Although women make up approximately 50% of the general work force in the U.S., they only represent 9% of workers in the science and engineering community. With such a low percentage of female interest, the government is expecting increased worker shortages through the first decade of the 21st century for the information technology (IT) industry.

The core worker in the IT industry are computer engineers, systems analysts, programmers and computer scientists, which includes database administrators, computer support personnel and all other computer scientists. These are all careers that relate directly back to high school math and science, in addition to computer science studies.

Growth projections by The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ indicate that the current graduation rate of those in undergraduate computer, information sciences and technology programs aren’t high enough to sustain the industry’s growth. In addition, they acknowledged that the even greater decrease of women into the computer science pipeline will have a profound effect on the industry.

These researchers believe that the low representation of women in computer science at the undergraduate level is inherited from the secondary school level, where girls do not participate in computer science courses and related activities as much as boys. Although girls are often well represented in earlier computing courses, they shy away from advanced courses. One possible reason for this is because of the increased focus on the technical and math course requirements.

This leads us back to math and science studies in elementary and high school, and yet another growing concern within the scientific community.

We currently believe that our nation’s future economic prosperity and global competition depends on both scientific progress and our adaptability in the fields of science, technology and engineering. As our society shifts from a resource-intensive society to a knowledge-intensive economy, it is critical for all of us to develop the knowledge and skills needed to contribute to this new community.

With this in mind, knowledge of math and science has now become essential for those pursuing a high-status and well-paid job in our new technologically advanced workforce.

Again, the science community is concerned that industry growth in the early 21st century will far out pace that of graduates. Once again, research has suggested that the root of this problem can be traced back to elementary and high school classrooms.

In going back to the classroom, a study by the National Assessment of Education Progress discovered that girls score below the national mean on all science achievement items and express negatives attitudes towards science. The study acknowledged that societal, education and personal factors all contribute to this funding, but stressed that differences within the science classroom may be one of the biggest contributing factors.

So what factors are discouraging girls from excelling in math, science and computer science studies in high school? Research has shown a number of different issues that need to be addressed. They believe that girls are not presented with adequate information about science-related career opportunities and their prerequisites, and that high school counselors often do not encourage further courses in math and science. In addition, texts, the media and many adults often project sex-stereotyped views of science and scientists.

A lack of development of spatial ability skills may also be an issue, which could be fostered in shop and mechanical drawing classes. Girls also have fewer experiences with science activities and equipment, which are often stereotyped as being masculine.

In order to encourage girls in the pursuit of math and science, teachers are encouraged to maintain well-equipped, organized and perceptually stimulating classrooms, use non-sexist language and examples, include information on women scientists and stress creatively and basic skills and provide career information.

In addition, math and science teachers should use laboratories, discussions and weekly quizzes as their primary modes of instruction or teaching strategies and supplement those activities with field trips and guest speakers. If possible, teachers should also encourage parental involvement.

Studies have also shown that teachers, both male and female, who were successful in motivating girls to continue to study science, practiced what is called “directed intervention”. They asked girls to assist with demonstrations, which required these students to perform and not merely record, in the laboratories, and in science-related fieldtrips.

When it comes to computer science studies, a similar approach can be taken. Although these studies do involved math, programming and technical issues, computer science educators need to be aware that working with computers involves much more than that. It also requires fully developed verbal and interpersonal skills – an area in which girls tend to excel at.

In order to attract more girls to the study, teachers should concentrate on applications and not just on math or programming. That’s because girls generally don’t get as excited about computers for their gadget value, as boys do. Instead, girls become more interested and engaged when technology is discussed in terms of it’s usefulness for problem solving.

Computer science educators should also impart to girls the important need for women in the industry and outline more career options. For example, jobs are not just limited to programming; individuals are needed to help solve business problems with technology solutions. The industry itself is focused on solving problems, and developing solutions to help business continue to grow.

Conclusion:

By introducing science, math and computer science in a positive manner to girls in all levels of education, we may be able to turn the tide and see more and more women choose careers in these important fields. If we truly believe children are our future, now is the time to ensure that they have a place in the future we have created.

Valerie Giles owns and operates Cyber-Prof: Teacher Resource Site an educational web site that specializes in resources for school and teacher supplies . Free stuff for teachers, teaching strategies, K-8, educational toys and games, back to school, classroom technology and home school curriculum. http://www.cyber-prof.com

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In India, there are countless number of leading universities, such as IITs, Private Institutes, State Level Engineering Colleges and Regional Engineering Colleges that are engaged in making the career of future computer and IT engineers.

