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Ritu Khare (GetMagic)
Esha Sahai (MIT)
Ira Pramanick (Google Inc.)
MIT LINC June 18
2013
Remote Mentoring
Young Females in STEM
Through MAGIC
Motivation
• Gender Stratification and Limited Participation
– Women ONLY 24% of the STEM workforce in the US (American
Community Survey 2009)
– NOT due to lack of talent but due to discouraging societal attitudes and unique challenges (Khoja et al. 2013, Gorman et al., 2010)
• More women in workforce could raise GDP by 5% (Hewlett, 2012)
– Establish a nation-wide mentoring system that engages, motivates, and inspires young females toward STEM subjects in a personalized manner Henneberger et al. 2012)
Explores a remote mentoring approach to STEM mentoring
Why Remote Mentoring?
• Advantages
– Accessibility
– Personalization
– Efficiency
Only way to scale nation-wide and offer STEM
mentoring to girls from all segments of society
Goals of this Study
Introduce MAGIC
• Get More Active Girls in Computing!
• Nationwide matching bridge between – Girls interested in STEM topics
– Women with successful technology & computing careers
Assess Remote Mentoring
• We present the first data on remote mentoring of young females in STEM – 5-year retrospective statistical
analysis
– Mentoring relationships across at 7 US states
– 23 girls from 3 different types of schools
MAGIC: Organizational Settings
• Structure – Core-Team – Board Members – Mentors
• Mentoring Philosophy – One-on-one mentoring – MAGIC establishes each mentor-mentee pair – Mentoring Sessions – Noteworthy final projects
• Mobile app development • Tic-tac-toe • Website Development • Google SketchUp based building design
Methodology and Data
• Data on remote mentoring:2008-2013
• Data Collection Points
– Mentors and Mentees
– School
– Mentor-mentee
• Collected by the core team in a narrative fashion
• Anonymized before sharing with the key investigators of this study
Entity Total
MAGIC Remote Mentors 16
Participating Schools 12
MAGIC Mentors 23
MAGIC Pairs 23
6
Results: MAGIC Mentors (Total 16)
• Highest academic degrees finished – 9 doctorates, 5 masters, & 2 bachelors
• During recruitment, the candidates expressed strong interest in inspiring more girls to pursue STEM and giving back to the society and scientific community
Results: MAGIC Mentees (Total 23)
• Partnership: 8 schools (5 public, 2 private, 1 charter), located in CA and MA
• Few mentees belong to four other schools that are not officially associated with MAGIC, but allow student-level participation
Results: Remote Mentoring Activities
• Distribution of Projects – Computational based: 44%
– Game/Animation/Web: 36%
– Non-programming: 20%
Results: Remote Mentoring Challenges
• At least 7 mentees and 7 mentors reported no challenges
• All the pairs successfully dealt with the challenges either on their own or with support from the core team
Results: Impact on Remote Mentoring
• Mentors – Positive and educational experience – Enjoyed their relationship with the young mentees – 6 offered assistance in MAGIC core and administrative activities
and expressed interest in becoming board members – 3 did not find the relationship rewarding due to the lack of
mentees’ commitment and enthusiasm
Discussion: Organizational Outcomes
• Accessibility – Associations with 3 different types of schools to reach out to
different societal sections
– Most mentors located in California and Massachusetts
– Majority of MAGIC core & board members reside in CA and MA
– Matched mentees and mentors across 7 different US states
• Personalization – Mentees:
• Different familial backgrounds
• Diverse set of expectations
–MAGIC offered tailored services • Variety of STEM skills (programming, creative, Web, conceptual)
• Variety of projects (technical and interpersonal)
Discussion: Organizational Outcomes
• Plan for Growth
– Stayed small for first few years
– Tens of schools and hundreds of mentees in the next five years
– Challenge
• Replicating the energy and dedication of the small board of directors
– Partnerships with universities, national labs, and companies
Discussion: Lessons Learnt • Popular communication tools
– Skype, Google Hangout, and phone
• Top learning choices
– Programming, topic-based learning, and creative skills
• Popular project choices
– Computational and game projects, and shadowing activities
• Mentors and mentees perceived different set of challenges. – Mentees: Time management and logistics – Mentors: delivery of content and social challenges
• Remote mentoring made a positive impact – Mentees’ lives – Building skills and self confidence – Several mentees gained scientific visibility and significant career awareness
Conclusions and Future Work
• Introduced our unique organization, MAGIC
– Remotely yet closely engages girls to pursue STEM
– Highly personalized services
– Most pressing concern
• Recruiting mentors and mentees who have the passion, time, and energy to help realize the vision of MAGIC
• Data-driven perception on remote mentoring young females in STEM
Conclusions and Future Work
• Limitations
– Majority of the mentoring projects focused on computer programming due to the backgrounds of our current mentors
– Conduct the study with increased numbers of pairs
– Diversify the mentees’ locations and interests
– Study correlation between the challenges faced and the mentoring outcomes
Acknowledgements
• Participating Schools
• MAGIC Mentees and Parents
• MAGIC Mentors
• Sponsors (Google, Teradata, and personal donors)