The gender gap in tech starts pretty early. Look at computer science students: Roughly 4 out of 5 bachelor’s degrees in that field go to men. That’s why the nonprofit Girls Who Code aims to get girls interested at a young age — as early as third grade.
Since the organization was founded in 2012, hundreds of thousands of girls have gone through its clubs and summer immersion programs. When COVID-19 canceled in-person classes, they moved totally online. That actually allowed Girls Who Code to grow, and enrollment went up 200%.
I spoke with Tarika Barrett, who took over as CEO this year. She said they had to design their new model with the hardest-to-reach girls in mind. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.
Tarika Barrett: We knew our girls were driving to fast-food parking lots to get Wi-Fi, so we thought about Wi-Fi, we thought about hardware, we thought about living circumstances. Often, our girls couldn’t even turn their cameras on because they were sharing the computer with other siblings. And we tried to bring best practices in digital learning, so shorter days, live and asynchronous instruction, small-group work, office hours and project-based learning because we knew that we’d have to do that for our students, and that we were doing the kinds of outreach and really being responsive to the needs of our community.
Continue reading: https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/the-mission-to-get-girls-coding-doesnt-take-a-covid-break/
Since the organization was founded in 2012, hundreds of thousands of girls have gone through its clubs and summer immersion programs. When COVID-19 canceled in-person classes, they moved totally online. That actually allowed Girls Who Code to grow, and enrollment went up 200%.
I spoke with Tarika Barrett, who took over as CEO this year. She said they had to design their new model with the hardest-to-reach girls in mind. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.
Tarika Barrett: We knew our girls were driving to fast-food parking lots to get Wi-Fi, so we thought about Wi-Fi, we thought about hardware, we thought about living circumstances. Often, our girls couldn’t even turn their cameras on because they were sharing the computer with other siblings. And we tried to bring best practices in digital learning, so shorter days, live and asynchronous instruction, small-group work, office hours and project-based learning because we knew that we’d have to do that for our students, and that we were doing the kinds of outreach and really being responsive to the needs of our community.
Continue reading: https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/the-mission-to-get-girls-coding-doesnt-take-a-covid-break/
