Rebooting Recruiting to Get More Women in Computer Science: Chronicle
October 31, 2012 at 9:36 am 5 comments
A nice piece (with interviews with Barbara Ericson, Jeff Gray, Dan Garcia, and Maureen Biggers) on getting more women into computing. I like that the story reflects current thinking and research on best practices for drawing more women into computing. For example, we used to think that having more female professors was critical to provide role models. But Joanne Cohoon’s work showed us that male professors can motivate women to consider graduate work in computing as well as female professors.
Experts on the gender gap in computer science have increasingly come to believe that a multipronged strategy is needed to close it. The tactics would include the following:
- More-diverse programming activities, to seize the interest of middle-school girls, in the same way that role-playing video games are embraced by boys.
- A revamped introductory course, whether taken in college or as an Advanced Placement course in high school, to provide a broad overview of the real-world applications of computer science.
- Early exposure to research projects during the first year of college. (Ms. Lamm was paired with her mentor, Mr. Gray, during her first month at Alabama.)
- Opportunities for undergraduates to interact with women who have enjoyed successful careers in technology.
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: BPC, CS10K, CS:Principles, NCWIT, NSF, women in computing.
Computing Ed Research - Guzdial's Take 
1.
rdm | October 31, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Personally, I feel that “getting more women” should take back seat to “building up those we already have”.
Why should we be trying to attract people that are going to earn 30% less than an average worker? Is this fair to them? What other obstacles of respect or fairness have been interfering with the smart women being attracted to our profession?
I am uncomfortable with the idea of trying to attract people that we routinely treat unfairly, and I think that if we fixed the real problem our work would be more attractive to them..
2.
Misunderstanding MOOCs and Computing Labor Shortage: Andy Kessler of WSJ.com | Computing Education Blog | June 17, 2013 at 1:42 am
[…] we draw in women and under-represented minorities, we can’t close the jobs-graduates gap. We have to change how we teach to draw more women and under-represented minorities, and MOOCs don’t teach that […]
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jaknarysowac | July 4, 2014 at 11:43 am
Reblogged this on Insegnare ai bambini and commented:
Xperts sul divario di genere nella scienza del computer sono sempre più a credere che una strategia multipronged è necessaria per chiuderla. La tattica dovrebbe includere i seguenti:
Attività di programmazione More-diversi, a cogliere l’interesse delle ragazze delle scuole medie, allo stesso modo che i videogiochi di ruolo sono abbracciati dai ragazzi.
Un corso introduttivo rinnovato, siano essi compiuti in un college o in un corso di Advanced Placement al liceo, per fornire un’ampia panoramica delle applicazioni del mondo reale della computer science.
Esposizione precoce ai progetti di ricerca durante il primo anno di università. (Ms. Lamm è stato accoppiato con il suo mentore, il signor Gray, durante il suo primo mese in Alabama.)
Opportunità per studenti di interagire con le donne che hanno goduto di una carriera di successo nella tecnologia.
4.
Using socially meaningful work to attract female engineers: Part of the solution | Computing Education Blog | June 26, 2015 at 7:29 am
[…] have evidence that women are more likely to pursue studies in computer science if encouraged (see Joanne Cohoon’s work) and if they feel a sense of “belonging” with the department (see our work in Georgia). […]
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Discussing the film “Code: Debugging the Gender Gap” | Computing Education Blog | April 28, 2017 at 7:01 am
[…] movie talk about the importance of providing “role models” to women in computing. The work of researchers like the late (and great) Joanne Cohoon show that role models aren’t as big a deal as we might think. Here’s a thought […]