Community and Collaboration in an All-female, Immersive Computer Science Program (Abstract Only)
Jeff Stern · 2016
Girls Who Code is a national nonprofit that operates after-school and summer programs to engage female students with computer science with the goal of reaching gender parity in the field. The Girls Who Code teaching philosophy and curriculum is designed around four major components: (1) developing a breadth of technical and computational thinking skills, (2) building on students' prior interests, (3) providing authentic exposure to mentors and real computer science projects, and (4) cultivating a community-focused classroom. Using qualitative and quantitative data collected from more than 1,500 students that have participated, this work explores the impact of Girls Who Code's intervention and the value of building community for effective computer science education.