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- April 27, 2024
MCMF and Youth Tech Club (YTC) Coding Classes and Book club
MCMF collaborates with YTC to organize free computer coding classes for the youth. The coding class commenced on October 19, 2019 and are currently being held on zoom on every Saturday. MCMF has purchased 15 Chromebooks with accessories for training purposes and loaned them out to needy and deserving students so that lack of resources do not hinder any student’s ability to reach his/her full potential.
Youth Tech starts the program by teaching students coding on the MIT Scratch platform. Once the students attain proficiency in MIT Scratch coding, YTC graduates the students and begins to teach them to code in Python. Python is a multipurpose high-level language and used in various fields like web development, automation, data analysis as well as machine learning. YTC now caters to students ranging from 8 - 16 years and offers 6+ classes in collaboration with MCMF. The classes are made carefully by YTC teachers and mentors based on students' needs and their uses in the real world. YTC and MCMF have taught 40+ students to code in various languages ranging from Python to Javascript.
MCMF and YTC operate on Saturdays from morning 9:30am-1:30pm. The duration of each class is one hour. We are currently offering MIT Scratch, Javascript, Python (Advance and Basic), from February YTC will offer HTML and CSS classes also. We are currently accepting new students. To learn more about us and to register, please visit the YTC website www.youthtechclub.com and fill the registration form.Course Facilitators: The coding class is conducted by Faadil Shaikh and Hana Shaikh, who are the Founders and Presidents of Youth Tech Club (YTC) and who are very well versed in programming. These high schoolers understand the students and keep the learning environment fun and light. The coding program is mentored by highly skilled volunteer instructor Mr. Abdul Ahad Shaikh, a Software engineer with 20+ years of experience in programming and working with Cisco Inc. Mrs. Munawar Shaikh is the coordinator of YTC. For more information please visit https://www.youthtechclub.com/mcmfmd.org every Saturday. We have 35 students attending the class and we have 3 classes currently Scratch, JavaScript Beginner and JavaScript advanced, the first class timings are from 8:15-9:30am, the second class timings are from 9:30-10:45am and the third class timings are from 11:00-12:15pm
A new html class will be introduced soon. The classes now have teachers assistants also.
MCMF SAT Program:
Since 2016, MCMF has been holding free SAT classes for high schoolers operating winter and summer sessions. MCMF focuses to assist students from low-income strata and underrepresented minorities, who do not have the financial ability to pay for an expensive commercial SAT program. The course is coordinated by Mrs. Nasreen Khan, MCMF board member and taught by Ms.Romeella Hussain. who is a public school teacher with 25 years of experience and specializes in teaching SAT prep courses.
MCMF has a rigorous enrollment process that selects students on the basis of their grade level, math proficiency, motivation and commitment to the program. SAT course is a 10-week course and focuses on the format of the tests and provides coaching in Mathematics, English reading, comprehension, grammar, and guides students on the test taking strategies. In 2020, MCMF winter and summer sessions coached 28 students overall. The winter 10-week course helped students prepare for the upcoming March SAT and the summer session that had 50 % minority and low-income students, were coached for the August, September, and October tests. Due to the COVID 19 pandemic MCMF has been offering SAT classes on Zoom. MCMF has coached over 70 students over the past 4 years. Below are some of the testimonials of parents of the students in the SAT classes.
Please contact Mrs. Nasreen Khan at nasreensikander@yahoo for enrollment in the upcoming SAT sessions.
Testimony of Parents
“To Whom It May Concern: This letter is to applaud and commend the MCMF SAT program that assists community students to prepare for the exam. The program coordinator, Nasreen Khan, is an excellent resource of information and guidance to the enrollment process and cultivates a partnership between students and instructor. Enrollment in this program lead to an exceptional learning experience for my Son, Zohair, who improved his score by 300 points. The instructor Romella Husain is highly professional and organized. Her mechanism of teaching created an enriched academic environment in the virtual classroom that sparked curiosity in her students and kept them engaged. Ms. Husain went above and beyond to assist her students in developing strategies to solve the problems in the exam. I am highly impressed by this program and appreciate the transparency and clarity provided by the program coordinator and instructor. I hope this program would flourish and thrive in the future to continue to help high school students with SAT preparations.”
“Dear Ms Khan. I am new in this country. I know that taking the SAT tests is really important and I haven't taken any SAT tests yet because of the quarantine. Now I got information about the virtual SAT class which was coordinated by Nasreen Khan with MCMF. I found the information through Facebook and I texted her. After that, she texted me back and got all of my information and helped me to join the class. As I am new in this country I really need help to take the test and she gave me the opportunity to know how to do well and what to do. She also explained everything to me, how hard work I have to do, and so on. Since I am new to this country, I was not that good in English grammar but Ms. Husain taught us all the grammars which helped me a lot. One day we had a practice test that I couldn’t join because of a last-minute emergency. Afterward, Ms Khan and Ms. Hussain called me and asked me: ”Why didn’t I join the class?” After the call I was really shocked and felt that they really cared about us. It was a really good opportunity for me to get all the strategies.”
