SEM Results: Undergraduates Experience of the Insert Major Name Major at Name of Institution

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SEM Results: Undergraduates Experience of the Insert Major Name Major at Name of Institution

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NCWIT Extension Services - Sample Student Experience of the Major Survey Results v.1 ... National Center for Women & IT Survey ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: SEM Results: Undergraduates Experience of the Insert Major Name Major at Name of Institution


1
SEM Results Undergraduates Experience of the
ltInsert Major Namegt Major at ltName of Institutiongt
SAMPLE
  • User Please use your school or department
    powerpoint template, if available

2
Why Did We Administer the Student Experience of
the Major Survey?
  • Decreasing enrollment
  • Need for retaining and attracting students
  • Diagnostic tool for deciding how to allocate
    scarce resources
  • Evidence-based decisions about what to do more
    of, what to change, what to leave alone

SAMPLE
  • Survey Contents
  • Relevance of assignments to students interests
  • Pace, weedout courses
  • Preparation and support of TAs, lttutorsgt
  • Classroom climate
  • Collaborative learning opportunities
  • Faculty-student and student-student interaction
  • Racism, sexism

3
National Center for Women IT Survey
  • Developed the Student Experience of the Major
    survey to understand students' experiences and
    perceptions
  • Based in research on retention of women,
    minorities in information technology disciplines
  • Developed in collaboration with NCWIT Hub
    University of California, Irvine (Suzanne
    Schaefer, Debra Richardson)
  • NCWIT Extension Services supports institutions
    seeking to identify where to put their resources
  • Piloted at UC-Irvine, in collaboration with NCWIT
    Extension Services

4
Were Not Alone National Enrollment
Source CRA Taulbee Survey
Down 50 since 2000 Peak
5
Interest in CS Declining Nationwide, Female
Interest Declining at Faster Rate
Source College Board 2005 College Bound Seniors
6
Are We Losing the Best and Brightest?
Women who score gt700 on Math SAT are more
likely to major in humanities than STEM
Source College Board 2006 College Bound Seniors
7
Opportunity Increase Enrollment of Women
  • Low-hanging fruit
  • Other majors with high math scores
  • Incoming freshmen

We can recruit them, but we also must RETAIN them
Retention of all students depends on how they
experience the major.
8
What Our Students Have to Say on the SEM Survey
9
Classroom Climate Index
Index Norm Poor Fair Good
SAMPLE
  • Why does it matter? A positive classroom climate
    makes it possible for students to feel
    comfortable asking questions, build student
    support networks, and develop a growing
    professional affiliation with the field.

10
Collaborative Learning Index
Index Norm Poor Fair Good
SAMPLE
  • Why does it matter? Students learn more when they
    can articulate their understandings of concepts
    and hear their peers talk about what they are
    learning. Research supports collaborative
    learning, whether formal or informal, whether
    graded or just in-class discussion and analysis.

11
Faculty-Student Interaction Index
Index Norm Poor Fair Good
SAMPLE
  • Why does it matter? Research shows that when
    faculty encourage students (especially women) to
    persist in the major, they were less likely to
    drop out of the major. A simple act of
    encouragement can make a difference. Faculty can
    guide students to become members of the
    discipline.

12
Student-Student Interaction Index
Index Norm Poor Fair Good
SAMPLE
  • Why does it matter? When students feel that they
    belong both academically and socially, they are
    more likely to be retained and to succeed in the
    major. Under-represented students participate in
    degree programs under different conditions than
    do their majority peers. Academic communities
    provide opportunities to overcome stereotypes and
    build support groups.

13
Meaningful/Relevant Assignments Index
Index Norm Poor Fair Good
SAMPLE
  • Why does it matter? Educational researchers
    emphasize the importance of linking educational
    materials and curricular programs to students
    existing knowledge, experiences, and interests.
    Teaching concepts in appealing contexts and
    building on existing competence can reduce the
    barriers of entry and level the playing field for
    those with limited experience.

14
Pace, Workload, Appropriate Level Index
Index Norm Poor Fair Good
SAMPLE
  • Why does it matter? When programming experience
    is expected, experienced students perform better
    in introductory courses. Others drop out of the
    major. Some courses weed out inexperienced but
    otherwise capable (and desirable) students.

15
Teaching Assistant Preparation Index
Index Norm Poor Fair Good
SAMPLE
Note if you do not have TAs, delete this and the
next slide
  • Why does it matter? Often, TAs are assigned to
    support labs or classes with little, if any,
    preparation to do so. They are sometimes
    difficult to approach and/or can reinforce
    stereotypes.

16
Racism, Sexism Indices
Index Norm Poor Fair Good
SAMPLE
Index Norm Poor Fair Good
  • Why does it matter? When students feel that they
    are treated differently as a result of being a
    member of a group, they are more likely to leave
    the major. When people are exposed to
    stereotypes about their group, they can
    internalize them and confirm them in their own
    behavior.

17
Most Encouraging Faculty
SAMPLE
  • Why does it matter? These faculty members are
    doing the most to help us retain and graduate our
    students what can we learn from them?

18
Discussion
  • What are our areas of greatest concern?
  • Prioritize
  • What should we do about it?

SAMPLE
  • E.g., Form committee to make recommendations to
    faculty, dean
  • What resources do we have?
  • Where can we get additional resources?

19
How Can NCWIT Help?
  • Support in development of strategic diversity
    plan
  • Support development of a long-term recruiting
    strategy
  • Setting up long-term tracking and evaluation
    system
  • Provide research expertise
  • Survey/evaluation instruments
  • Mentoring, special situations, experimental
    teaching/curricular/etc. methods
  • Online data repository for tracking, analyzing

20
  • The following slides have more information, but
    are not central to the presentation.

21
Persistent, systemic social issue
  • Women who score gt700 on Math SAT are more likely
    to major in humanities than STEM
  • Women who leave CS do so with higher GPA than do
    men who leave CS
  • Hidden Design Features
  • CS1 is not a true intro course, so women are
    less likely to succeed
  • Interaction with students is predicated on
    interaction with a certain kind of student

22
Retaining Women
  • Women enter with less prior programming
    experience
  • Curriculum often teaches to the middle in intro
    courses, assumes some programming experience
  • Different responses to grades
  • Women often find a grade unacceptable that her
    male counterpart would not question
  • CS assignments often are uninteresting, not
    meaningful
  • Women often feeling like they do not belong or
    are unwelcome
  • Yet classroom and teaching that do not produce
    situations that permit the development of natural
    student support groups

23
Effective Practices
  • Student-student, student-faculty interaction
  • Need more than a womans group
  • Mentoring
  • Faculty encouragement is related to greater
    retention
  • Collaborative learning environments
  • Pedagogy and Curriculum
  • Womens participation might be greater if it were
    made meaningful to their lives and goals
  • Letting students know why they need to know
    something or how they might solve a human problem
    with it

24
Women in Our Field Declining at Greater Rate than
Engineering
Source College Board, National Data, 1996-2005
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