Remote Mentoring Young Girls in STEM through MAGIC
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Transcript of Remote Mentoring Young Girls in STEM through MAGIC
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)