Panel Session: Education Workshop

To Celebrate More Women in the Mathematical,

Statistical, and Computer Sciences

 

Workshop on Education

Friday, May 22, 1998

Panelists: Pat Rogers,(Chair), York University

Tahany Gadalla, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Carolyn Watters, Acadia University

Pat Rogers Opened the Workshop by welcoming everyone and by introducing the panelists to the audience.

Tahany Gadalla spoke first on the issue of the statistics of enrollment of women in Computer Sciences and Mathematics between the years of 1992 and 1995. In 1972, the level of women in undergraduate, Masters, and Doctoral programs was lower than the male enrollment. She discussed the trends and displayed charts outlining the enrollment. She noted that the gap between enrollment in Math vs. all enrollment was widening . Another alarming trend was that from the year 1972 onwards, there was a stea dy increase of women enrollment in CS along with the male enrollment (with a constant gap in between) and after 1983, both gender enrollments dropped. The males’ enrollment quickly jumped back, while the females’ has continued to decline and still does sl ightly to this day.

The trend for both gender enrollment is generally the same at the Bachelor, Graduate, and Doctoral level, but the gap is much wider for graduate and Doctoral studies, especially in CS.

She described that in 1972, a woman student was 60% as likely as a man to study math, while at present, a woman student is 50% as likely as a man to study math.

On the same subject, in 1972, a female was 1/3 as likely to chose Computer Science as a man, and now, is 1/5 as likely to chose Computer Science than a man.

On a side note, she mentions that Engineering fields have seen a steady increase of women enrollment (but still lower than the male enrollment).

Carolyn Watters Spoke next and started by explaining that she has been working with a group of women students at Dalhousie. She displayed a chart on women's enrollment and explained that in the East of Canada, the percentage of female enrollment in CS was even lower than the rest of Canada, now resting at around 10%.

She continued by saying that since she cannot change High Schools and below, that one thing we can do is to improve the environment at the University. We should make it clear that Computer Science is fun because typically, young women might have bad vi ews of what Computer Science really is.

She stressed that it is important that women be introduced to Computer Science because they have other qualities to introduce to the field some of which were listed on the slides. She expressed a strong belief that people who use software should have an input into what they are using, and finally, there should be a gender balance in faculty politics. She noted that the explanation that the enrollment has reached its "natural level" is absolutely absurd, and that women are missing out on great expanding opportunities.

She noted that some of the things which may help improve the university experience is to teach math as the courses progress (teach it as you go), that there should be interdisciplinary computer science degrees, such as music with CS, history with CS, etc. The required courses should be looked at, and perhaps changed since they were designed a long time ago, by males, and that this may be one of the reasons that women are not as interested.

Some suggestions which were thought of by the group of women at Dalhousie were that women would benefit from an ombudsperson, that there should be study groups formed, skills tutorials, and more flexible assignments, and a less hostile environment (more light in the labs, etc). She closed by passing around a pamphlet outlining the Dalhousie CS program which the women had created that contained pictures of women in CS. This was created to hopefully encourage high school students to choose to study CS, as well as current students in other disciplines.

Pat Rogers started by mentioning the efforts that she and others undertook in the past to encourage more women to chose math. These efforts included going to high schools and holding one day conferences to present young women with role models. T his resulted in raising awareness, but not necessarily a change. In the mid-80’s, they held workshops on the subject of careers in Math. Doing these things installed virtues of odd exceptions – it made women in this field look a little isolated; a little weird. Women mathematicians were brought in and "shown" to the students.

She then asked the question "Why aren’t more women participating in Math?"- Is it the way it is taught? The environment in which it is taught? Or is it the way that it is studied?.

She mentioned an article entitled "Real Women don’t do math for good reasons" by Sheila Tabius – which states that perhaps the reason is because Math was developed from a Male perspective. The curriculum should be looked at: not only the content, but also the way that is being taught. She then discussed that the article mentions the "Math Anxiety", a phrase which is used as an excuse often by women to "let themselves off the hook". Tabius also describes how she paid women to attend first year science classes- most of whom did not enjoy the experience . The most common complaints were that they "never get to see the big picture" and that they only see "little bits and pieces". She compared it to learning to play one bar on the piano. Another point note d in the article was that women hate competitive environment and that "math isn’t challenging".

