Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST

[Cynette]

Originally Posted by sammyjalex

Let's bring up what might be a sore subject.

A number of studies http://advances.asee.org/wp-content/...ssue02-p11.pdf show through qualitative survey and observation that girls demonstrate more consistently positive attitudes toward science and technology when applications demonstrate the social value of the field - the fight against disease, geriatric care, managing natural disasters, or modifying the food we eat. The reasoning is consistently used to discuss the rising numbers of women in biology, environmental science, and even biomedical engineering as opposed to the stagnantly low numbers in physics, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, etc. More recently, we are seeing computer science join the former category.

The example sees girls demonstrate more confidence and more positive attitudes than boys and even draws upon a handful of quantitative measures through which a sample of girls outperform boys.

This is fascinating! And makes sense! It would make the model for FLL perfect for attracting girls into STEM and FRC not as attractive for retaining them. Having this information could change the way we recruit young women. It never would have crossed my mind to highlight the altruistic aspects of FIRST as a hook and make the team support. technology introduction and even the enticement of scholarships a secondary benefit!

[tcjinaz]

Yes, FLL has come up with some socially interesting challenges that are effective in gender-neutral recruiting. They seem to have boiled down to a robot running around doing something that fit into an appealing story about doing good.

So, now, many high-end (and the capability is quickly moving down market) automobiles can detect, warn and even effectively react to and avoid collision hazards. What is more socially responsible than preventing accidents? That technology has been lying around FRC for years. Such things should be part of the appeal of FRC to the students, independent of gender

Perhaps FRC should not be a contact sport, but an avoid contact sport? Rig the bumpers, or no bumpers at all, with sensors that detect and report contact, and a scoring system that penalizes it? This end the inane arguments about the necessity of physical defense in the game (and the libelous assertions that any active (monetary) support of a pure offensive approach is heresy, and must be shouted down); true defense, as in the real business world, will be technology, finesse, influence and adaptability, not "my 6 CIM and n-speed gearbox will kick you your 4-CIM and n+1 speed gearbox around the field all day and into next week." The skills female humans exceed males at are "finesse, influence and adaptability." Let's reinforce the skills that are truly useful in life; muscular physical prowess is not something that counts in most commercial free markets or a corporate boardrooms. A lot of the aggression is necessary, some is required. Eviserating you opponent is not. Careful assessment of the player's motivations, and the ability to craft solutions where most of the parties involved win something near what they want, is what makes society better.

[JuliaGreen]

The Killer Bees have had a team of 50% male and 50% female for the last three years. Here is what we do:

1. Recruit from FLL. These students already know FIRST and the fun of challenges and competitions.

2. Recruit students who were not in FLL. Some of these students have deep experience in how things work and they may have been in another program in middle school (Destination Imagination, VEX, other robotics programs, Science Olympiad, etc.)

3. Sell the program to the parents. The reality is that we need the parents to drive their students to and from meetings for about 2 years. If the parents are sold, then the students will be too. Some things we make sure the parents know about include the money for scholarships, the internships available to high school students, the skill development, the real-world applications of math and science, the reference letters our mentors will write for the students, the sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself, the list goes on. And we work with the parents of our student leaders to make sure they know what the time commitment is.

4. We have the students go recruit other students. The students arrange to demonstrate the robot during lunch periods, during the freshmen "meet and greet", during the last few days of the school year at the middle school and any other school event we can get to with the students and the robot. This has been our "secret sauce" in getting more girls to join the team. We send our current team members (girls and boys) and they go talk to their peer groups and the peer groups that are several years younger.

5. We do demonsrations in our community. When we are at an event, our students talk to everybody. "What high school do you think you will go to? School ABC? That's great - they are Team number xyz and their website is at .....com. You should make sure to contact them. "

Once we have them recruited, this is how we retain them:

Team selection: We initially prioritize selecting freshmen and sophomores for the team. This way, we have a chance to teach them over multiple years and we get a chance to know them well. Sometimes, we will have students apply to the team as juniors/seniors - and by then, we need these upperclassmen to be experts. We view this as a 4 year experience.

