Such encouragement is critical to the future success of our female students, given the many STEM-related opportunities that are open to them in college and then career. According to a list from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, a number of career areas are expected to grow faster than many other occupations between now and 2031. These include:

• Data scientists, which will grow by 36%
• Mathematicians and statisticians, which will grow by 31%
• Logisticians, which will grow by 28%

With these opportunities and many others available today and in the years to come, we must first take the step of understanding how our female students feel about STEM subjects and pursuing potential careers in those areas.

Female students have STEM aptitude but aren’t pursuing it

Every student possesses natural talents, known as aptitudes. They are born with them, just like right- or left-handedness. These aptitudes, as reported by the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation, are solidified by age 14. Recent research has found that female middle and high school students, in particular, possess great natural talent in STEM-related subjects:

• Over 11-times the aptitude for advanced manufacturing careers than interest
• 8-times more aptitude for computers and technology careers than interest
• Nearly 3-times the aptitude for distribution and logistics careers than interest
• 2.4-times more aptitude for finance careers than interest

It is tremendous to see this substantial natural talent among our female students. However, despite this—and decades of cultural progression—troves of industry data have continually shown us that they are still not pursuing careers in these areas at higher rates. In fact, according to the National Science Board, women make up about one-third of the STEM workforce, less than their representation in the employed U.S. population (48%).

More specifically, women only accounted for 35% of physical scientists, 26% of computer and mathematical scientists, and 16% of engineers in 2019. One of the biggest reasons female students don’t go on to pursue college and career pathways in these areas is because of the career exposure gap.

Female students lack exposure to STEM

When looking at the aptitude female students possess in STEM-related areas, it is important to note the mention of interest. The gap between aptitude and interest is known as the exposure gap. This means that female students only identify with a few potential college majors and career options from the tens of thousands that are available—simply because they are not aware that certain careers exist.

The Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation states, “Choosing a career based solely on interest can be an inefficient way to make a decision that impacts your entire life.” This is because interests change over time due to new life experiences and knowledge gained, meaning what may seem interesting to a 16- or 17-year-old student may not be of interest anymore to a 35-year-old working professional.

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The impact of this exposure gap can be seen among recent female high school graduates. Only 41% reported that they felt prepared to declare a major or select a career upon high school graduation, compared to 57% of males. Additionally, almost 60% reported not being exposed to a wide enough variety of options for college and career compared to less than 30% of males who felt the same lack of exposure.

In order to help female students understand their true potential, find their best-fit path to education or career, and limit any uncertainty they may experience, we must expand their horizons as early as possible.

How to nurture interest in stem among female students

There are many steps districts, schools and educators can do to help female students understand their potential and full range of possibilities. These steps include:

1. Discovering their natural talents: One of the first things we can do to best help prepare our female students for the future is empowering them to determine their natural talents. This can be accomplished through aptitude assessments, which measure a variety of abilities and can be initiated by teachers or guidance and career counselors. These are different from interest inventories that take account of personal interests at a given moment in time. While interest inventories have their place in education, they shouldn’t be the sole tool used to identify a student’s future path.
2. Introducing all college major and career options: Once students’ natural talents are determined, guidance and career counselors can review their results and set up meetings with each student. This time should be used to help the students understand all of their options and pathways—from specific majors they can declare in college, trade schools they can attend, or careers they can enter into directly after high school—that best align with their natural talents. By offering students this information, they are better informed to make decisions about what classes they can take during their remaining years in high school that will prepare them for their path.
3. Aligning talents to course options: Students have many high school course options, including core classes, electives and career and technical Education. With guidance from counselors and teachers, students can select classes that will help them cultivate their knowledge and skills directly related to their talents.
4. Offering real-world experiences: After students have selected their courses, teachers and counselors can continue to reinforce their possibilities and expand their knowledge through real-world experiences. This can be done by having industry speakers—from organizations like New York-based Girls Who Code or Oregon-based STEM Like a Girl—come into the classroom or assemblies on a regular basis. They can also directly show students their college and career opportunities through interactive field trips to companies, laboratories, college campuses, trade schools, and more. In addition, counselors can work with local businesses to set up work-based learning through internships and apprenticeships.
5. Encouraging extracurricular activities: Schools, in conjunction with teachers and counselors, should encourage the establishment of more clubs and extracurricular activities that align with college and career pathways. These groups—such as a Girls in Engineering club—can be a great way for students to be exposed to or share ideas and knowledge around the pathways they are pursuing.
6. Connecting regularly: One of the most critical steps in nurturing interest in STEM is regular reinforcement and discussion. Female students should be encouraged to meet with their counselors and teachers on a regular basis throughout their middle school and high school careers. The more students are able to openly talk about their talents and their future options, the more likely they are to feel confident in pursuing them.