“Dear Ms. Khan. We would like to convey our sincere thanks for your selfless volunteer work in arranging this SAT prep program. Baseline test, practice, and SAT tests were very helpful in having Suhaib concentrate for the duration of the tests. In addition, the tips and attack methodology shared by Ms. Rumi were priceless. She was very thorough in explaining as well as reviewing and giving personalized feedback, all of which increased Suhaib in his knowledge and confidence. We noticed a remarkable improvement in his score compared to the baseline. As you advised, practice is the key to improvement. We will ensure that Suhaib continues to use the tools for practice that you shared with him as well as the feedback he got during this program to improve even further."
MCMF and Youth Tech Book Club:
MCMF collaborates with Youth Tech Book Club (YBC) a book club by the youth for the youth conducted online on Zoom every Wednesday from 3-4pm EST during summer vacation.
The Founders and Presidents of this Club, Faadil and Hana, who are also the Founders and Presidents of the Youth Tech Club were running the club. With the COVID-19 pandemic, they realized that the libraries were closed and students were really missing their trips to parks and libraries and missing interaction with their friends ultimately feeling lonely. They decided to come up with a way to bring the smile back on the faces of as many young students and friends. Hence they decided to expand the Youth Book Club and MCMF generously encouraged and supported them in their effort. MCMF has purchased the books selected for summer reading and distributed to all the MOCO students who have registered with the program. The club now not only reaches young students from MOCO but across the US (Texas, Florida, and New York) as well as internationally (UK, Canada and Germany).
This is our second year of summer book club and we have 51 registered students attending the club. The classes are conducted every Wednesday from 3:00-4:30pm
Each student received 2 copies of the books. The kids have read “Fish in a tree” and currently reading “One and only Ivan". The club not only provides Elementary and Middle School students with guided reading, discussions, and critical analysis of the book but also fun warmup activities comprising of writing prompts but also every week there is a Kahoot activity which is our student's favorite. The Highschool students meet up with Faadil and Hana every Monday from 3:00-4:00 pm to prepare for the Wednesday meeting.
Every meeting of the Club ends with a fun Kahoot about the book alongside trivia questions. Students love the book club and look forward to its meeting. For details of meeting and registration, please visit https://fhbookclub.zyrosite.com
MCMF College Admission Workshops
Targeted Group: 9 to 12 Grade Students of Montgomery County Schools who are aspiring to compete for premier Colleges and Universities in USA.
Course Facilitator: Shameel Hameed, Higher Education Consultant, who has done extensive research in college admission processes and Romella Hussain, MCPS School teacher and SAT Prep class teacher.
The following subjects were covered in the Workshop:
About 20 students including some parents attended the workshop. After the session a written feedback survey was administered to the participants. The workshop was followed by one on one consultation between the attendees and facilitators.
MCMF Robotics Workshop
On February 17, the Gearbox 4-H Robotics Club organized a half-day robotics workshop for kids ages 8 to 14 at the Montgomery County Muslim Foundation office. In this hands-on workshop, led by Anaum Khan (captain of Gearbox 4-H), over 14 students split into teams of two and built robots using Lego Mindstorms. The group of students was diverse, with boys and girls from across the county. All of the students had never been exposed to this form of robotics before. This workshop also introduced students to key science and technology concepts like the engineering design process. During the session, the students experience a short design cycle and go through the key steps of think, create, evaluate, and repeat. This teaches critical thinking skills that help students solve problems.
The workshop concluded with an exciting tournament where students challenged each other’s robots to push the opponent team’s robot off a platform. The tournament was the highlight of the event for many students, as they crowded around the robots and cheered for their teams.
The workshop was free for students and no previous building experience was necessary. All parts were provided, and guidance to the children was given from members of the Gearbox 4-H club. The kids were also given a survey to which 93% of students responded that they would want to participate in an event like this again.
Montrice Johnson , a representative from the Montgomery County government, was present at the workshop and spent two hours talking with the Gearbox 4-H Robotics Club. She was very excited to see the students learn and said that, out of her years working with programs funded by the county, she had never seen anything like this workshop.
Overall, this was a successful event in cultivating the youngest minds of our community and MCMF hopes to continue serving youth through STEM programs in the future.
Public Speaking Workshop
MCMF Youth Empowerment Program organizes yearly Public speaking programs for the youth. On June 22, 2020 MCMF held a virtual Public Speaking Seminar which was conducted by Mr. Umar Hameed, the CEO of No Limit Selling. An hour and half of this interactive webinar had 24 attendees –parents and youth and focused on developing public speaking strategies, presentation skills to address a specific audience, topics, and concerns, to become a more engaging, memorable, and effective speaker. On spot webinar effectiveness on a 5-point scale, most of the participants rated it as 5. MCMF earlier held a similar public speaking seminar in October 2019, which was attended by 31 students of MCPS and 19 parents. The workshop was interactive and engaging. After the workshop participants interacted with the speaker and attendees. The program feedback was excellent.