The demand of Indian Computer Science and IT Professionals is increasing day by day on a worldwide level. That’s why in a current scenario becoming a computer science and IT professional is a dream of many a young youth of India.

There is a broad spectrum of computer training comes under the study of computer science and information technology. When it comes to finding computer science schools, anyone has to go through a deep research that sometimes open different choices to the users. Computer courses can offer high-tech training for professional certification and several levels of college degrees in computer technology and computer science. It is completely up to you whatever you decide.

The main purpose of computers and IT colleges and institutes in India is to design programmes in a way that can prepare future network engineers, programmers, computer technicians and others for professional employment in the computer sciences field. A huge range of computer technology is covered under the study of computer sciences, so anyone should think think about his/her ultimate goal before enrolling himself/herself in any computer science courses.

If you are one of them who are looking for professional certification in one area of computers and information technology, you can find a number of colleges and institutes in India that provide computers and IT education. Among them, there are some institutes that demand for previous experience or training in computers and information technology. There are also some colleges that allow you to start from scratch.

If you are one of them who always seek for getting an advanced position in computer networking or information technology, you will have to find complete information about all college degrees in computer science. Some highly respected degrees of this field are Master of Science Degrees (MS),Bachelor of Science Degrees (BS) and Associate of Science Degrees (AS). The terminal degree of this filed is Doctorate of Science in Computer Science offered by renowned and widely-known universities in India. The higher degree you have, the more salary will come into your hand.

You can also include some business courses along with your computer and information technology education, if you are thinking to pursue your career in management, office administration or business technology.

There are a huge number of widely-renowned computers and IT colleges and institutes in India offering excellent computer science and information technology education required to be a computer and IT professional. You can get this education by enrolling yourself in any of the top colleges and institutes. These colleges and institutes help you to earn a diploma or a degree course according to you potential and skills by practicing them as professional.

Some colleges that offer excellent and specialized computer science and information technology courses and fellow programs are Amrita Institute of Computer Technology, Bankatlal Badruka College for Information Technology, Academy of Computer Technology, B.I.I.T. Heights Institute of Information and Technology, Baba Saheb Ambedkar Technical Educational Society, Alakananda Computer Training Centre, Department of Computer Science, Godavari Institute of Information Technology, etc. Some other institutes are A.J. College of Science and Technology, Axis College of Economics and Commerce, Academy of Computer Studies, Allahabad Agricultural Institute Deemed University, Banaras Hindu University, etc.

Shefali Roy is a webmaster of latestt.com. Here u can get the information related to career options and computers and IT colleges in India. For more details visit latestt.com

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The compound is situated within an area of 100 acros. This university has two academy buildings, one administration building, three dormitory for boys and one dormitory for girls. The majar of Mawlana Bhashani is situated on the campus. There are school for boys and girs, technical college, madras with their hostel are situated along with the campus. There is a nice food court or cafeteria is situated in the center of campus beside the central library. The library is very rich in its collection.

There are two faculties in this university,one is LIFE SCIENCE FACULTY and other is ENGINEERING FACULTY.

LIFE SCIENCE FACULTY Department -
* Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering
* Criminology and Police Science
* Food Technology and Nutritional Science
* Environmental Science and Resource Management.

ENGINEERING FACULTY Department -
* Information and Communication Technology
*Computer Science and Technology
* Textile Engineering

There are above 2000 students in this university and 62 Teachers for guiding them. All of the teachers are highly qualified and trained. They are very supportive to students. The classrooms provide well facilities and ventilation.

The university provides excellent lab facilities for every department.the computer classes held for students of engineering department and also for other students. The university also provide medical facilities and transport facilities for students. There are seats available for foreign students. The students of this university takes part in various cultural programs. Programs are arranged in every occasion in the by the students.

The university has wonderful view.
MAWLANA BHASHANI SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY
SANOSH,TANGAIL-1902,BANGLADESH.
The website URL is – http://www.mbstu.ac.bd

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Let’s look at some of the reasons why girls come to the STEM classroom with less of the core skills needed for success in this subject area. Overall, girls and boys play with different kinds of games in early childhood that provide different types of learning experiences. Most girls play games that emphasize relationships (i.e., playing house, playing with dolls) or creativity (i.e., drawing, painting). In contrast, boys play computer and video games or games that emphasize building (i.e., LEGO®), both of which develop problem-solving, spatial-relationship and hands-on skills.