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The study’s findings suggest that creating high-quality opportunities for STEM learning even before kindergarten, such as in formal preschool settings, could help develop students’ interest and aptitude in these subjects while also reducing or eliminating troubling racial and ethnic disparities. “The earlier we intervene, the better,” said Paul Morgan, a professor of education at Penn State’s College of Education and the paper’s lead author.

Preschool STEM strategies

Over my more than two decades of working in early childhood education at Austin ISD in Texas, I learned a lot about engaging young children in STEM learning effectively. Here are four key strategies that school systems and pre-K programs can use to accomplish this goal:

1. Leverage students’ natural curiosity. Young children are naturally curious, persistent and creative—the essential qualities needed for solving scientific problems. Inspiring budding young scientists is simple when teachers use investigative and inquiry-based learning activities in their preschool STEM programs.

2. Make it fun. Pre-K math and science don’t have to be boring or intimidating. As young children investigate the world around them through hands-on play, they employ the scientific process—just like actual scientists and engineers.

In fact, research shows that children are natural scientists and mathematicians. They stack blocks, count steps up a slide, and fill and empty cups of water in the bathtub. These activities help them explore early math concepts such as measurement, spatial awareness, number sense and problem-solving.

3. Communicate and model preschool STEM thinking. Young children are constantly taking in the words and actions around them to learn. When teachers model and communicate their everyday thinking and problem-solving, children learn important STEM concepts in fun and positive ways.

As you put away toys, for instance, count the number of items there are out loud. When children play, ask open-ended questions to encourage STEM-related talk: “How did you figure that out?” “Why did you do it that way?” “How do you know?”

4. Introduce them to key STEM behaviors. Young children use a basic form of the scientific method—a series of steps that include observing, forming questions, making predictions, carrying out experiments and discussing—to analyze and make sense of the world around them. They investigate, form hypotheses based on what they observe and then test those ideas through play.

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With guided activities, pre-K teachers can give young students a solid foundation in the science skills and practices they’ll learn formally throughout their K-12 experience. In the process, children will learn to think like scientists.

Here are some examples I’ve found to be helpful when working with children through guided play.

• Asking questions and defining problems: Introduce children to a strange object, place or creature. (It could be a photo or the actual object itself.) Ask them what questions they have about it. Ask them how they might find answers to their questions.
• Developing and using models: Ask children to show someone what a snake looks like, a house, or some other simple object. Give them multiple ways to do this: they can draw the object, sculpt it out of clay or make it out of blocks or pipe cleaners. Talk about why they chose the method they did and what does or doesn’t work well about that method.
•  Planning and carrying out investigations: Have children build ramps and explore rolling objects down their ramps. Ask them how they think making their ramp taller or steeper might affect how far or how fast an object travels down the ramp. Have them test their theory.

Using these strategies can build a strong STEM foundation among young learners. As research suggests, this is essential for ensuring that students begin kindergarten on par with their peers in these critical subjects.

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The RAND Corporation, a nonprofit global policy think tank and research institute, recently published a report detailing how students in high-poverty districts don’t have access to advanced math courses compared to their counterparts. These inequities are established as early as middle school, according to the findings.

Using 2022 data from nationally representative surveys of principals and math teachers in grades K to 12, the researchers sought to explore students’ opportunities to prepare for and enroll in advanced math courses. Here’s what they found:

• Small high schools, those in rural areas and institutions that mostly serve students from traditionally marginalized communities provide fewer opportunities for students to take advanced math (e.g. precalculus and AP math).
• Uneven access to algebra I start before high school.
• Teachers in high-needs schools admit to skipping standards-aligned content more often and were more likely to replace what was scrapped with curriculum from prior grade levels compared to teachers in resource-abundant schools.
• A great number of teachers say they’re not able to devote as much time as they would like to math instruction in the 2021-22 school year; nearly 50% said they needed more support to deliver adequate math instruction.

