leading girls into ict: increasing female participation at somerset college (v.2)
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Increasing female ICT participation at Somerset College
Elke SchneiderDigital Technologies TeacherSomerset College@elketeaches
Lisa ThomsonDean of Information TechnologiesSomerset College
ACER EPPC 2017 Presentationhttps://elketeaches.wordpress.com/presentations/eppc
ICT Professionals are listed on the 2016 Australian Skills Shortage List. Recruitment difficulties
Increasing the need for Australian businesses to offshore and hire international ICT Professionals
2/3 of new jobs relate to computing (not just ICT Professionals)
70% of jobs will be impacted by automation (FYA, 2015)
>50% Australians need Digital Literacy skills in their jobs (use, configure or build digital systems) (FYA, 2015)
Australian Digital Technologies Curriculum is focused to prepare our youth for this future of work
“Resistance to diversity and inclusion is stifling innovation and creativity, and this inertia is debilitating our leaders and their visions of our technology futures.” (Me Program, 2016)
National economic growth Gender equality Improving future employment opportunities for
women
There is a severe gender imbalance in female ICT participation at school, University and in the Industry
Female participation in University Computer Science has steadily decreased since the mid 80’s (Zagami, Boden, Keane, Moreton, & Schulz, 2015)
▪ 37% peak in the mid 80’s; 18.8% in 2014
Female participation in Senior High School Computing Subjects is also declining rapidly
84% of purchasing decisions are made by women (Chadwell, 2017)
Women are 34% more likely to purchase within apps(Shaul, 2016)
47% of video game players are female (Brand & Todhunter, 2015)
Only 19% of employees in the Australian Video Game Development industry are female (IGEA, 2016)
Tracy Chou’s public Google Spreadsheet included data from 84 tech companies. (Chou, n.d.)
Results: approx. 12% women software engineers
Our young women often believe the stereotypes ‘Computers are for boys, nerds
and geeks’ It’s hard to argue that these
stereotypes are FALSE when the IT Industry clearly has a gender imbalance▪ Dealing with sexism in the
workplace is a real threat, especially in a male-dominated environment. I have personally experienced this in the IT industry and as an ICT educator.
Culturally prescribed gender stereotypes are deeply embedded socially at a young age It is especially difficult to be
seen as socially different during adolescence when young girls typically just want to ‘fit-in’
Girls’ initial ICT beliefs reduces their motivation to pursue study in ICT
Daughter learns how to solder and program a home-built drone. Men can actively help
change social stereotypes.
Ethics of Care approach I view care and relationships as a fundamental
aspect of education.
This takes time & energy but the result is always positive!
This approach tends to easily align with:▪ A student-centred approach by understanding the
needs of students and empowering them to learn and make decisions about their own learning
▪ A cyclical focus on feedback and improvement.
I am a woman in technology and I love it! Fun, energetic, smart,
curious, sharing and caring
I promote this in the classroom, at breaks, on camp, to parents, and to my professional learning network (PLN)
I network with women in the IT industry and connect them with my students
All girl ICT and Entrepreneurial competition Design & develop an app to help their community Collaborative; creative; teamwork; social; fun! Weekly access to female mentor role-models that
work in the IT industry (eg. Suncorp, TechnologyOne & Vodafone)
The girls realised that ICT is a people-oriented profession. They learned that ICT can be used to help people and their community.
This image is of a Skype meeting with one Tech Girl group and their TechnologyOne mentor:• The girls asked their mentor about why she
wanted to work in the ICT industry. They also asked her about her family.
• Their mentor gave the teams excellent tips & app examples
• She has also encouraged them all to use Slack• All the teams think this mentor is “awesome”
& “cool” because she is funny, smart and also won the recent AngelHack event in Brisbane
http://angelhack.com/angelhack-global-hackathon-series-brisbane/
Tech Girls are excited when they connect with a female ICT industry mentor
They can ask their mentor about their work and friends.
A great opportunity for girls to see that working in the ICT field can be fun and very rewarding.
Each mentor brings a wealth of expertise and insight into current technology trends and business.
Promote the benefits of ICT, especially girls’ participation in ICT Tell students about what they will learning in the ICT
subject. Take the time to let them know that it’s fun, creative and collaborative learning.
