Engaging women in coding: An interdisciplinary approach

Abstract

The focus of this effort is to provide teaching practices to engage women college students in learning Python computer programming by solving interdisciplinary problems. Interactive and collaborative tools are adapted and presented such as pair programming, think/pair/share, code tracing, debugging faulty code, and pedagogical code reviews. The goal is to offer a classroom experience that combines several methods to provide an engaging, fun and inclusive environment to women. The results show students' success in learning fundamentals of computer programming in Python, but more importantly, these classroom practices proved to be inspiring and motivating. Women participants gained confidence and a sense of belonging in a CS classroom.