“In the wake of the disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on students living in poverty and students of color, these results highlight a critical need for resources to support teachers and to license student access to advanced courses,” the report reads.

In light of these findings, the researchers offer four recommendations for school and district leaders to close the gap in this area:

1. Consider using federal and state funding to incorporate high-dosage tutoring programs for middle schoolers. This initiative should provide “high-quality support” to 8th graders taking algebra I and promote algebra I readiness for those not yet enrolled in the course.
2. Education leaders should support teachers by providing them with standards-aligned curriculum materials and training to help them understand which content is crucial for future learning.
3. Partner with postsecondary institutions to identify creative solutions to make advanced math opportunities accessible for all high school students, especially those in underserved communities.
4. Communicate honestly about the importance of course-taking—”the earlier, the better.”

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The biggest driver of the online tutoring market will be students—particularly in high school—who are seeking to build skills to pass STEM exams and qualify for the ever-expanding job opportunities in STEM fields, which are growing faster than other industries.

Another factor is students’ reliance on mobile devices that support more personalized learning. Students are not only absorbing content on tablets, smartphones and smartwatches but they are also using the devices to view lectures and receive alerts and updates, among other educational activities. Vendors are accordingly prioritizing the development of mobile content that gives students easy access to e-learning materials, Technavio reports.

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A third source of online tutoring market expansion is the steady growth of gamification in online tutoring and assessments, the firm adds.

The fastest-growing segment of the market is “structured tutoring,” which comprises classes or sessions that are planned and scheduled for a certain number of hours, with a guaranteed tutor. Vendors are enticing students and families with free trial periods before subscribing to services that can cost as much as $50 per week or $40 to $120 per month.

The overall global education technology market for hardware and software was valued at $123.4 billion in 2022 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 13.6% from 2023 to 2030, according to Grand View Research.

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“Rather than reacting to MAGA-driven culture wars, voters overwhelmingly say they want lawmakers to get back to basics: to invest in public schools and get educators the resources they need to create safe and welcoming environments, boost academic skills and pave pathways to career, college and beyond,” said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, whose union released new national polling results of 1,500 voters—including about 560 public school parents—earlier this month.

Here are the top education priorities voters’ identified:

• Ensuring students have strong fundamental skills in reading, math, and science
• Ensuring all students, regardless of background, have the opportunity to succeed
• Providing a safe and welcoming environment for children
• Developing students’ critical thinking and reasoning skills
• Teaching practical life skills
• Preparing students to succeed in college or careers

Here are their lowest priorities:

• Making sure schools aren’t teaching a “woke” political agenda
• Giving parents more say over what their children are taught
• Making sure schools don’t teach critical race theory
• Removing books and curriculum materials on topics some families consider offensive or inappropriate

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Most Americans are not concerned that teachers are pushing a “woke” political agenda in the nation’s classroom. Nearly two-thirds of all voters—and 74% of parents—say their schools are teaching appropriate academic content and skills education while just about one-fifth of parents think teachers are indoctrinating students with a liberal agenda.

A large majority of voters also worry that “culture war battles distract public schools from their core mission of educating students,” the AFT said.

Teacher shortages, inadequate funding, dangerous schools, and recovering from pandemic learning loss are the most serious challenges that superintendents and their teams face, said the survey’s respondents, who also—by an 85% to 15% margin—said they would rather see Congress provide more support to K12 education than launch the multiple investigations that GOP leaders have threatened.

“One key weakness of the culture war agenda is that voters and parents reject the idea that teachers today are pushing a ‘woke’ political agenda in the schools,” pollster Geoff Garin said. “Most have high confidence in teachers. Voters see the ‘culture war’ as a distraction from what’s important and believe that politicians who are pushing these issues are doing so for their own political benefit.”