At our initial meetings, we throw everyone out of the CAD/software/media rooms and put them in the shop. We have the upperclassmen show the NewBees how to make a bracket. In fact, we call them "Freshmen Brackets". Some of these brackets end up on the robot. In 2014, every student made a part for the robot. All 42 of them. Even the "Chairman's"/PR team.

During their initial year on the team, we don't assign students to a subteam. We used to do this and when we did exit interviews with the students, we have been told that "You put me on the electrical team and I hated it. I wanted to program". We have an open structure where the team leads can have any number of students help them with a project or task and those students learn skills and concepts they might not have had a chance to learn before. This way, students learn across the spectrum - electrical, mechanical, machining, programming etc. We strongly believe in having students teach other students. If you teach it, you know it. And we do this year-round. Student are expected to participate in all 4 seasons (Fall - Pre Season, Winter - Build, Spring - Competition, Summer - Preparation)

How does this get girls on the team and to stay on the team? Because they see that they can participate equally with any other student. We select leaders for our team who will do the best job. Because of this skill development, we have had had a 100% female drive team this year. Last year it was 33% female/66% male. In 2012, the drive team was 100% male. Next year it will be different.

Especially when the NewBees are in the shop, the mentors will make sure everyone is comfortable. Some of the machines are scary. They go out of their way to show everyone how to properly operate the machines and they may need to do this more than once. They know that if they can get the students interested in what happens in the shop, then the students are hooked on this program and will stay. When we do have students leave the team before graduation, it has been from the group of students who do not have an interest in building the robots.

During our wrap-up at the end of every meeting, every group reports on what they did. Most of the time, we make the newest Bee "stand and deliver" and the student leaders help guide them. This builds confidence in knowing what you are talking about. The team leaders make sure to give some type of positive feedback to the group in front of the rest of the team.

This is our system that we have developed over many years. It works for us.

TL; DR
Do we specifically recruit girls to our team? Yes, we do.
Do we specifically recruit boys to our team. Yes, we do.

Julia

[Renee Becker-Blau]

I'm wondering if hands-on STEM focused camps could help attract females to STEM?

POWER Camp (Preparing Outstanding Women for Engineering Roles) is a National Summer Camp hosted at IUPUI in Indianapolis. It is open to incoming 9th graders to graduating high school seniors, it costs $210 (they have scholarships) and the students have to find their own way to get to the camp (they will pick you up and drop you off at the airport).

They have had great success in getting girls interested in engineering careers and have had students from all over the US take part in the program.

As part of POWER Camp students also get to visit the Indiana Robotics Invitational (IRI) on Friday from 9:30am - 1:00pm.

They have 40 slots available and are starting to fill fast, I would love to see more FIRST students involved with the camp. PM me if you have more questions.

Information Page: http://www.engr.iupui.edu/infofor/co...power-camp.php

Application: http://www.engr.iupui.edu/infofor/co...0for%20web.pdf

[Moon2020]

Originally Posted by Littleswimmer14

I'm wondering if hands-on STEM focused camps could help attract females to STEM?

The answer is yes, if you can get them to sign up for it.

Hands-on activities are the most powerful tool to spark the interest of female students in STEM. Keeping women in STEM careers is a whole other issue.

This past December, I built toothbrush robots with about 170 female students in an engineering magnet program, telling the students that this is a lesson in creativity and design. There are no directions. That they could make their robot any way they want to make it with their kit of parts containing everything they needed. The only requirement is that it should move when they are finished. (KOP: 1 button battery, 1 pager motor, 1 toothbrush head, 1 rubber band, 2 googley eyes, 1 pipe cleaner, and hot glue.)

We went through troubleshooting the battery and motor, c.g., and the creative design process. I'm watching for who gets it on their own right away, who works as a team, who copies off their neighbor, and who doesn't try at all. While some students want to socialize with each other the entire time.

The students fill out a survey; It was the most well-liked workshop of the entire event.

[Monochron]

Over the years I have seen quite a few efforts and plans, by FIRST teams and in other areas, to include more females in STEM. I will say that the majority of them fail to address the main underlying reason why we want more girls in STEM, that is, they can bring talent and intelligence to the table.