Tell parents Make sure the whole-school is aware of what’s going on in
the ICT subjects Submit articles to the school’s newsletter and include
great photos Use social media (blog, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn,
Facebook) to promote and share what you are doing. This is also a great way to network with ICT professionals and other ICT educators; you’ll also gain helpful advise and resources.
Quantitative result: students may elect the 9IT two-year subject at the end of Year 8 The total number of students electing 9IT almost doubled and
the percentage of girls participating increased
Qualitative result: girls have reported that using, learning and creating digital technologies is ‘fun’ and ‘interesting’.
There was also an overwhelming interest from girls wanting to participate in the Tech Girls are Superheroes 2017 competition
Year Total Students # of girls % of girls
2016 22 2 9%
2017 41 16 39%
1. How & why students use digital technologies
2. How & why businesses and employees use digital technologies
3. Current digital technology tools and uses
4. The Australian ICT Capability and Digital Technologies curriculum
Do you really know what authentic ICT learning means? ICT Teachers will find it difficult to develop authentic learning experiences if they don’t know:
Some schools still have “old” and “boring” ICT subjects. Why?
Not enough time, not enough PD, not enough care!
I have redeveloped the Years 9 & 10 IT subjects & parts of Senior ITS
Great ICT teaching is not like playing PokémonGO; you can’t do it all on your own!
Professional Development that improves teachers’ digital pedagogy practice cannot be a one-off event. Time & money must be invested.
It has to be differentiated and specific to the needs of the individual teacher
Ideally, all teachers should have access to a skilled Digital Pedagogy Coach/Mentor
▪ These types of roles are becoming more common
Time needs to be allocated for teachers to work on updating ICT subjects.▪ We’re exhausted already! Don’t expect us to magically
update subjects to be fun, engaging, current, aligned to the curriculum and authentic, without giving us some extra time to do it right.
We all have unconscious bias and we use stereotypes all the time
People’s views and unconscious bias are often formed early in life through socially prescribed stereotypes
Unconscious bias is reinforced by our experiences and our environment
GitHub study about women coders highlights bias
The study suggests that women are more competent coders overall, but ONLY when they hide their gender (Terrell et al., 2017)
Schools should run unconscious bias awareness training
One-time training doesn’t work!
Real success comes from training that is run over a period of time and requires that the individual starts to identify their own bias and actively learns to change their personal viewpoints
This training is common in large organisations
1. Ensure collective understanding of the moral imperative
2. Understand what the research says around girls and ICT
3. Understand via the research why Tech Girls is a success
4. Whole school action both in and beyond the classroom and across all ages on how to implement the lessons from Tech Girls
5. Measure and track the success of our initiatives
What is the current research saying.
Girls socialise more frequently via social media whereas boys via games.
But girls game - not just on mobiles but a range of platforms.
Girls game – but more often alone, without chat, offline.
They game They often don’t know anyone
who works in IT Some in 2016 Tech Girls did have
female role models in IT They want to succeed They enjoy working
collaboratively and with friends They use technology as
consumers more than boys They are articulate about what
they do They enjoy the multi-faceted
side of Tech Girls – everyone contributes their strengths
They enjoy the supportive environment of Tech Girls and find it fun
IRIS study: A report prepared for Australia’s Chief Scientist from first year university STEM students.
Outcomes – Only 1% had been involved in a “Girls
in STEM program” Over 80% of the females who had
been involved rated as having been encouraging or very encouraging in their decisions to take a STEM course.
Girls reported lower self-efficacy in STEM subjects but felt the above was helpful in addressing.
Recommendation from report –sustainable programmes, industry links, and in place before Year 11 and 12 subject selection.
Students identified strategies: encouragement in different
forms
targeted programs for girls
addressing cultural stereotypes around doing ICTs
female role models at all levels
gender inclusive promotion of subjects and their outlines
information about future careers
UK study: 60 percent of 12-year-old girls believe that ICT and STEM subjects are too difficult to learn
Same study: girls perceive ICT as a subject as boring
Yet - recent UK survey shows IT is new favourite subject for 6-12 year olds.
How do we keep the subject relevant for girls from 12-15 years of age?
Critical juncture is the middle years.
We have had to acknowledge this and that there is a moral imperative to move forward with sustainable change.
There are many different factors. We need programmes and units
that involve active learning and disrupt the traditional narrative.
Girls want to be creative, social, are natural “makers” and passionate about social justice issues.
We need to encourage risk, and “doing”, which doesn’t always mean perfection.