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That starts with showing girls the diversity across industry, academia, and entrepreneurship, and the roles, ages, and backgrounds of the people who are advancing technology and STEM, says Imafidon, who delivered Wednesday’s STEM keynote at the 2023 Future of Education Technology® Conference in New Orleans.

“We working with young people under this premise of everything being free, everything being fun and there always being food to get them to see themselves as innovators, to get them to understand the value they bring,” said Imafidon, whose latest book is called She’s In Ctrl: How Women Can Take Back Tech. “We’re also giving safe spaces to explore that they might not get at school or at home or in the messages they get from the media.”

The educators cultivating the innovators of the future should be driven by three guiding principles: creativity, providing those safe spaces to explore, and altruism. Younger students can often be turned off by STEM if the instruction is too rigid in its focus on the right and wrong answers. “It’s about giving folks an opportunity to explore on their own terms,” she explains. “There’s a lot you can create, a lot of problems you can solve, and things like this open up your options rather than closing them down.”

Altruism in STEM means prioritizing solving problems rather than the “faster, bigger, stronger” mindset that dominates the tech industry. “Our young people have grown up seeing problems live and in very high definition so they care a lot about a lot of different problems,” she says. “Creating leaders of the future is about creating folks who solve problems compared to what the current tech industry sees as being of the utmost importance.”

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She also encourages administrators and educators to maintain a growth mindset and commit to knowing more next month than they knew last month, and be willing to step outside their comfort zones consistently. They should also view their districts, schools and classrooms as startups that are constantly experimenting, learning from their mistakes and making improvements.

“The point of an experiment is you don’t know what happens next,” she says. “You have to be willing to have your hypothesis proved wrong.”

Finally, K12 leaders must ensure they are always including people with a range of backgrounds and experiences in decision-making and other key roles. To illustrate this point, Imafidon shared a photo of a display she found at a girls’ school in London that depicted the great scientists of the past. All of the images were of dead white men—with beards. “As we cultivate the leaders of the future, we have to make sure we’re doing so in an environment where they fully understand the leaders of the past.”

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“A business can be situated inside a high school and create benefits for both,” ISD 197 Superintendent Peter Olson-Skog says. “The business can test products in real-time with real people, and the students are helping to create them. You never learn something better than when you have to create it or teach it.”

Pivot Interactives got off the ground with grant funding and word of mouth as Bohacek and his classes shared the videos with other teachers, schools, and districts. Video is particularly effective for teaching physics because it’s often difficult for teachers to find ways to show real-life examples of concepts and the formulas students have to solve, Skog says.

Demand was building pre-COVID but it surged as teachers and schools on remote instruction sought out innovative, interactive platforms that could replicate the in-person experience as well as experiments that couldn’t be done in most school settings.

As proof of Pivot’s ingenuity, the company was purchased last year by edtech giant Discovery Education, which plans to keep the company in its ISD 197 headquarters in the Twin Cities. “There’s a grounding in the reality of the classroom that comes from walking into and out of school on your way to work every day,” Skog says of Pivot’s employees. “You see the students, you see your videos in use, and you have direct relationships with teachers who are using them to deepen the learning for their students. It’s a constant feedback loop.”

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Skog believes the videos have helped ISD 197’s students get into some prestigious colleges and universities, including one student who arrived at Stanford to find a class using a video he helped create.

Pivot is just one of the district’s multi-faceted career exploration programs, which also cover health care, computer science, business and entrepreneurship, and environmentalism and agriculture. For students on these tracks, content in core courses, such as English and science, are tailored to those career areas, Skog says. These pathways culminate in students’ senior year with internships during the final semester.

It’s these kinds of programs that convince business leaders that they can play a key role in helping public schools supply the educated workforce that companies are demanding. “These strong partnerships are resulting in experiences that students will benefit from their entire life, and in some cases lead right out of high school into their lifetime careers.”

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Design thinking principles are one way to make those connections and engage students in STEAM-driven creativity along the way, says Erin Barringer, an instructional technology facilitator at Jesse C. Carson High School in North Carolina, who will present “Techifying Design: The Makerspace Reimagined” at the Future of Education Technology® Conference in New Orleans next week.