A study of gender differences in spatial relations skills of engineering students in the U.S. and Brazil found that there was a large disparity between the skills of female and male students. These studies attributed female student’s lesser skills set to two statistically significant factors: 1) less experience playing with building toys and 2) having taken less drafting courses prior to the engineering program. Spatial relations skills are critical to engineering. A gender study of computer science majors at Carnegie-Mellon University (one of the preeminent computer science programs in the country) found that, overall, male students come equipped with much better computer skills than female students. This equips male students with a considerable advantage in the classroom and could impact the confidence of female students.

Are these gender differences nature or nurture? There is considerable evidence that they are nurture. Studies show that most leading computer and video games appeal to male interests and have predominantly male characters and themes, thus it is not surprising that girls are much less interested in playing them. A study of computer games by Children Now found that 17% of the games have female characters and of these, 50% are either props, they tend to faint, have high-pitched voices, and are highly sexualized.

There are a number of studies that suggest that when girls and women are provided with the building blocks they need to succeed in STEM they will do as well if not better than their male counterparts. An Introductory Engineering Robotics class found that while males did somewhat better on the pre-test than females, females did as well as the males on the post-test following the class’s completion.

Another critical area of gender difference that teachers of STEM should keep in mind has less to do with actual skills and experience and more to do with perceptions and confidence. For females, confidence is a predictor of success in the STEM classroom. They are much less likely to retain interest if they feel they are incapable of mastering the material. Unfortunately, two factors work against female confidence level: 1) most girls will actually have less experience with STEM course content than their male counterparts and 2) males tend to overplay their accomplishments while females minimize their own. A study done of Carnegie Mellon Computer Science PhD students found that even when male and female students were doing equally well grade wise, female students reported feeling less comfortable. Fifty-three percent of males rated themselves as “highly prepared” in contrast to 0% of females.

It is important to note that many of the learning style differences described above are not strictly gender-based. They are instead based on differences of students with a background in STEM, problem-solving, and hands-on skills learned from childhood play and life experience and those who haven’t had the same type of exposure. A review of the literature on minority students and STEM finds that students of color are less likely to have the STEM background experiences and thus are missing many of the same STEM building blocks as girls and have the same lack of confidence. Many of the STEM curriculum and pedagogy solutions that work for female students will also work for students of color for this reason.

Bridge Classes/Modules to Ensure Core Skills

Teachers will likely see a gap in the core STEM skills of female and minority students for the reasons described above. Below are some solutions applied elsewhere to ensure that girls and women (and students of color) will get the building block STEM skills that many will be missing.

Teachers in the Cisco Academy Gender Initiative study assessed the skill levels of each of their students and then provided them with individualized lesson plans to ensure their success that ran parallel to the class assignments. Other teachers taught key skills not included in the curriculum at the beginning of the course, such as calculating math integers and tool identification and use. Students were provided with additional lab time, staffed by a female teaching assistant, knowing that the female students would disproportionately benefit from additional hands-on experience.

Carnegie-Mellon University came to view their curriculum as a continuum, with students entering at different points based on their background and experience. Carnegie-Mellon’s new frame of a “continuum” is purposefully different than the traditional negative model in which classes start with a high bar that necessitates “remedial” tutoring for students with less experience, stigmatizing them and undermining their confidence. Below is a list of ideas and suggestions that will help ALL students to succeed in the STEM classroom.

1. Building Confidence

How do teachers build confidence in female students who often have less experience than their male counterparts and perceive they are behind even when they are not?

1) Practice-based experience and research has shown that ensuring female students have the opportunity to gain experience with STEM, in a supportive environment, will increase their confidence level.

2) Bringing in female role models that have been successful in the STEM field is another important parallel strategy that should be used to assist your female students in seeing themselves as capable of mastering STEM classes: if she could do it, then I can too!

3) Consistent positive reinforcement by STEM teachers of their female students, with a positive expectation of outcome, will assist them in hanging in there during those difficult beginning weeks when they have not yet developed a technology schema or hands-on proficiency and everything they undertake seems like a huge challenge.

