Tag Archives: education

Another physicist for my research…

25 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by in Balancing gender

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Thank you, Donna Milgram, for linking this article by Rachel E. Scherr in your newsletter:Hmm...not just the classroom, but women experience this phenomenon in boardrooms and meeting rooms across the professions

Guest: What keeps girls from studying physics and STEM | Opinion | The Seattle Times | September 14, 2014

Rachel writes:

I had fallen in love with physics while working as a science museum docent, where I learned the simple principles behind beautiful and puzzling natural phenomena.

My advanced placement (AP) physics class, unfortunately, was about memorizing equations and applying them to specific contrived examples. I did not perform well on the midterm exam. The teacher advised me to drop the course, along with all the other girls in the class.

I stayed despite the teacher’s pressure, as the only girl in the class, and did well in the long run.

Funny, that cartoon also reflects what women experience in boardrooms and meeting rooms across sectors and across professions.

I will have to connect with Rachel Scherr: our research seems to align…

Stanford Hires First Female Dean Of School Of Engineering

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Balancing gender, General

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Very interesting… I may have to interview her for my research. Later. From the ASEE aggregator:

Kristin Brown writes in “The Tech Chronicles” blog of the San Francisco Chronicle (6/5), Stanford just hired Persis Drell as its first female dean of its school of engineering. Brown calls this “a small step” but “a big deal” for the field in which “women are vastly outnumbered by men.” It is a movement towards changing the perception of engineering as a masculine field, which is “a major obstacle” to women pursuing it as a career.
The “Tech Chronicles” of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (6/5) also provided coverage of this story.

Massachusetts College Aims To Attract Women To Engineering

08 Sunday Jun 2014

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I missed the email from ASEE that included this article. This is very interesting and something I may be able to incorporate into my research. From the ASEE aggregator last month:

WBUR-FM Boston (5/27) reports on line that while statistics show that men greatly outweigh in engineering programs, Olin College of Engineering, “a small school of fewer than 400 students in Needham, founded in 1997,” has “wanted to attract more women to engineering” from its start. The piece reports that Olin President Rick Miller “said the way engineering colleges teach engineering turns women and other students away who might otherwise be great engineers,” and reports that Miller said that he views engineering as “a performing art.”

Opinion: Students Should Be Dissecting Power Tools Instead Of Frogs

20 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by in General

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Interesting idea…I think dissecting power tools in middle school might be better. I would have loved to have had permission to take those things apart – my husband says he always had opportunities to disassemble and [attempt to] reassemble appliances and tools as a kid. As I think about it, I seem to recall my brother did, too. But high school might be too late. AND don’t take away those frogs – we need budding biologists to be supported, too!
From the ASEE aggregator:
In a Bloomberg BusinessWeek  (5/19) op-ed, Harold L. Sirkin, a senior partner at The Boston Consulting Group and Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management professor writes that the key to developing students “who will produce the innovative new products and processes that will enable the U.S. to maintain its standard of living and economic leadership” is through having them “‘dissect’ power tools in high school.” Sirkin writes that although dissecting frogs is useful, “breakthroughs in the lab are not enough. Progress also depends on the tinkerers among us who can find novel ways to apply these breakthroughs to our lives.”

US News Session Considers NAEP Technology And Literacy Test

26 Saturday Apr 2014

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Several articles are posted about this US News STEM Solutions Conference. I always find it interesting when academics feel they can decide how best to engage youth without including youth in the discussion. That being said, they are coming up with good theories on how to make curriculum more engaging. I wonder if I can test these, too… From the ASEE aggregator: 

Panel Considers How To Make STEM Education More Engaging The US News & World Report Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (4/24, Leonard) reports that the session “Music, Magic and More” at the STEM conference focused on the delivery of STEM education, considering the question: “How can…[educators] not kill a student’s natural curiosity in the world around them?” Speakers at the session “included Parag Chordia, scientist and technology entrepreneur; Alan McCormack, professor of science education at San Diego State University; and Seymour Simon, children’s science book author.” Simon argued said that teachers shouldn’t “spoil” STEM subjects “by making it too dry and technical,” and added “make big numbers real to people.” McCormick said that testing “Present new problems involving a higher level thinking and concepts they learned,” instead of simply repeating concepts they learned.

Revamped Computer Science Classes At UC Berkeley Attracting More Female Students

24 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in APEGBC

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Oh! I missed this one last week! This is very interesting: I’ll have to look into how they “reimagined” the computer science classes. From the AEEE aggregator:

The San Francisco Chronicle (2/18, Brown) reports on an introductory computer science course at UC Berkeley that has more female students than male students. Prof. Dan Garcia said the goal of the introductory course is to expand beyond “just programming,” to make the material “kind of right-brained as well.” The Chronicle reports that Berkeley and other universities have seen an increase in the number of female computer science students. The increase in female computer science students has “coincided with a reimagining of computer science classes,” the article notes.

Engineering Emergency | Change the Equation

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

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Just received an email with this link:  Engineering Emergency | Change the Equation.

I am curious where women fit into this equation…  Still, this is a concern for our American neighbours and, therefore, a concern for us.  Fairness is necessary for all and that should really include equal access to higher levels of mathematics and physics courses in high school.  What this page does not tell is whether high schools that did offer those courses were open and accessible for these students — oh, and what is the percentage of white student who attended high schools that did not offer these courses? Continue reading →

West Kentucky University Receives Grant To Help Steer Early Learners Into STEM

18 Saturday Jan 2014

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Part of the issue. There is more we must also do later in education to support these early learners when they finally make their post-secondary decisions. From the ASEE aggregator:
WKYU-FM Bowling Green, KY (1/16, Autry) reports West Kentucky University has received a $150,000 grant from the PNC Foundation to create videos that will expose children to STEM. Dr. Julia Roberts, executive director of the Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science at WKU, said, “The hardest thing about changing the number of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in Kentucky relates to the fact that unless you stimulate interest early and students are really prepared to be successful when they go to college in those areas, then it’s not going to happen.”

LaGuardia Community College Professor Receives Grant To Develop Program To Encourage More Women To Pursue STEM Careers

17 Friday Jan 2014

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From the ASEE aggregator (another potential collaborator?):
The Queens (NY) Chronicle (1/16, McRae) reported Preethi Radhakrishnan, an assistant professor of biology at LaGuardia Community College has been awarded a grant to help develop a program to encourage women to pursue STEM careers. The college has begun an initiative that will include workshops, research internships and scholarships. “The first two years of a college career are considered key predictors of whether students will pursue a major in STEM fields,” Radhakrishnan said. “This grant will increase women entering STEM fields, gaining research experience and in successfully graduating with a STEM degree in hand.”

Project To Study Different Techniques For Teaching Engineering To Young Students

13 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in General, Outreach Ideas

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From the ASEE aggregator. I will have to connect with these people when I begin my own research…

The Dracut (MA) Valley Dispatch (1/12, Feinstein) reported that a program called Exploring the Efficacy of Elementary Engineering (E4 Project) “will gauge the efficacy of different techniques for teaching engineering to” young students, fifth graders. Also, the E4 Project will “evaluate how engineering instruction affects children from groups that are underrepresented in engineering, including girls.” Christine Cunningham, who leads the E4 project, said, “Our preliminary research suggests that very young children really can master engineering concepts and practices -and that they benefit in a number of ways when engineering is part of their classroom experience.”