Barringer will share ideas for how educators can transform unused office space, closets, or other rooms into design labs aimed at inclusion, differentiation, and equity. One key is to provide students with podcasting booths, DSLR cameras, Robotics kits, green screens, sewing and Cricut machines, and other tools to which they might not otherwise have access. This will help foster their love for inquiry and problem-based learning, she says.

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But Barringer’s presentation is only one of many workshops and sessions at this year’s FETC that will cover the construction and improvement of K12 makerspaces. “Ten Years of Making: What is Next?“—a semi-exclusive FETC workshop—presenters Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager will celebrate a decade of maker-movement ingenuity in schools and how emerging technologies will help educators further integrate makerspaces into their curriculums.

“Turning every classroom into a makerspace and every child into a maker is the path to creating truly personal learning for every student,” Martinez and Stager say.

Much ado about makerspaces

Here’s a rundown of the sessions on makerspaces:

• “Moving Beyond Tinkering: Designing Content-Based Makerspace Lessons“: Attendees will learn a step-by-step framework for designing content-based and rigorous makerspace lessons, paying close attention to evidence of student success and data. Mon., Jan. 23, 1:30-4:30 p.m. Presenters: Samantha Duchscherer, Project Lead The Way grant coordinator, Techforyall LLC; and Courtney Reaves, a STEM teacher at J.A. Fair Prep K-8 school in Arkansas.
• “Makerspaces that Demolish the Digital Divide“: The widening digital divide continues to drive inequity in STEM fields and, as a result, “digital racism” pervades search algorithms, technological devices, and all facets of the internet. Learn how makerspaces provide an opportunity to pique student curiosity and increase comfort with technologies, computer programming, and BIPOC STEM identity and belonging. Weds., Jan. 25, 2-2:45 p.m. Presenters: A four-person team of educators from the Gilman School in Baltimore.
• “Bring Literacy To Life Through Making & Technology 2023 Edition“: Librarians and teachers cultivate amazing places in libraries and classrooms for experienced-based creativity, STEAM activities, Makerspaces and meaningful opportunities to use technology. Learn how literacy—such as picture and chapter books, nonfiction, graphic novels, audiobooks, podcasts, and eBooks—fits into the makerspace experience. Weds., Jan. 25, 3-3:45 p.m. Presenter: Shannon McClintock Miller, Future Ready spokesperson at Future Ready.

The following sessions are part of FETC’s “Makerspaces, Robotics, Drones & 3D: Leadership Roundtables,” from 10-10:45 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 25.

• “Makerspaces & Career Labs: Creating K- 12 Innovative Connections“: Sulphur Springs Elementary School, a Title building in Tennessee, transformed its traditional model into a school of innovation, expanding from one makerspace to a school-wide initiative where teachers have expertise in coding, robotics, digital arts, and STEM labs. Presenters: David Little, principal, Sulphur Springs Elementary School; Ginger Christian, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy analysis, East Tennessee State University.
• “What?s Next for Your Makerspace? Five Ways Forward“: Explore five ways that makerspaces can support school, community, and even global missions. These include: Skunk Works, The Entrepreneur Zone, Maker Library, Green Power, and Community Chest. Presenter: Sylvia Martinez, author, Invent to Learn.
• “Techifying Design: The Makerspace Reimagined“: Here’s how educators can transform unused office space, closets, or other rooms into design labs aimed at inclusion, differentiation and equity. One key is to provide students with podcasting booths, DSLR cameras, Robotics kits, green screens, sewing and Cricut machines, and other tools to which they might not otherwise have access. Presenter: Erin Barringer, an instructional technology facilitator at Jesse C. Carson High School in North Carolina.

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Encouraging more girls to study coding and other STEM subjects starts with making these subjects easier for teachers to integrate into their lessons, says Palfi, who will present “Engaging Girls in Coding and STEM Education” at the 2023 Future of Education Technology® Conference on Jan. 23-26 in New Orleans.

“Our goal isn’t for everyone to become a programmer,” Palfi says. “But everyone should have the chance to try coding and to confidently believe that coding could be a career path for them.”

