Pedagogy

1
STEP AHEAD Access to Higher Education through
Academic RECRUITMENT PROGRAM Stuart A. Long,
Frank J. Claydon, Consuelo L. Waight, Allison D.
Hawthorne Cullen College of Engineering,
University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-4009
Recruitment Goals
Keeping in touch after Camp
Rationale

• Increase the number of female and minority
  students who are aware of science, technology,
  engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers

• Facebook communication and Newsletter
• Girls encouraged to use popular website as a
  resource for technical questions, data collection
  and continued access to role models
• Girls encouraged to post questions to each other
  for continued support and camaraderie

• For the US to stay competitive in the global,
  technological economy, we must produce not only
  more engineers, but better quality engineers.
• Women are historically underrepresented in the
  field of engineering in part due to gender
  stereotypes and lack of early exposure to the
  field.
• While women represent more than half1 of all U.S.
  undergraduates, only 19.5 of bachelor degrees
  awarded in engineering in 2004-05 were to women2 .

• Help female students make an informed choice
  about pursuing a STEM undergraduate major
• Increase participants knowledge about the
  required high school courses necessary for
  pursuing STEM majors

• Newsletter contains feature articles on former
  camp attendees and engineer guests, word puzzles,
  female engineer cartoon, and additional STEM camp
  information

Content
¹ Digest of Education Statistics, 2005, National
Center for Educational Statistics 2 A New Look at
Engineering, ASEE Profiles of Engineering and
Engineering Technology Colleges, 2005 Edition

• Morning sessions consist of girls actively
  learning the engineering theories that underlie
  their robotics projects
• Afternoon sessions are sequential, hands-on labs
  that allow girls to apply theory from the morning
  sessions to their projects
• Downtime activities are interspersed twice daily
  for mental breaks and camaraderie

Program Results
Pedagogy

• Effects of GRADE Camp
• Tracking choice of high school science or math
  courses as well as ultimate college major
• Perception of enjoyment of math and science
  courses increased as a result of attending camp.
• 153 of the 398 total campers are now college-age
• 67 of the students who have responded are
  pursuing a STEM college degree

• Create a learning environment free of gender
  stereotypes and enriched with female role models
• Provide opportunities for participants to learn
  and practice skills essential for success in
  engineering problem solving, teamwork, and
  communication

Demographics

• Quotes from Participants and Their Parents

• 8th through 12th graders
• 44 participants in 2003
• 85 participants in 2004
• 94 participants in 2005
• 61 participants in 2006
• 114 participants in 2007 (NEW 5 weeks of camp)
• 398 total participants

• I would strongly recommend this camp to a friend
  for their child. This was a wonderful experience
  for my daughter. She was very enthusiastic every
  day I picked her up.

Other 1

• G.R.A.D.E. Camp was undoubtedly the best part of
  my summer this year. I really enjoyed the circuit
  bingo and the relay race. Honestly, there was
  nothing I did not like! I loved the whole week!
  Talking to the engineering students, faculty, and
  women engineers was really awesome. It shed so
  much light on what is really out there in the
  field of engineering.

Mentoring

• One female undergraduate Mentor for every four to
  five camp participants
• Girls meet with female faculty engineers,
  industry engineers, and undergraduate and
  graduate engineering students in formal and
  informal settings

Acknowledgements/Sponsors
Ethnic breakout of participants
This research is funded primarily by grants from
the National Science Foundation (Project Number
0336390) and the Texas Engineering and Technical
Consortium. Additional industrial funding comes
from ExxonMobil and Texas Instruments.