Going after females because we "want diversity" or "need a female influence" immediately isolates girls and pigeon holes them as "bringers of diversity". I have seen countless girls scared away because they immediately hear the message "we need more girls" instead of "we need more passionate individuals". Giving them the former message immediately lets them know that they will personally be a point of focus, a loner in a sea of boys.

My point is, don't immediately refer to students by their gender. Refer to them by their mind. Instead of preaching about being inclusive, just be inclusive. Don't teach students that we need a balance of minorities, teach them that we need a balance of skills. Some girls will take the message "we need more of your gender" well and it will motivate them to join, but I would guess that the majority would be put-off by that.

[Citrus Dad]

I agree the biggest problem is keeping them. 50% of our travel squad was girls, and about 40% of the overall team, so we feel somewhat successful.

However, the girls we keep generally have a strong personality--no shrinking violets! We have lots of boys who are shy, but I can only think of 1 or 2 girls who fit that description.

I think the issue might be that teenage boys generally don't have a problem asserting themselves in a situation and grabbing all of the time and resources. (The cover story for the latest Atlantic Monthly discusses this type of issue.) We noticed this and tried to control how the boys jumped in without waiting for others to participate. This was a particular issue among our programmers. Teen girls tend to be more concerned about the social situation and to be more deferential to others. Shy boys are more willing to tolerate overly assertive boys (remember that often they are friends) while shy girls may find it too intimidating.

We are going to focus more on allowing more space and time for the girls to get comfortable. It also will be good for the boys to learn better social skills in all settings.

[Melissa McBrien]

I'm a woman in an aggressively all-male field (surgery) and the key for me was mentors. They were all men, but starting with my dad, through my calculus teacher in high school, through to my surgical preceptors, they were my support and sounding board. I have watched our male programming mentor walk one girl after another through programming autonomous, and it is inspiring to watch their confidence grow. Many ultimately choose to work on other aspects of the team, but he is often their gateway. He has a friendly, non-judgemental manner, and they aren't afraid of making a mistake or asking "dumb" questions.

Teen girls tend to be more concerned about the social situation and to be more deferential to others.

This is key. Girls may require a little pushing to speak up and take charge. Once they do, their comfort level with the team will increase exponentially. I remember sitting at rounds in the ICU while the attending physician questioned the team about a patient's condition. I knew all the answers but would whisper them to a resident who I was comfortable with. He finally told me to shout 'em out myself, and I figured out that I wasn't going to die from speaking in public, and that I actually did know something.

Don't teach students that we need a balance of minorities, teach them that we need a balance of skills.

Absolutely. I earned my education and my career - it wasn't given to me because "they needed a woman for that job". No one wants to have their efforts cheapened by that attitude.

And - as you get more girls moving forward into STEM careers, more will follow. It has happened in my field, as incoming medical students see more females in surgical specialities.

[popnbrown]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I think the issue might be that teenage boys generally don't have a problem asserting themselves in a situation and grabbing all of the time and resources.

I actually think this is a bigger issue than having a continuous program. As I've seen, a lot of girls join FRC teams but slowly drop out of the STEM aspect of FIRST. It attributes to why you see more girls do more of the business development/outreach aspects of teams. There's just a different personality that people develop when "in the shop".

From what I can tell a lot of teams that fare well with girls, also have good mentor-ship. Just like a shy or challenged student, I think for most girls it just takes more/better support or time.

We are going to focus more on allowing more space and time for the girls to get comfortable. It also will be good for the boys to learn better social skills in all settings.

^ great idea but how? Are you guys looking at starting earlier for girls or doing separate training session for them? I find it hard (not with girls) but other shy students to get them to contribute equally during full team meetings.



