The three secret ingredients
Girls Who Code Education Director, Chrissy Ziccarelli shares how we are building girls’ identities as computer scientists.
Curriculum design has so many different components, it can feel like making a really complicated recipe. A recipe that is going to be made by a few thousand people all across the country, with different kitchens, ovens, and measuring cups. The outcome we are always striving for is to build girls’ identities as computer scientists, but like a delicious chocolate chip cookie, there are many ways to get there.
While we’re tweaking components of our programs to better serve as many girls as possible, the key ingredients of our “special sauce” have remained consistent at Girls Who Code.
With over 90,000 girls served and our alums majoring in CS at 15x the national average, that sauce is pretty special, indeed. We call it our educational philosophy and the three pillars of that approach appear in all of our Girls Who Code programs and materials, from our very first Summer Immersion Program to our recently release Women in Tech Lesson Plans to our Sisterh>>d campaign.
Interested in our top-secret family recipe? Keep reading…
Sisterhood: At the center of everything we do is community. When girls feel a sense of connection and belonging, they are more willing to be brave and take risks because they know they have the support of their Girls Who Code sisters. That’s why we encourage group work, collaboration, and celebration in every activity, no matter how small! We also remind our girls that they are part of a movement and the worldwide Girls Who Code family.
Impact: All our materials emphasize that computer science is a powerful way to make positive change in the world. By highlighting groundbreaking women in each session and allowing girls the agency to choose their own project focus, we show them that computer science is about so much more than apps. They can help the people they care about and incorporate CS into all their other interests. We show them that being a computer scientist isn’t an all-or-nothing identity. They can be an engineer and an athlete, and an artist and a philanthropist.
More Than Code: By emphasizing core computational concepts like loops, conditionals, and functions in every language in our curriculum, we ensure girls understand the underlying logic of computer science and are equipped to solve problems no matter what CS languages they encounter the rest of their lives.
How have these three ingredients shown up in your coding experience? Let us know by tweeting @girlswhocode!
This story was written by Chrissy Ziccarelli, Girls Who Code Education Director. You can find her on Twitter at @chrissyzic.
