Curriculum
A technology curriculum that appeals to female interests improves retention of women and girls. Also see Learning Style for more articles that could be used to develop an effective and female-friendly curriculum.
In a survey of Maui County High Schools, females were twice as likely as males to indicate that they didn't think they were good at science. Read about how the young women felt about making science relevant to their lives and learning about jobs in technology.
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Maui Economic Development Board, "The Maui County High School Technology Survey", Jan. 2001. The Women in Technology Project is administered by the Maui Economic Development Board and funded in part by the U.S. Department of Labor. |
This article finds that women prefer engineering in a total context, including social and environmental issues as well as purely technical matters. Learn how to design a curriculum that fits with women's learning styles.
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Armstrong, J. and G. Leder, "Engineering education: how to design a gender-inclusive curriculum," Proceedings of the International Congress of Engineering Deans and Industry Leaders, Melbourne, July 1995, pp. 292-297. |
Increase the number of female students in technology classes by introducing projects that appeal to women. Find out how one school in Massachusetts changed their design activities from robotic arms and sumo cars to handicapped ramps for local buildings.
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Gralinski, Thomas, and Janis P. Terpenny. "K-12 and University Collaboration: A Vehicle to Improve Curriculum and Female Enrollment in Engineering and Technology," Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition (2003), American Society for Engineering Education. |
A study of more than 12,000 high school students calls for increasing the emphasis on hands-on instruction and lab work -- critically important for all science students, particularly girls.
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Burkam, David, Valerie Lee, Becky Smerdon, "Gender and Science Learning Early in High School: Subject Matter and Laboratory Experiences," American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), 297-331. Copyright 1997 by the American Educational Research Association. Reproduced with permission of the publisher. |
Answer the question on many women's minds: What does my academic work have to do with the real world? These activities put engineering in a larger context and keep students engaged.
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Diefes-Dux, Heidi, Deborah Follman, P.K. Imbrie, Judith Zawojewski, Brenda Capobianco, Margret Hjalmarson, "Model Eliciting Activities: An In-class Approach to Improving Interest and Persistence of Women in Engineering," Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition, 2004. |
The WomenTech Educators Training got us thinking intentionally about who we were going to target for outreach, how we were going to target them, and how we would follow up to make sure we had actual results linked to the different programs and events that we were holding. Since then, it has grown organically and blossomed into something that our college just does naturally.
I think getting together as a team with intention—because we're all so busy—and developing a written plan that we could stick to was what made all the difference. I don’t think we would have ever done that if it wasn't for the WomenTech Educators Training.