GSE/SGER: Developing An Extension Service Proposal to Recruit Middle School Girls to Information Technology Careers

这一探索性项目将为弗吉尼亚州和周边各州的农村、阿巴拉契亚地区建立推广服务创造基础设施。该项目旨在使通常得不到充分服务的中学女生对选择信息技术职业的兴趣显著和持续增加。规划年将用于发展学校，社区和行业的伙伴关系以及与利益相关者的关系;制定一个涵盖整个项目的严格评估计划;并巩固一个统一的变革计划，以增加人们对IT职业的兴趣和选择，智力优势-该项目建立在以前向技术领域妇女提供的赠款的基础上该方案还包括：成立一个研究小组，调查女性从事信息技术职业的障碍;制作和分发一张DVD和《辅导员指南》，以支持家长、教师、辅导员和顾问作为女孩在职业决策方面的伙伴;编写多篇同行评议的期刊文章;编写一本书;举行国际研究会议和在全国作介绍。它将使用跨学科团队的方法，以提供深入了解我们的农村，阿巴拉契亚文化和发展的变化模式，可以在全国范围内复制使用学校辅导员，以达到中学女生，以增加兴趣和选择的IT职业。该项目的跨学科方法将发展基础设施和最佳做法的知识库，以增加农村阿巴拉契亚中学女生对信息技术职业的兴趣和选择。该模式是创新的，专注于中学辅导员作为一个实践社区，并将这个社区连接到广泛的最佳实践策略和研究，从实施经验的反馈循环，以进一步告知实践。弗吉尼亚州和毗邻的阿巴拉契亚地区是这一努力的一个很好的选择，因为它增加了IT公司，并有机会开发一种农村模式，从早期发展的中学年龄有效地影响国家IT劳动力。

This exploratory project will create the infrastructure for establishing an extension service for the rural, Appalachian regions of Virginia and surrounding states. The project seeks to engender a significant and sustained increase in interest which would lead to the choice of an information technology (IT) career among typically underserved middle school girls. The planning year will be spent in developing school, community, and industry partnerships and relationships with stakeholders; developing a rigorous evaluation plan that encompasses the entire project; and solidifying a unified program of change to increase the interest and choice of an IT career among a diverse, underserved regional population of middle school girls.INTELLECTUAL MERIT--This project builds on previous grants to the Women In Technology (WIT) research team to investigate barriers to females' pursuit of IT careers, the development and dissemination of a DVD and Facilitator's Guide to support parents, teachers, counselors and advisors as partners to girls in career decision-making, and multiple peer-reviewed journal articles, a book, and international research conference and national presentations. It will use an interdisciplinary team approach to provide insights into our understanding of rural, Appalachian cultures and the development of a model of change that can be replicated nationally using school counselors to reach middle school girls to increase the interest and choice of an IT career.BROADER IMPACT--The interdisciplinary approach of this project will develop an infrastructure and knowledge base of best practices to increase rural Appalachia middle school girls' interest and choice of an IT career. The model is innovative in focusing on middle school counselors as a community of practice and connecting this community to a broad range of best practice strategies and research with a feedback loop from implementation experiences to further inform practice. Virginia and the contiguous Appalachian region of states is a good choice for this effort given its increase in IT companies and opportunity for developing a rural model for effectively impacting the national IT workforce from an early developmental middle school age.