STEM4Girls-Workshop on Machine Learning

Abstract

Although female specialists in the STEM area are urgently needed in the work force, the percentage of women in STEM study programs in higher education is still rather low. One reason for this are gender-related stereotypes that still persist in many modern cultures, which associate STEM as being a “male” domain. To actively draw young women towards STEM and Computer Science, we design a workshop for girls in the age group of 10th grade in secondary education. This workshop introduces the girls to machine learning in the application context of fashion and shopping. We define both cognitive and affective learning objectives and corresponding observable outcomes that indicate whether the learning objectives were reached or not. Based on these learning objectives, we develop a didactic concept for our workshop, as well as a web application as a front end for the machine learning application. Finally, we execute a pilot run of our workshop, which we evaluate with respect to participant satisfaction and the achievement of the learning objectives.KeywordsGender gapGirls in CSK12 educationSTEM educationMachine learning