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