Palfi previewed her FETC appearance by answering a few questions from District Administration:

1. Where are schools falling short in helping girls get into coding/computer science/STEM?

Three out of four jobs by 2030 will require advanced digital skills and computer science is the only STEM field that is projected to have more jobs than students. Recognizing the need, several European countries, including Estonia, Finland, Italy and the U.K., are already incorporating coding into classroom instruction.

However, current pedagogical systems are not working: Inequity in STEM courses leads to an eventual loss in tech talent. According to Google, at age 12, girls and boys are equally interested in computer science. But after that, a gap opens up—by 14, nearly half of boys are interested but only 12% of girls.

Given the volume of the need, teachers are ill-equipped for text-based coding There is a clear opportunity to bridge this gap by empowering teachers to help more students develop the skills and confidence to become tech innovators.

In Sweden, coding is often introduced as part of mathematics, which is a subject often stigmatized against girls. Talking with schools that follow Cambridge & IB curriculum, we often hear that while there is no mandatory programming in middle school—coding is more often offered in high school. However, at that point, very few girls decide to choose it.

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Several studies seem to indicate that girls’ interest needs to be sparked early and maintained consistently. Essentially, what is needed is to reach all students at an early age (ideally before 12) with coding and provide teachers with beginner-friendly resources and tools so they can bring engaging real coding lessons to the classroom.

2. How do you get girls engaged in coding and computer science?

Our work with imagiLabs started during my master’s degree when I conducted research in order to level the playing field for girls in technology. I was studying human-computer interaction at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, where we focused a lot on working together with our end users in a participatory design research process. This methodology is very popular in Scandinavia; it’s also how IKEA designs its furniture together with its customers.

Through this research, we created tools to make learning to code fun and inclusive both at home and in the classroom. We have chosen to focus on a real (script-)based programming language Python and build empowering tools for teachers to teach the language and creatively engage their students.

Our uniquely designed curriculum can turn every teacher into a computer science teacher for teaching coding in schools and solving the gaps in the system. Our engaging tools combine art with code and can often be used for after-school coding to help grow more curious and imaginative kids. Last but not least, our product is designed to be gender inclusive.

3. What skills do you focus on to get girls hooked on computer science?

Our goal isn’t for everyone to become a programmer. But everyone should have the chance to try coding and confidently believe that coding could be a career path for them.

With the imagi coding app and the imagiCharm we introduce coding in Python (a “real”, script-based coding language that is the fastest-growing coding language in the world) through art and self-expression. In the process, learners get to be creative and come up with designs that speak to their interests.

In addition, we also teach our students about how error messages are our friends and that failing is a natural and necessary part of coding. Finally, both our product and curriculum cater to collaboration and building a community around the interest in coding.

4. What most excites you about these topics?

Let’s start with a simple exercise in logic:

• If: technology = future
• And: women = technology
• Then: women = future

We believe technology is our most powerful tool to shape the future, but today women make up less than 20% of the tech workforce in the EU. In the US, 37% of computer scientists were women in 1995. Today? 24% Hence, today we do not have an equal chance to contribute to shaping our future.

Up until the age of 11, girls and boys today have a similar interest in technology as boys. But during our teenage years, the majority of girls drop this interest. In Sweden, for example, 86% of girls at age 11 are interested in technology but at age 16 this drops down to only 36%. We started imagi to break this trend and to create a solution that would equip and empower all children, regardless of their gender to shape the future with technology.

What excites me is a future where no child is left behind to gather the essential skills for the digital age simply due to a lack of access to tools and teachers who can help them to code.

5. What excites you about attending FETC 2023?

Meeting educators from across the US and learning from their classroom needs and experiences! This is going to be our first time attending FETC and we already work with educators across the US. Since we started imagi during the pandemic, I haven’t yet had the chance to connect with educators from the US in person.

I also took a look at the agenda and I found several really interesting talks. For example Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon’s talk on “The Tech Landscape And Cultivating Leaders Of The Future.” We at imagi actually have worked with Stemettes, the organization Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon founded, but I haven’t had the chance yet to listen to any of her talks before.

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As Marina Bers, a pioneer in children’s technology education, has observed: Teachers don’t need to turn every child into a programmer any more than they need to turn every child into a novelist. Rather, they should teach children to code for the same reasons they teach them to write: it gives them fluency in a new kind of expression.