Another interesting thing that I've heard/would like to read more about (probably will if I remember tonight) is biological differences if there are any or whether the majority of the gender differences comes because of societal norms. It seems as though at a young age, toys are also very gender-biased with girls playing a lot of things that are creative (tea/house) and boys playing with things that seem to be more structured and work a certain way. I'm curious (and I'm sure there are studies) as to why this is. I found this TED Talk interesting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d77mMXahsME), as a mother she has an interesting perspective of having a baby boy vs. a baby girl.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by popnbrown

Another interesting thing that I've heard/would like to read more about (probably will if I remember tonight) is biological differences if there are any or whether the majority of the gender differences comes because of societal norms. It seems as though at a young age, toys are also very gender-biased with girls playing a lot of things that are creative (tea/house) and boys playing with things that seem to be more structured and work a certain way.

This section interests me. I've always thought boys' toys inspire creativity (building blocks) while girls' toys are pretty concrete (dolls). Also these toys reinforce a spatial awareness in boys and nurturing in girls.
I'm intrigued that you think the opposite. Creativity in roleplaying rather than creativity in creation.

[popnbrown]

Originally Posted by Taylor

This section interests me. I've always thought boys' toys inspire creativity (building blocks) while girls' toys are pretty concrete (dolls). Also these toys reinforce a spatial awareness in boys and nurturing in girls.
I'm intrigued that you think the opposite. Creativity in roleplaying rather than creativity in creation.

I suppose you're right. I will say, that girls still need to come up with what to do with dolls, and invent story lines or whatever else.

Perhaps the better idea to compare is how rigid the boundaries for the toys are. It seems like boys' toys (building blocks, car tracks) work a certain way, but girls' toys (dolls, tea sets) require going beyond the limitations or perhaps maybe it's the girls that go beyond the limitations rather than the toy "requiring it".

Well...one thing's for sure, there are differences in the toy sets, and I wonder if that alters things. Playing with dolls vs. cars, I can definitely see how that would change you. Dolls are more of a social toy vs. cars are more of a "engineering" (not the right word) toy.

Hmm, perhaps that's the difference I'm trying to allude to, and this is something CitrusDad mentioned about girls being more socially aware than boys.

[Jasmine Zhou]

I've hesitated to post here because I'm pretty sure I'm an edge case, or at least, not representative of any sort of majority of girls.
I wish my experience with STEM as a young girl were typical. When I was seven, I asked my dad to teach me how to talk to computers- and he tried. I wanted to be a fairy princess, then found out that engineering and science were essentially magic. I had a big sister in STEM. I had a close friend (also female) who I moved ahead in math with. And I was always, always encouraged.

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

From my team's experience, sometimes you just need a critical mass of girls. It can be extremely intimidating to be a female walking into a male-dominated team.

Yes. This is where I had an advantage my first year- I've always been somewhat socially oblivious, so I didn't quite notice. For another girl on our team, she saw it as a challenge and loved breaking expectations. But we were probably outliers, and there were others who left. Out team's better about it now, with about 30-40% of our members being female, a few female mentors, and about half of our student leadership being female.
(If you're curious, for 2014-15: captain- female; co-captain- female. Subteam leads: mechanical design- female, machining/fabrication- female, electrical- male, robot programming- female, app (scouting) programming- male, business/media- male. I'll pull out the gender ratios by subteams from 13-14 later.)
We're going into our third year with a female captain. The first year with a female captain was about the same time we reached that critical mass. I don't know which one caused the other, but I'm happy about both.

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Girls and boys grow up in very different worlds. I got experience with machines and tools early as part of just being a boy - I build birdhouses and toolboxes in cub scouts, I helped my dad replace light fixtures and run cable around the house, and had all sorts of opportunities to do such "manly stuff". The girls we get in our program don't have those opportunities.

At some point, I realized that I had already been exposed to many important lessons of FRC, though in a different medium. I'd learned to sew, knit, crochet, and spin at a young age, and had already been unconsciously using what I'd learned there: iteration, problem-solving, meticulousness, necessity of simplicity, deadlines, need to understand the lower level, design requirements, practicing, consequences, putting things back where they came from, importance of mentors, healthy respect for but not fear of power tools.
I really wish I had noticed the similarities earlier. As soon as I did, I gained a level of confidence that helped me.
It would be a good idea to reach out to the yarn/fiber/fabric communities. There are a lot of good potential students there, many of them female.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I think the issue might be that teenage boys generally don't have a problem asserting themselves in a situation and grabbing all of the time and resources. (The cover story for the latest Atlantic Monthly discusses this type of issue.) We noticed this and tried to control how the boys jumped in without waiting for others to participate. This was a particular issue among our programmers. Teen girls tend to be more concerned about the social situation and to be more deferential to others. Shy boys are more willing to tolerate overly assertive boys (remember that often they are friends) while shy girls may find it too intimidating.

