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Why do the girls/women drop out?
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First, focus group participants reported that computer literacy corresponds to success in Academy retention, and some instructors indicated that female students generally begin the Program with fewer computer skills. To see more on this topic, go to the Carnegie Mellon Project on Gender and Computer Science and Techo-Quarterly's "No Girls Allowed" and archives of the National Science Foundation's on-line conference on Women in the IT Workforce http://www.cise.nsf.gov/itwomen.html
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Do male students really to better than female students in IT classes?
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Second, most focus group participants agreed that female students are intimidated by male students and this contributes to low retention.
- The willingness of male students to "jump in" left the female students feeling that they weren't getting it and never would. One teacher described her female students as being "surprised" when she showed them the grade book -- their grades were as good as those of the guys. Several other instructors chimed in with similar stories where women thought the men were doing better but they weren't really;
- Male students tend to dominate in the classroom and lab since they are so willing to "jump in." One female instructor described her own experience with a male colleague as a student in an Academy Training Program for instructors. "John, I said, I need some keyboard time, I need to learn this." She ruminated that if she had difficulty getting time with the computer equipment she could imagine how hard it was for her female students who were grouped with males;
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Instructor after instructor described what this instructor voiced, "Many female students already think they won't do as well as the men, many believe that men are intrinsically better." One high school instructor had students tell him, "We are girls, we don't know this stuff;"
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Some male students send a message to female students that networking isn't for them. One instructor overheard a male student telling a female student that "if crawling around rafters isn't for you there's no place for you in networking." "That's ridiculous" said the instructor, "there are plenty of other types of networking jobs."
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What advantages are there to girls with good computer skills?
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Females with excellent computer skills are confident: A best practice site and a focus group participant that had female students with a high level of math and science attainment reported that the female students were highly confident in the Academy classroom and the lab and were not intimidated by the male students. They attributed this to the female's excellent educational background and skill in computer use.
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What should be done to teach students computer skills prior to enrollment in an Academy?
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Academies should work with high schools, community colleges, and community-based organizations to ensure computer literacy and technology foundation courses are available to students in need of them prior to their enrollment in the Academy. Entry into an Academy should be viewed as a continuum with different starting points based on a student's skills. This would enable students who are not computer literate -- disproportionately women and minorities -- to bring their skill and confidence level up prior to the fast-paced Academy program and thus increase their probability of success. See Focus Hope, Petit Jean College, Northwest College and Lakewood High School and Focus Group Report. Cisco Learning Institute's IT Fundamentals that is currently being piloted is one avenue for this http://elearning.asu.edu/
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Should students be taught basic computer skills in Academies?
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Academies that have female and/or male students with less tech skills/background should incorporate basic computer use into the first six weeks of their classes and provide additional open lab time for students who need it. Several best practice sites have been successful retaining students with almost no computer skills by using these methods. See Petit Jean College, Alverno College, Ohlone College, Franklin High School, United Tribes Technical College.
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What can teachers do to ensure that male students do not dominate use of the computers in the classroom?
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Instructors should pay attention to group process in their classrooms and ensure that female students receive equal time using the computer equipment. Some techniques for this include: pairing female students with each other in the beginning of the school semester until they are feeling more comfortable with the curriculum; encouraging collaborative learning; and ensuring "whiz" kids don't dominate the classroom. See Focus Group Report, Alverno College and Franklin High School.
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Is collaborative group learning and contextual learning effective?
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Instructors should use collaborative group learning and contextual hands-on methods to increase the likelihood of success of female students. A review of the literature http://www.iwitts.com/Biblio.PDF, the empirical experience of several of the best practice sites, and focus group findings suggest that female and male technology students have different learning styles. Female students do best when they understand the practical context of what they are learning, from the start, and they prefer to work in collaborative groups. See Hagerman Academy, Franklin High School, United Tribes Technical College and Focus Group Report.
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How can I boost self-confidence in female students?
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Bring in female role models to help boost the self-confidence of female students who are predisposed to believing that women aren't as good at networking as men. See Focus: Hope School and Ohlone College School.
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What can be done to help females feel comfortable learning IT in what is mostly a male-dominated environment?
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Increase the number of female instructors and student assistants since female students are often more comfortable asking questions of other women in the male-dominated world of networking. See Ohlone College and the Focus Group Report.
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How can I connect female students to each other?
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Provide forums for female students to connect with each other such as an Academy Women's Club in real time or on-line via a listserv or other form of on-line community. See AcademyGirlTalk, a listserv for female Academy students and IWITTS's WomenTech Message board. See the Women in Technology Club of the Community College of Rhode Island. See http://www.mentorgirls.org for information on how to mentor girls.
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How can I encourage female students to continue their education in IT?
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Connect female students to the many on-line and off-line female role models in information technology. See the Gender Initiative's Role Models and IWITTS's www.womentechworld.org and links to women and technology organizations at http://www.womentechworld.org/links.htm
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How can classroom interaction be improved?
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Academies should provide training to instructors on classroom interaction and group process for female students in the male-dominated classroom. While some instructors instinctually are good at this, not all are, but this is a skill that can be learned. The Cisco Learning Institute, in collaboration with the Academy for Educational Development, has developed a Gender Module to be incorporated into the Cisco Networking Academy Program instructor training. Academy Program instructors can access this, as well as the Placeware presentation conducted by IWITTS, through CNAMS.
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Where can teachers find useful information to help introduce women to math and IT?
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Making Math and Technology Courses User Friendly to Women and Minorities: An Annotated Bibliography ``Making Community College Math and Technology Courses User Friendly to Women and Minorities: An Annotated Bibliography." (8-pages) with hot-links to Web sites that contains information about both off-the-shelf math and pre-technology curriculums and key pieces of literature in this area. The bibliography can be found on the IWITTS Web site at http://www.iwitts.com/Biblio.PDF. This bibliography was used by IWITTS's WomenTech sites to inform changes in current courses and development of a new course -- "TechReady."
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