design groups so that nobody is a spectator, and how real people and real problems make STEM look possible to girls and to quieter boys.
Key ideas
The gap starts in the classroom, not in ability
- UNESCO's 2017 report Cracking the Code looks at how family and teacher expectations, social norms and the learning environment shape girls' interest and persistence in STEM. These are things teachers can influence.
- In Uzbekistan girls take part in STEM programmes, for example building a nanosatellite with UNICEF support. A class that gives every pupil real hands-on work helps that interest grow.
- Nobody has to mean harm. Habits do it: the first volunteer builds, the quiet pupil writes, the same hands go up. The first step is to see the pattern.
See it first: the five-minute tally
- During a practical, count for five minutes: who handles the equipment, who records, who answers your questions, who asks one. Mark girls and boys. A colleague or a pupil monitor can help.
- Look also at quiet boys, pupils who speak the other language of instruction and pupils who sit at the back. The tally is for you, not for judging pupils or colleagues.
- Then change ONE routine and tally again in the next practical. Two tallies are your evidence.
Simple routines that help everyone
- Rotate group roles (builder, measurer, recorder, reporter) with role cards and swap each round. Everyone gets hands-on time and everyone writes and speaks.
- Give wait time of a few seconds after a question and let pairs talk first. Call on pupils from a class list or name sticks, not only on raised hands. Praise ideas and strategies in the same way for girls and boys.
- Link tasks to real needs pupils care about (clean water, health, farming, cooking, textiles, building) and show women who work in STEM: invite a local doctor, agronomist or engineer, or a parent. Tell families what the course does (see course 5.7).
Put the unit together
- A five-lesson mini-unit: 1 hook, diagnostic question and risk check; 2 investigate the science idea (course 8.3); 3 design round 1 with measuring; 4 test, improve, graph; 5 share, model critique, re-check the misconception, exit ticket.
- In every lesson put in one equity routine and one piece of evidence you can collect in two minutes (exit ticket, a work sample, a tally).
- Keep it small and real: one problem from your pupils' life, a measurable criterion, local low-cost materials and a second try. Review it with a colleague.
Habit or routine
Habit that excludes
- First volunteer builds
- Same hands go up
- One worksheet per group
- Praise 'neat' for some, 'clever' for others
Routine that includes
- Roles rotate by card
- Wait time, pairs, call by list
- A part only you can do
- Same praise for ideas and effort
Design the group so nobody is a spectator
One set of equipment per group invites one pupil to take it. Give each pupil a part that only they can do: the measurer owns the instrument and the stopwatch, the builder owns the tape, the recorder owns the table, the reporter owns the explanation. Change the roles every round, and write them on cards so that changing is not a favour but a rule.
Set one group norm for the lesson: 'everyone touches the equipment at least once'. Give the reporter a sentence starter ('We changed ... and the result was ...') so quieter pupils can speak. If a pupil says 'let her do it', do not rescue anyone; ask, 'What is your part now?' If some pupils are unwilling to get dirty or wet, offer aprons or gloves for everyone.
Real people and real problems
Pupils decide whether STEM is for them partly by who they see doing it. Invite a local doctor, agronomist, engineer or a parent who measures and calculates at work, and ask the visitor to answer questions the pupils wrote beforehand. Ten minutes is enough. Share stories close to home, such as the girls in Uzbekistan who took part in building a nanosatellite.
Choose problems pupils care about: clean water for the school, shade for the garden, safe cooking, textiles, health. These are entry points for all pupils, not 'girls' topics'. Avoid contests of girls against boys. Praise ideas, strategies and persistence in the same words for everyone, and notice quiet boys, who may also be left out.
Examples from the classroom
Role cards in Namangan
Scene. Dilnoza counts again in her Grade 8 filter lesson after introducing role cards that rotate every 8 minutes. In the first lesson, boys handled the equipment 17 times and girls 3. In the second, boys handled it 14 times and girls 12. Pupils still complain a little about changing, and Dilnoza says, 'That is the rule for today'. By the third lesson they stop.
Insight. A written role routine changes access more reliably than reminders to 'let everyone try'.
An agronomist visits
Scene. Malika in Bukhara invites a woman agronomist who works with cotton farmers to visit Grade 6 for ten minutes. Each pupil writes one question beforehand. The first question is, 'How do you measure water for a field?' The visitor draws a simple table on the board. After the visit, three girls who rarely spoke volunteer to measure rainfall for the class garden.
Insight. Seeing a person who does STEM at work makes the idea concrete for pupils.
Five seconds of silence
Scene. Aziz in Tashkent notices that the same six pupils answer in his Grade 7 class of 32. He starts to wait five seconds after each question, lets pairs talk for 30 seconds, and calls names from a list. In one lesson, 14 different pupils speak. He keeps a simple tally for two more weeks to see whether it lasts.
Insight. Wait time and pair talk spread participation without changing the question.
Common pitfalls
- Assuming that an even mix of boys and girls in a group means even hands-on time.
- Relying on volunteers for every answer and every job.
- Offering 'girls' topics' or separate easier tasks instead of the same task for everyone.
- Collecting a tally once and not looking again after changing a routine.
Read a Tally, then Outline a Five-Lesson Mini-Unit
- Open the Activity Kit: a SAMPLE five-minute tally from a Grade 7 water-filter lesson (16 pupils observed: 8 girls and 8 boys) and the mini-unit grid (5 min).
- Pairs (10 min): read the tally. What pattern do you see? Name three routines you would change and say what you would tally next time.
- Pairs (15 min): fill the five-lesson grid for a unit you will really teach. Use ideas from all five sessions.
- Groups (5 min): swap grids with another pair and check them against the seven-point checklist.
- Alone (5 min): write your classroom action task from the Kit.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- What would you change first after seeing the sample tally, and why that one?
- Which part of the five-lesson grid was hardest to fill, and who could help you?
- How will you tell your pupils and their families what you are changing?
Reflect
- Who did most of the hands-on work in your last practical lesson? How do you know?
- Which woman in your community works in STEM and could speak to your class?
- Which one thing from this course will you keep doing next term?
Try it tomorrow
- Write role cards for your next group practical and swap roles halfway through.
- Count for five minutes who handles equipment and who answers, then count again after one change.
- Invite one person who works in a STEM job to answer five pupil questions.
Further reading and links
Count who does the hands-on work, change one routine, count again, and build every unit with safety, a design task, measuring, a misconception check and evidence.