Smart Girls asked Leslie Aaronson, former LAUSD Teacher of the Year and Strategic Director of K12 Initiatives for NCWIT (National Center for Women & Information Technology) and the Teacher in Residence at LA Promise Fund where she manages Girls Build LA, why she is speaking at today’s March for Science LA.
Written for Smart Girls by Leslie Aaronson
STEM is the future and It MATTERS that girls be involved in building our future and I find that if we frame it that way — everyone wants in.
Technology increasingly permeates every aspect of society and provides the foundation for most modern innovation. Given this, when girls don’t participate in computing, there are serious consequences; not only for them, but also for the future of technical innovation.
In my work, inspiring and engaging the next generation of female leaders, I’ve discovered some lessons to make computing “sticky” using research-based practices that support diversity.
Grow an Inclusive community and actively invite girls to participate.Stereotypes often keep girls from wanting to get involved, which is what I experienced when I invited girls to join a coding club. Instead, I changed my tactic and invited the girls to an after-school event that included food. They all came, and we did hands-on computing activities. They loved it and admitted that they didn’t know what to expect but now that they did they were interested in the coding club.
It is important to make it matter for girls and allow space for student choice and to make connections to interdisciplinary fields. For example, Girls Build, an initiative run by the LA Promise Fund, has teams of young women from public middle and high schools choose an issue they care about and use STEM principles and 21st Century learning skills to effect social change.
As noted in NCWIT Girls in IT: The Facts, research shows that encouragement builds confidence and is one of the most influential factors in girls’ decisions to pursue computing education and careers. Confidence and interest rise as students communicate their skills, and put them into action especially as they reap the benefits through internships, scholarships, and awards like National Center for Information Technology (NCWIT) Award for Aspirations in Computing