(Note: Mr. McCann is one of my team's mentors.)
My first year I managed to pretend my way out of being shy, and I stayed, but I've never been quite as assertive as I needed to be. As the team captain in 2013-14, even with all the support I needed, this was a bit of a problem. I don't know if that personality quirk is because I'm a girl, but...
If I hadn't been a girl, would I have learned to always be accommodating and be a good hostess? Learned to walk a half step behind anyone who I thought of as in a position of authority, usually including anyone older or taller than me? To wait for the invitation, then for a fairy to fix my problems? To not draw attention to myself to avoid being labelled a girl?
Some of those would have happened no matter what gender I was or am. Others I'm not so sure about. The culture that little girls (including me) grow up in often doesn't help us in historically male fields.

Originally Posted by Littleswimmer14

I'm wondering if hands-on STEM focused camps could help attract females to STEM?

I don't have much experience here, but for me the answer was yes, sort of. Some made me super excited about STEM, including COSMOS (coed, one month) and Expanding Your Horizons (all female, one day) and some from our local science center. Others... well, let me just say that one reason why I'm in FRC is because I did a summer program with lego robots and I absolutely hated them.

One last thought.
If you offer me an opportunity because I'm a woman, I'll still take it. I'm going to take every opportunity that comes my way, because I know I'll need to take advantage of all of them in order to get where I want to go. If I find out that it's because of my gender... well, I'll still take it, but don't expect me to be happy about it.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by popnbrown

I actually think this is a bigger issue than having a continuous program. As I've seen, a lot of girls join FRC teams but slowly drop out of the STEM aspect of FIRST. It attributes to why you see more girls do more of the business development/outreach aspects of teams. There's just a different personality that people develop when "in the shop".

I think the important step here is to move girls into leadership roles. We'll have a female captain for the third year in a row.

Originally Posted by popnbrown

^ great idea but how? Are you guys looking at starting earlier for girls or doing separate training session for them? I find it hard (not with girls) but other shy students to get them to contribute equally during full team meetings.

The most important aspect is giving girls more time to participate and being conscientious about reaching past the first volunteer. It involves more mindfulness. It's almost making student leaders aware of taking these steps--leading by example.

[one_each]

When my oldest daughter joined the team, she was half the girls on the team. One of the male students (who is now an excellent mentor and RI) handed her a piece of wood and said, "we need this cut x by y". She didn't have a clue how to do it so he showed her how to measure and cut. The next time they needed something cut it was handed to her and she did it on her own.

Don't treat the girls any different then you treat the guys. Give everyone a chance to learn each aspect and let them gravitate to what they like. My oldest daughter is now considering a career in Engineering because of her involvement on the team.

This year our team was about 50/50 male/female and, with my youngest daughter and her friends joining next year, we may have more young women on the team then young men.

[thegnat05]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I think the important step here is to move girls into leadership roles. We'll have a female captain for the third year in a row.

The most important aspect is giving girls more time to participate and being conscientious about reaching past the first volunteer. It involves more mindfulness. It's almost making student leaders aware of taking these steps--leading by example.

I agree with this 100%. This year was my first year being an official captain and last year I really started to spread the word about robotics. This year we had 6-8 girls that showed up to meetings regularly. Last year we had 1. Having dedicated females in leadership roles that are passionate about what they do will draw more people in. I find myself constantly talking about my team as well as other teams in the community to my friends who aren't in robotics. Some of them even came to support the team at regionals and are joining next year! Having a girl as the one who would speak at meetings and outreach events around the school seemed to make girls more comfortable in joining this male-heavy sport.