Our Ration After Intervention
Our Ratio Before Intervention
Entrepreneurial Collaborative and social Creative Multi-faceted Focus on a real problem in
society/social justice Girls as powerful agents of
change Safe and girl only
environment for new narrative
Self-efficacy cycle
Self concept of ability and self-efficacy has direct correlation to further studies in ICT and consideration as career choice.
Need opportunities to address.
Performance in subject and self-concept/self-efficacy can be different – it is about perception and confidence.
Our Tech Girls from 2016 talked about the increased confidence that Tech Girls
gave them in IT.
Not enough for girls “to do” ICT in girls only environment – need to mainstream within our context.
Future in a knowledge economy needs computational thinking and 21st century skills
Our programs must value producing with ICT over consuming ICTs
Our programs need to position learners to see themselves as explorers and producers.
Key Questions - How do we ensure girls are positioned to see
themselves as producers of ICT? How do we ensure that our practice is
genuinely inclusive?
Focus is on creating solutions and ways of thinking.
Provides impetus for widespread changes across all year levels
Has been important to take lessons from Tech Girls and research into mainstream classes.
Review and rewrite of subject from Pre-Prep to Year 12 needed to consider girls proactively –design for all genders.
Important to reference practical, relevant and exciting applications that appeal to both girls and boys
Inclusive pedagogy is needed in mainstream, not just in Tech Girls
Girls learn by “doing” in a safe, low-risk environment.
Girls need to be encouraged to not always need to be perfect.
Girls need to be encouraged to take risks and share
Ensuring it starts young Focus on pedagogy and soft
skills, not just discipline content In a revitalisation of subject area
across all year levels - Using Ozobots and Ozocodes (Year
2 unit involves colouring with ozocode to code.)
Create units that include “making”(Year 3 Ozobot costume design
in game making unit.) Create units that focus on social
justice (e.g. new unit with Year 5 PYP Exhibition).
Ensure opportunity for projects to reflect personal interests (Year 6 Coding unit).
Existing ICT Clubs Senior School Robotics Club –
all boys Year 4 Coding Clubs – 1:4 ratio
girls:boys 2 newly offered Year 6 Clubs
Making with IT Coding Club
Offer makerspace one off sessions
“Ada Lovelace Day Breakfast” – multi-age girls in STEM events with women working in IT in College plus guest speakers also.
Year 8 becomes a critical juncture with electives in Year 9.
Research shows girls’ subject choices influenced by their hierarchy of interests self-concept of ability self-efficacy beliefs relating to ICT the influence of parents friends also doing the subject
We need to promote women in STEM in as many ways as possible to all stakeholders.
We need to provide access to female role models in IT.
We need to provide quality information on ICT careers
Tech Girls has positive influence in all areas and targets Year 8 students.
Our students when surveyed on what are the top influences in choosing a
subject.
We need to promote women in STEM in as many ways as possible to all stakeholders
Seek to normalise women in IT (50% of our IT Team are female, 57% of our IT teachers are female)
We need to provide access to female role models in IT.
We need to provide quality information on ICT careers
Academically high-performing friends has a large impact
Within same-sex friendships, the narrative of girls in STEM subjects changes
Personal relationships where there is proficiency in ICTs has a strong effect on girls selecting ICT
Our Tech Girls developed friendships within and in 2017, they “reached back” and brought their friends in.
Our Tech Girls identified that one of the best thing about Tech Girls was working
with your friends.
Tendencies of female friendships -more intimate, affectionate, supportive, encouraging, and concerned with identity
Provide opportunities for girls to develop their positive self-concept of ability in a social setting
Create a social context for girls to “lean in” and “reach back” – industry mentors vital part of the success
Relationships matter – build them Make females in IT visible and
approachable (e.g. one of our female IT Tech Support Assistants referees netball for school sport, I teach Year 2 ICT)
Seek to normalise women in IT (50% of our IT Team are female, 57% of our IT teachers are female)
Give credibility and status through traditional and non-traditional means. Email to students to
participate in surveys Newsletters and social
media Presentations at Assembly Promotional videos Host lunches and functions Others provide support in
different forms and visit Acknowledge roles of
female mentors
We need to keep tracking success of initiatives
Initial survey conducted, along with interviews
We need to continue to review our programs and school culture
The best time is now to increase female participation in ICT
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