Remote Mentoring Young Girls in STEM through MAGIC

Remote Mentoring Young Girls in STEM through MAGIC

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  Ritu Khare (GetMagic) EshaSahai (MIT) Ira Pramanick (Google Inc.) [email protected] MIT LINC June 18 Remote Mentoring Young Females in STEM Through MAGIC
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  Motivation • Gender Stratificationand 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
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  Why Remote Mentoring? •Advantages – Accessibility – Personalization – Efficiency Only way to scale nation-wide and offer STEM mentoring to girls from all segments of society
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  Goals of thisStudy 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
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  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
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  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
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  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
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  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
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  Results: Remote MentoringActivities • Distribution of Projects – Computational based: 44% – Game/Animation/Web: 36% – Non-programming: 20%
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  Results: Remote MentoringChallenges • 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
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  Results: Impact onRemote 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
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  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)
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  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
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  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
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  Conclusions and FutureWork • 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
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  Conclusions and FutureWork • 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
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  Acknowledgements • Participating Schools •MAGIC Mentees and Parents • MAGIC Mentors • Sponsors (Google, Teradata, and personal donors)