2. Appealing to Female Interests

Many of the typical STEM activities for the classroom appeal to male interests and turn off girls. For example, curriculum in robots often involves monsters that explode or cars that go fast. “Roboeducators” observed that robots involved in performance art or are characterized as animals are more appealing to girls. Engineering activities can be about how a hair dryer works or designing a playground for those with disabilities as well as about building bridges. Teachers should consider using all types of examples when they are teaching and incorporating activities in efforts to appeal female and male interests. Teachers can also direct students to come up with their own projects as a way of ensuring girls can work in an area of significance to them.

Research also shows that there are Mars/Venus differences between the genders and how each engages in technology. Overall, girls and women are excited by how the technology will be used – its application and context. Men will discuss how big the hard drive or engine is, how fast the processor runs, and debate the merits of one motherboard or engine versus another. These are topics that are, overall, of less interest to most females.

The Carnegie-Mellon Study took into account the differences of what engages female students and modified the Computer Science programs’ curriculum so that the context for the program was taught much earlier on in the semester and moved some of the more technical aspects of the curriculum (such as coding) to later in the semester. Authors observed that the female students were much more positive about getting through the tedious coding classes when they understood the purpose of it. Teachers should ensure that the context for the technology they are teaching is addressed early on in the semester by using real world stories and case studies to capture the interest of all of their students.

3. Group Dynamics in the Classroom

Research studies by American Association of University Women and Children Now have found that most females prefer collaboration and not competition in the classroom. Conversely, most males greatly enjoy competition as a method of learning and play. Many hands-on activities in technology classes are set up as competitions. Robotics for example, regularly uses competitiveness as a methodology of teaching. Teachers should
be cognizant of the preference of many girls for collaborative work and should add-in these types of exercises to their classes. Some ways to do this are by having students work in assigned pairs or teams and having a team grade as well as an individual grade. (See Reading 2 on Cooperative Learning.)

Another Mars/Venus dynamic that STEM teachers should be aware of occurs in the lab there male students will usually dominate the equipment and females will take notes or simply watch. Overall, male students have more experience and thus confidence with hands-on lab equipment than their female counterparts. Teachers should create situations to ensure that their female students are spending an equal amount of time in hands-on activities. Some approaches have been: 1) to pair the female students only with each other during labs in the beginning of the class semester so that they get the hands-on time and their confidence increases, putting them in a better position to work effectively with the male students later on, 2) allot a specific time for each student in pair to use the lab equipment and announce when it’s time to switch and monitor this, and 3) provide feedback to male students who are taking over by letting them know that their partner needs to do the activity as well.

4. Moving Female Students from Passive Learners to Proactive Problem Solvers

The main skill in STEM is problem solving in hands-on lab situations. For reasons already discussed regarding a lack of experience, most girls don’t come to STEM classes with these problem-solving skills. Instead, girls often want to be shown how to do things, repeatedly, rather than experimenting in a lab setting to get to the answer. Adding to this issue, many girls fear that they will break the equipment. In contrast, male students will often jump in and manipulate the equipment before being given any instructions by their teacher. Teachers can address this by such activities as: 1) having them take apart old equipment and put it together again, 2) creating “scavenger hunt” exercises that force them to navigate through menus, and 3) emphasizing that they are learning the problem solving process and that this is equally important to learning the content of the lesson and insisting that they figure out hands-on exercises on their own.

Research has also shown that females tend to engage in STEM activities in a rote, smaller picture way while males use higher order thinking skills to understand the bigger picture and the relationship between the parts. Again, moving female students (and the non-techsavvy student in general) to become problem solvers (versus just understanding the content piece of the STEM puzzle) will move them to use higher order thinking skills in STEM.

Finally, many teachers have reported that many female students will often want to understand how everything relates to each other before they move into action in the lab or move through a lesson plan to complete a specific activity. The female students try to avoid making mistakes along the way and will not only want to read the documentation needed for the lesson, they will often want to read the entire manual before taking any action. In contrast, the male student often needs to be convinced to look at the documentation at all. Boys are not as concerned with making a mistake a long the way as long as what they do ultimately works. The disadvantage for female students is that they often are so worried about understanding the whole picture that they don’t move onto the hands-on activity or they don’t do it in a timely fashion, so that they are consistently the last ones in the class to finish. Teachers can assist female (and non-tech-savvy) students to move through class material more quickly by providing instruction on how to quickly scan for only the necessary information needed to complete an assignment.