Rogers added that the way Math is being taught is similar to teaching someone to read, but not giving them a chance to read a really good book. She noted that at a young age, students don’t have a chance to sink their teeth into something really challe nging. She also mentions that math teachers should give students time to think about things in class, and a chance to examine each problem carefully and an opportunity to get help.

In order for Math (and CS) to appeal to more women, there should be more women writing text books and more women writing the curriculum for math and CS.

Discussion

This closed the panel presentations and people joined into small groups to discuss the following questions:

1.Considering that women are leaving high school well prepared- why do so few take up math? How can you improve this?

2. What are one or two changes that could be made to increase the participation in the field of Computer Science?

NOTE: Safety in CS is a concern for women (the thought of typically working late in CS buildings and having to walk alone), that women like to see the big picture, and that society is too traditional to "accept" women being computer scientists and mathematicians.

Q/ More info on skill tutorial that Dr. Watters talked about.

A/ Unix, Java, and Perl seminars. This is not only for females, but it was suggested by the female students to understand extra things. A web page would be built describing what went on during the seminar so that students had future references.

Q/ How did the group of women students get together?

A/ They formed it themselves because they were angry and frustrated by what was going on.

NOTE: A suggestion was made that women in high school that are strong in Math should be invited to attend special seminars.

NOTE: Women need relevance: it would be nice to know how much of the information being learned can get used.

NOTE: Out of high school, some women want an "immediate" career so that they can have children, and work part time.

NOTE: Dr Watters explained that Acadia did an experimental Computer Science class designed for non-CS students. This class started off by doing web pages, then adding Javascript. Because the course was hands on, learning Computer Programming concepts did not seem difficult to the students.

NOTE: There are two types of jobs :A and B (9 to 5 and ~30hrs/wk) Part time employment should be more popular in CS and Math in order to attract more women.

NOTE: When someone says "This is really hard", it then become difficult.

NOTE (Pat Rogers): at a college called Potsdamn(?) in the states, the enrollment in Math is 25%, and 60% are women. The person in charge has been chair for 17 years and once he took the covers off the books which said " MA course book" and used these b ooks for the BA program. At the end of the course, he gave the covers as presents, and students realized that they had completed a MA course work.

NOTE: Curriculum should be reaching students at a younger age, for example, teaching 3-D and 2-D (Spatial skills). These games become natural if started early. "The sooner they start, the better".

NOTE: There should be a teacher education course which will "teach as needed".

NOTE: Private Computer Programming programs (like ITI) has almost 50% women in classes of around 30 people per class.

NOTE: a mention of a web group called "Sister": which discusses these issues was mentioned.

NOTE: More mature women are going back to schools. They are being repelled at a younger age, but the fact that bread is needed on the table brings them back, and they usually do fine.

NOTE: At UBC Maria Klawe has created a program focused on women in art which allows women to come back for two years for CS, at the same time as getting paid. It is called "ARC" (Alternative Route to Computing).

NOTE: In Denmark, Copenhagen, they teach an obscure language in first year so that both male and females start at the exact same level.

NOTE: More "professional" – CS/Math vs. Engineering. Engineering is typically a more professional area of study.

NOTE: People view Computer Scientists as working 14hrs/day in a locked dark room.

NOTE: Many women are in biology because they want to "change the world".

NOTE: Math is not associated with creativity.

NOTE: Many students don’t think that they are that good or are capable.

NOTE: European culture vs. Canadian: In the Ukraine, women take 1.5 years off when they have a child.

NOTE: Math teachers sometimes have only achieved one grade level of math above the one that they are teaching (ie, some teachers have grade 11 math and are teaching grade 10 math) – there needs to be motivation. Some teachers don’t like teaching math, so, in return, they are not instilling fun in their students.

NOTE: Women do like being competitive, but more often prefer work in a team.

NOTE: Some grade school teachers dreaded taking some math tests and courses. This reflects in the creativity being taught with math, as well as the inability to spark enthusiasm in what is being taught.

NOTE: This is different in other countries- and it differs all over the world.

The time just flew by and the discussion reached an end.

Thanks to Karine Blouin, Acadia University Computer Science student for recording the discussion.