The SciGirls Code program is being run at 16 different sites across the country with girls in grades 5-8. Our curriculum was designed for groups to meet for at least 109 hours over a 9 month period. However, as this is a pilot project, there has been some variation among program sites. The curriculum is divided into 3 content strands: Mobile App Development, Robotics, and E-Textiles. The activities in each strand come mainly from preexisting, high-quality curriculum. Examples include Thunkable, Sphero, Hummingbird, Chibitronics, Lilypad, and Code.org.

Use of Flipgrid varied widely by program site.  We created Flipgrid opportunities for girls and educators to introduce themselves, ask and answer questions, share projects and ideas, and interact with role models. Some sites had girls who posted and/or responded to each Flipgrid topic, while some sites only posted once, or not at all.

Hi Irene! Great question... We are in the final stages of data collection, so I cannot share results yet. Anecdotally, girls from a few programs have shared that they are interested in taking CS classes in school (which are not gender-specific), and many have shared that they want to do more programs like SGC (girls-only). I will need to circle back with you once we have completed data collection and analysis! 

Hi Katie! The girls use FG to share their work, both in progress work and final projects. To date, there is no collaboration on shared, cross-program projects. The curriculum is not designed to do that. In each site, the girls can work individually, in teams, or in pairs on projects. The research that is investigating the connections between sites via FG is still ongoing, so we don't have results to share about sense of community yet. Your question really goes to the heart of connected learning though -- and we are very interested in understanding it. Stay tuned!

Hi, Deborah--

The work in the three strands builds in terms of girls going from block programming to text-based programming. The computational thinking principles also build across the three tracks. I'm not sure if we are seeing additional intersections between the domains -- and perhaps Cassie or some of the researchers from her lab can add more on this note. But I was at an e-textile fashion showcase for one of the sites tonight and one of the teachers remarked that the girls have developed their abilities to talk about their work and more specifically the technical aspects of what they are doing over the nine months of the program. It was a really smart showcase because in addition to the runway show, each girl had a poster describing her project. I told the girls the posters were awesome because that's how STEM and tech people share their work with other people at conferences. They are the real deal!  

Thanks, Dale. It's great to have the Discovery Center in the mix, and we're so glad you found a good partner educator in Murfreesboro! Take lots of pictures of the robots! 

Hi, Denise --

Thank you for your interest in our work!

Our project is done in out-of-school time. In terms of attrition, we have experienced some. Thankfully, this did not disrupt our research work! We are looking at scaling the project and are thinking about chunking the curriculum into 3-month blocks. (That's basically what we have now, but we'd let groups program single blocks at a time, rather than stringing three together for nine months of programming.)

Another interesting finding was that some girls came into the program with more experience. They wanted to get to the more complex technology pronto, but our current curriculum scaffolds over the nine months. So if we divide into blocks, a program with experienced girls can engage with the more complex material right away. We also plan to add blocks/strands in the areas of digital games, big data, and security. This is all blue-sky right now, we will do more complete analysis/planning once our research findings are complete.  

Hi Allison! I just peeked at your project last night -- looks so fabulous! I am so happy you reached out. One thing we learned right away is that many of the girls enrolled in SGC already were interested and/or had experience in CS or coding. What we have been learning as the programs have been running is that girls' interest and attitudes towards CS have remained constant or increased (because many girls came in with interest already). The role model part to SGC is just starting to be analyzed, so I cannot share anything concretely. The role models interacted with programs F2F, real-time online, and through FG (asynchronously). The role model efforts was also different in different programs. We know that we will build on this component in the next version of SGC -- it promises to be an important part to the project. So, stay tuned? 

Very interesting project! I enjoyed seeing the students present the project in your video. I am interested in learning more about your research instruments. How are you measuring learning in computational thinking, interest and participation? 

I am also curious about documenting impact of the program if the girls already came in with high interest. 

Hello Nina! This research project is a qualitative, multi-site case study with 2 groups of sites: focal and participating. Data sources include surveys, artifact-based interviews at 3 moments during curriculum, observations, FlipGrid videos, and photos. CT is being assessed in all data sources. We modified the artifact-interviews after Brennan & Resnick's work with Scratch: http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/ct/ 

Preliminary results from pre-program surveys + first artifact interviews are illustrating that many of these girls have previous experience with coding and that they liked it. 

Happy to share more about the research design. Thanks for your interest!

Hello, Xiaoxue! 

This research project is a qualitative, multi-site case study with data sources include surveys, artifact-based interviews at 3 moments during curriculum, observations, FlipGrid videos, and photos. CT is being assessed in all data sources. The CT definition/conceptualization the projects is using stems from Brennan & Resnick's work with Scratch: http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/ct/ 

Both computer science and computational thinking are woven into the curriculum. The CT vocabulary is based on Brennan + Resnick's work as well. The 9-month curriculum has 3 strands that are intended to build on each other: mobile app development, robotics, and e-textiles. 

Thank you for your interest!

Hi Susanne! We are still collecting and analyzing data related to retention. This is a 9-month program, so many of them are finishing now and into June. We should have some things to share in a few months. Stay tuned. Thanks so much for your enthusiasm!