5. Role Models

Since the numbers of women in STEM are still small, girls have very few opportunities to see female role models solving science, technology, engineering or math problems. Teachers should bring female role models into the classroom as guest speakers or teachers, or visit them on industry tours, to send the message to girls that they can succeed in the STEM classroom and careers.

Bibliography

Medina, Afonso, Celso, Helena B.P. Gerson, and Sheryl A. Sorby. “Identifying Gender Differences in the 3-D Visualization Skills of Engineering Students in Brazil and in the United States”. International Network for Engineering Eucation and Research page. 2 August 2004: [http://www.ineer.org/Events/ICEE/papers/193.pdf].

Milto, Elissa, Chris Rogers, and Merredith Portsmore. “Gender Differences in Confidence Levels, Group Interactions, and Feelings about Competition in an Introductory Robotics Course”. American Society for Engineering Education page. 8 July 2004: [http://fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie2002/papers/1597.pdf].

“Fair Play: Violence, Gender and Race in Video Games 2001”. Children Now page. 19 August 2004: [http://www.childrennow.org/media/video-games/2001/].

“Girls and Gaming: Gender and Video Game Marketing, 2000”. Children Now page. 17 June 2004: [http://www.childrennow.org/media/medianow/mnwinter2001.html].

Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age. District of Columbia: American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, 2000.

Margolis, Jane and Allan Fisher. Unlocking the Computer Clubhouse: Women in Computer. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.

Taglia, Dan and Kenneth Berry. “Girls in Robotics”. Online Posting. 16 September 2004: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/roboeducators/.

“Cisco Gender Initiative”. Cisco Learning Institute. 30 July 2004: http://gender.ciscolearning.org/Strategies/Strategies_by_Type/Index.html.

Donna Milgram is founder and Executive Director of the National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology & Science (IWITTS). She is currently the Principal Investigator of the CalWomenTech Project, a $2 million National Science Foundation grant awarded in April 2006. She was also the Principal Investigator of the WomenTech Project, funded by the National Science Foundation, which had a goal of increasing the number of women enrolled and retained in technology education in three national community college demonstration sites. She led IWITTS’s partnership with the Cisco Learning Institute (CLI)/Cisco Gender Initiative. Ms. Milgram produced the interactive teacher training video “School-to-Work: Preparing Young Women for High Skill, High Wage Careers.”

Additional Resources:

http://www.iwitts.com/

http://www.womentechworld.org/

http://www.womentechstore.com/

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Computers are now become the most valuable machine of the world. Today, almost more than 70% work is rely on the computers. It is also playing role in the world economy. There are many business are running on the basis of just a computer software. As online learning is depend on the internet .So, if person takes course related to IT, it becomes easy for the person to understand it. They don’t want to give much time to their study and can easily clear the exams There are actually many different specialties available when you get an online based degree in computer technologies. You can study computer science, software engineering, computer repair and maintenance, database programming, and a wide variety of other specialties within the realm of a degree in computer technologies at the internet. While learning they can easily apply their study in their current work. If a person is working in a IT company and wants its promotion. They can take a online degree course and can increase its impression on the boss.

A computer science student doesn’t need to get training of basics of internet such as creating new account on the websites, visiting websites, checking the e-mail, sending e-mail, downloading documents or course material from e-mails which will be provided by institute at regular intervals, uploading documents and sending it by attaching files, searching any topic by using search engines, about popular websites providing material for the education, chatting software’s for the live discussions, downloading software’s etc. They should choose the better course which provide them some knowledge of new technologies of programming and platforms such as .Net , Visual basic etc. Almost every type of online course is available for the computer students because they are well acquainted about the internet.

In the IT sector, the technology is increasing very fast. As new soft ware’s releases in the market new virus come out to break the software and hardware also. So, the companies need competent experts in computer technologies to fix computer problems and help employees make transitions. Companies are also hiring employers online and giving them work on the contract basis. So, the online degrees can work to show the profile in the online jobs.

Keith Londrie II is the Webmaster of http://best-online-degree-schools.com/ A website that specializes in providing information on Online Degrees that you can research on the internet. Please Visit http://best-online-degree-schools.com/ now!

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