Students are ready to begin learning about coding at the same time they are ready to begin learning to read and write any other language—including the natural languages they’ve been learning to speak their whole lives. In fact, literacy and coding can be taught side-by-side to reinforce concepts such as grammar and syntax, representation, and eventually, expression across both disciplines.

Coding connects students

Self-expression isn’t meaningful simply for its own sake. It only becomes meaningful when students share it with others, whether that’s the limited audience of a classroom or a much wider audience of family, peers, and community.

Just as language can connect students to one another as they share ideas, so too can coding—with the added benefit of being universally understood. While students who speak different languages may not be able to build on one another’s ideas in writing, if they code a robot to perform a dance, they can fully collaborate on the final product.

Drawing out reluctant speakers

Similarly, coding is a great way to draw out students who may be reluctant to speak. Whether it’s because they are shy, they feel like they can’t speak well, or any of the number of other reasons that some students simply don’t want to speak up in class.

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Nevertheless, it’s important for them to share their work with others, to get feedback, both constructive and critical, to shift the audience from their teacher to their peers, and to teach them that their ideas and work have impact beyond themselves.

By giving them an opportunity to express themselves nonverbally and with tools that put them on a level playing field with other students, these students can often be coaxed out of their shells to become active members of the classroom community.

How sequencing is key to both robotics and storytelling

Sequencing is an important technique in coding. Even in a simple program, achieving the planned outcome depends on each step happening in a certain order. If, for example, you want your robot to move one foot to the left and two feet forward, you must tell the robot to move forward two steps, turn, then move forward another step. Use the same directions in the opposite order and your robot will end up in the wrong place.

Sequencing is also a foundational literacy skill. The “happily ever after” moment comes at the end of a story. In Where the Wild Things Are, after Max goes to sleep without his supper, he sails to the land of the Wild Things, leads the wild rumpus, then returns safely home.

Sequencing helps students understand cause and effect in literature. In coding, effects follow causes and each new cause builds on the previous effect—just as in well-constructed stories.

Robotics as storytelling

To my mind, robotics is similar to readers’ theater, a common technique in early literacy in which students act out a scene from a book. Whether they do it themselves or program a robot to act out a story, this approach reinforces literacy lessons through kinesthetic processes and social dynamics.

Any storybook can be re-enacted using decorated robots and code created by students. Using a KIBO robotic kit and the lesson “If I Built a Car,” students can imagine—and design, and build— all the fanciful features they’d include in a car if they could design it.

To bring The Very Hungry Caterpillar to life, students could create a caterpillar that moves from an apple to a pear to an orange and so on. To create their own live-action version of Every Day Superhero, students can design and decorate a robot to be a superhero that solves problems around the classroom. Or students could send a robot on its own adventure just like Harold’s in Harold and the Purple Crayon by having their robot draw a line with an attached marker onto a big sheet of butcher paper.

Design process parallels the writing process

While the products of the engineering design process and the writing process are different in important ways, the processes themselves are quite similar. Students begin writing by brainstorming and then outlining the path the story will take to its conclusion. Similarly, engineers begin by imagining potential solutions and creating a plan that leads to their desired outcome.

Next, the writer writes and the engineer builds. Once they have a draft or a prototype, they are able to share it with an audience by having someone read it or by testing the prototype. Next, the writer revises according to the feedback they received and the engineer tweaks their design to correct any flaws they observed during their test.

The most powerful commonality between these processes is that they re-contextualize failure. Students come to understand that neither a piece of writing nor a piece of code is perfect the first time they create them. Rather than failure, unsuccessful attempts become steps in a process or, even better, learning experiences.

As Seymour Papert wrote in his book Mindstorms, when a student creates a computer program, “The question to ask about the program is not whether it is right or wrong, but if it is fixable.” Whether it’s in the writing lab or the robotics lab, revision and iteration help students learn resiliency.

Coding education works best when it’s integrated with other classroom activities. Combining coding with storytelling creates a positive feedback loop with each discipline reinforcing and enriching the other, one by providing context and the other by providing engagement and variety.

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