TY - GEN
T1 - Ambassador program for recruiting girls into engineering - Appropriate messages, messengers, and modes of delivery
AU - Marshall, Melissa
AU - Alley, Michael
AU - Zappe, Sarah
AU - Thole, Karen
AU - Frecker, Mary
AU - Engel, Renata
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Although women make up more than half of the U.S. population, the percentage of women entering engineering is much lower. To address this discrepancy, the College of Engineering at Penn State has initiated an Engineering Ambassador Program that sends female engineering undergraduates to give talks in science and math classes within Pennsylvania high schools and middle schools. The main goal of these talks is to clarify what engineers do. What distinguishes our program are the specific messages in the talks and the presentation style of our ambassadors. The messages of our program's talks come from recommendations in the recent text Changing the Conversation [1]. The primary presentation style that our ambassadors rely on is an assertion-evidence style taught in a special presentations course [2]. Evaluations of the presentations by almost 500 students at six different schools across Pennsylvania (including two all-girls schools) indicate that the presentations are highly successful at communicating the messages. More powerful evidence for the efficacy of this program lies in the volunteered responses of girls to these presentations.
AB - Although women make up more than half of the U.S. population, the percentage of women entering engineering is much lower. To address this discrepancy, the College of Engineering at Penn State has initiated an Engineering Ambassador Program that sends female engineering undergraduates to give talks in science and math classes within Pennsylvania high schools and middle schools. The main goal of these talks is to clarify what engineers do. What distinguishes our program are the specific messages in the talks and the presentation style of our ambassadors. The messages of our program's talks come from recommendations in the recent text Changing the Conversation [1]. The primary presentation style that our ambassadors rely on is an assertion-evidence style taught in a special presentations course [2]. Evaluations of the presentations by almost 500 students at six different schools across Pennsylvania (including two all-girls schools) indicate that the presentations are highly successful at communicating the messages. More powerful evidence for the efficacy of this program lies in the volunteered responses of girls to these presentations.
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U2 - 10.1109/FIE.2010.5673363
DO - 10.1109/FIE.2010.5673363
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:78751509697
SN - 9781424462599
T3 - Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE
SP - F4H1-F4H6
BT - 40th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference
T2 - 40th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference: Celebrating Forty Years of Innovation, FIE 2010
Y2 - 27 October 2010 through 30 October 2010
ER -