Thank you for posting this @Chris_Mause! Making STEM, CS, and robotics more accessible and appealing to girls is a bit of a passion project for me. Apologies in advance, this turned into a longer post than I intended, but I hope that some of the resources and the info is helpful. Please let me know if you have any feedback, questions, or additional thoughts!
First off, I can’t agree more with the feedback shared by @Audra_Selkowitz, @Aimee_DeFoe, and @AlainaHaws. I want to reinforce the importance of incorporating SEL strategies in the design and facilitation of lessons or informal 'club" sessions as key to help students work through challenges and develop an identity as a STEM or robotics learner.
Like you, I would see girls hang back at a certain point in my classroom, as their male peers would take over the tools or the tech and skyrocket deeper into the experimentation and learning. Here are a couple (research-based) strategies and resources that I used to address this issue in my classroom.
Make it Visible - There is a Strong Community of Girls and Women in STEM
Create an environment where girls see other girls and women in STEM with media and even visits or discussions with women who are active in STEM, CS and robotics. Provide a rich environment for your girls to see others like them in STEM spaces (like in @AlainaHaws’s Science Club). Here are a few resources that I recommend:
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Books: The Adventures of Women in Tech: How We Got Here and Why We Stay (this is written for adults, but accessible for MS and HS students, especially if they focus on a story at at time), and In Real Life (a graphic novel by a teen author about gaming)
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Posters: Nidhi Kulkarni and Erin Parker (Co-founders of Spitfire Athlete), and Malala Yousafzai
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Videos: Miral Kotb playlist (Artist / Coder), and [Made with Code - EPA Chica Squad] (Made with Code - EPA Chica Squad - YouTube) (a group of young latinx students who develop an app to address pollution in their neighborhood)
Teach How to Find Information
An absolutely essential part of working with all students, but especially girls, is to actually provide guidance (scaffolding) for how to find information for when they have a question. And as a follow up to that, encourage them to share that information with their peers. Providing girls with the tools to answer questions and solve problems on their own promotes agency and gives them the tools to work at their own pace, alone or with a group. Creating routines and opportunities for students to share these resources promotes a constructive community around learning. (And as shared by Alaina, having a community of peers that shares an interest and skillset can influence retention of girls participation in STEM, CS, and robotics.)
In VEXcode we have tutorials, the help feature, and example project that students can experiment with and use a starting point for their code, built right in so they can find information quickly. I would love to know if you have any additional resources to share to help students find information as they are building and coding their robots!
Develop a Growth Mindset Through Discussions and Trust-Building
One strategy I used to keep my girls active was to engage them in the design and development process by facilitating discussions with them as they worked. Through discussions I was able to give immediate feedback and use process-oriented questions to provide an opportunity for them to share their thinking. Over a very short amount of time, it would enhance their confidence and agency in the learning process. I would ask questions about their thinking as they worked, and point out specific ways that they were solving problems effectively and uniquely whenever possible. I would also ask them to identify, in their own terms, how they want to improve and develop their projects — basically putting them in the driver’s seat to drive the evolution of their projects.
With the focused attention through dialogue and probing (and relationship building), they would start to see the design process and its many challenges as a puzzle that is fun to solve, instead of feeling like they were failing when something didn’t work as expected. I found that through our discussions we were able to normalize the “failing” part of the design process, and we even coined the phrase “fail fast and fail hard” as part of our development process.
Facilitating these discussions led to students trusting themselves, developing their sense of inquiry, and was an incredible motivator that helped all my students (especially the girls) develop a growth mindset and agency over their learning. And, I watched as their confidence, interest, and self-efficacy blossomed.
There are a couple articles in the STEM Library that provide great discussion prompts that you can use with students as they build and code their robots.
- Facilitating Coding Conversations with Students
- Facilitating Engineering Conversations with Students
I hope these resources and strategies are helpful. Please share any additional resources and ideas that you have for engaging and retaining girls in your teaching environment. I can’t wait to hear from you!
