Targeted recruiting means planning strategically: set quantifiable goals; identify large, capable audiences; personalize the content of your message; deliver that message in media that are relevant to your audience; and pay attention to people who influence your audience’s decision-making.
Educational software can increase students’ motivation, interest, and academic achievement in science and math. To do so, it must be selected and utilized properly to avoid gender bias. A sample tool for guiding software selection is provided.
The décor of physical spaces conveys messages about the kinds of people who belong there and the kinds of activities that should be done there. Understanding this influence allows us to actively craft an environment that makes a broad range of people feel welcome in computing.
Culturally Responsive Computing (CRC) programs help educators connect computing curriculum to the interests, prior experiences, and needs of students diverse in race, class, ability, and sexual orientation. One such promising program is COMPUGIRLS.
Women and minority students are not in computing courses under the same conditions as their white male classmates. Instructional practices offer opportunities to level the playing field and improve the retention of underrepresented students.
La tecnología es un campo de rápido crecimiento, con salarios altos y creativo. He aquí 10 consejos para que usted, como miembro de la familia, pueda estimular a las niñas a su alrededor a estudiar y a hacer una carrera profesional en ciencias informáticas y tecnología relacionada.
Collaborative learning can improve retention rates, critical thinking, appreciation of diversity, and development of social and professional skills. When implementing collaborative learning, match students roughly according to experience levels and make sure to give students opportunities to work together for both graded and un-graded assignments.
Technology is a fast-growing, high-paying, creative field. Here are 10 ways that you, as a family member, can encourage the girls in your life to study, and have a career in, computer science and related technology fields.
Engage students not already drawn to computing by creating academic and social environments where these students feel like they belong. Students respond positively to solving real-life problems that draw on their existing knowledge and interests and that involve collaboration in hands-on projects.
Computing offers high quality jobs and is one of the fastest growing occupations in the United States. This resource compares computing to other occupations on quality of life issues such as pay, educational requirements, and work hours, to assist young women and their advisors in deciding whether computing is right for them.
Stereotype threat harms both performance and motivation by reducing our feelings of competence, belonging, and trust in our colleagues. However, careful thought, education, and regular assessment of diversity practices can help minimize incidents of stereotype threat.
Encouragement increases self-efficacy, which is the belief in one’s ability to successfully perform a task. Because we are more likely to engage in tasks that we believe we can perform successfully, encouragement may be especially useful for attracting women to male-stereotyped fields such as computing.
This article demonstrates the importance of paying attention to youth sexualities in efforts to increase girls’ participation in computing. It illustrates significant ways sexuality may be thwarting our efforts to increase girls’ participation in technology and how we might improve these efforts. In addition, it highlights how we might use girls’ interest in sexuality as a potentially powerful resource for fostering their interest in computing.
Making curricula more relevant to students, introducing collaborative learning into the classroom, and tailoring courses to different student experience levels benefit female as well as male students.
Latinas & Tecnología de la Información is a Spanish-language website for inspiring young Hispanic women, or Latinas, to pursue technology. The website, containing both English-language and Spanish-language resources, provides:
Use the e-Textiles-in-a-Box tutorial and get ready to teach young people about electronics and computing. Based on the Computational Textiles Curriculum and Sew Electric from MIT, e-Textiles-in-a-Box provides instructions for sewing soft circuits and programming an Arduino microprocessor on the way to creating a bookmark book light and an interactive felt monster that lights up and sings. NCWIT is pleased to offer e-Textiles-in-a-Box in cooperation with the MIT High-Low Tech Group, and with funding from the National Science Foundation.
Effective feedback gives students information they actually use to increase their learning and improve their performance. It should employ a "growth mindset" that focuses on developing intelligence through effort, practice, and "wise feedback" that spurs additional effort.
These tips will help you to engage students in your computing courses and retain them in the major. These ideas and examples are drawn from theory and research conducted by social scientists who study issues related to diversity and retention in computing. Methods range from encouraging words to inclusive classroom environments.
The NCWIT Scorecard shows trends in girls' and women's participation in computing in the U.S. over time, providing a benchmark for measuring progress and identifying areas for improvement.
