ACER EPPC 2017 Presentation

1. Increasing female ICT participation at Somerset College
Elke Schneider
DigitalTechnologiesTeacher
Somerset College
@elketeaches
LisaThomson
Dean of InformationTechnologies
Somerset College
ACER EPPC 2017 Presentation
https://elketeaches.wordpress.com/presentations/eppc

2.  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 DigitalTechnologies Curriculum is focused to
prepare our youth for this future of work

3.  “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

4.  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

5.  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 AustralianVideo
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

6.  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.

8.  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.

9.  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.

10.  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

11.  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.

12. This image is of a Skype meeting with oneTech
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.

13.  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.

14.  Quantitative result: students may elect the 9IT two-year
subject at the end ofYear 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 theTech Girls are Superheroes 2017 competition
Year Total Students # of girls % of girls
2016 22 2 9%
2017 41 16 39%

15. 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?
ICTTeachers will find it difficult to develop authentic
learning experiences if they don’t know:

16.  Some schools still have “old” and
“boring” ICT subjects.Why?
 Not enough time, not enough PD, not
enough care!
 I have redeveloped theYears 9 & 10 IT
subjects & parts of Senior ITS

17. 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.

18.  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)

19. 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

20. 1. Ensure collective
understanding of the moral
imperative
2. Understand what the research
says around girls and ICT
3. Understand via the research
whyTech 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

22.  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.

23.  They game
 They often don’t know anyone
who works in IT
 Some in 2016Tech 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 ofTech Girls – everyone
contributes their strengths
 They enjoy the supportive
environment ofTech Girls and
find it fun

24.  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 beforeYear 11 and
12 subject selection.

25.  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

26.  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.

27.  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

28.  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

29.  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.
OurTech Girls from 2016 talked about
the increased confidence thatTech Girls
gave them in IT.

30.  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?

31.  Focus is on creating solutions and
ways of thinking.
 Provides impetus for widespread
changes across all year levels
 Has been important to take
lessons fromTech Girls and
research into mainstream classes.
 Review and rewrite of subject
from Pre-Prep toYear 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

32.  Inclusive pedagogy is
needed in mainstream,
not just inTech 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

33.  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 withYear 5
PYP Exhibition).
 Ensure opportunity for projects to
reflect personal interests (Year 6
Coding unit).

34.  Existing ICT Clubs
 Senior School Robotics Club –
all boys
 Year 4 Coding Clubs – 1:4 ratio
girls:boys
 2 newly offeredYear 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.

35.  Year 8 becomes a critical juncture
with electives inYear 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 targetsYear 8 students.
Our students when surveyed on what
are the top influences in choosing a
subject.

36.  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 ITTeam
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

37.  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
 OurTech Girls developed
friendships within and in 2017,
they “reached back” and
brought their friends in.
OurTech Girls identified that one of the
best thing aboutTech Girls was working
with your friends.

38.  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
ITTech Support Assistants referees
netball for school sport, I teachYear
2 ICT)
 Seek to normalise women in IT (50%
of our ITTeam are female, 57% of
our IT teachers are female)

39.  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

40.  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