Increasing the Number of Women in Technical Careers: Online Professional Development of Leadership Teams at Community Colleges

妇女贸易、技术和科学研究所（IWITTS）提供在线专业发展，介绍在外联、教学技能和学习方面的循证做法，以增加社区大学STEM课程的妇女入学率和保留率。 该项目的重点是社区学院领导团队的专业发展，ATE项目和中心支持对美国至关重要的新兴技术领域的技术人员教育。 正在开发网络研讨会，以帮助大学评估他们目前在STEM学科中招募和留住女学生的努力，以及如何组建和维持领导团队。 在一个在线的，25小时，专业发展序列，团队学习循证实践，并指导制定和实施招聘和保留计划。 一个电子评分的机构评估工具帮助团队确定他们需要采取什么做法来缩小差距和扩大参与。 STEM中的妇女工具包包括易于使用的招聘和保留清单、在线招聘资源以及现成的课程资源书目，教育工作者可以将其纳入课堂，以更好地接触女学生。 传播对象是社区大学STEM教育工作者，通过全国性会议传播STEM、网络研讨会、社交媒体和同行评审论文或文章中的女性文献。 一个国家咨询委员会支持该项目并提供投入，并就项目执行情况提供形成性反馈。 一名外部评估员提供了关于认为信息有用、制定计划、执行计划和增加妇女入学人数的团队的百分比的信息。 在培训后和六个月后进行调查，以确定证明最有用的培训内容。 一个案例研究的方法是用来深入研究样本的大学已经成功地实施了他们的招聘和保留计划。 全国妇女参与STEM扩大影响项目提供了基于证据的机制，以增加社区学院技术方案中的妇女人数。 这些机制也可以适用于其他学科和教育机构。

The Institute for Women in Trades, Technology & Science (IWITTS) provides online professional development about evidence-based practices in outreach, teaching skills and learning to increase enrollment and retention of women in community college STEM courses. This project focuses on professional development of leadership teams from community colleges with ATE projects and centers that support technician education in emerging technology fields of vital importance to the US. Webinars are being developed to help colleges assess their present efforts in recruiting and retaining female students in STEM disciplines and how to form and maintain a leadership team. In an online, twenty-five hour, professional development sequence, the teams learn about evidence-based practices and are mentored in developing and implementing Recruitment and Retention Plans. An electronically-scored Institutional Assessment Tool helps teams in pinpointing what practices they need to carry out to close the gap and broaden participation. The Women in STEM Toolkit includes easy-to-use checklists on recruitment and retention, resources for online recruiting, and a bibliography of off-the-shelf curriculum resources that educators can incorporate into their classes to better reach female students. Dissemination is to community college STEM educators via national conferences that disseminate literature on women in STEM, webinars, social media, and peer-reviewed papers or articles. A National Advisory Committee supports and offers input to the project and provides formative feedback on project implementation. An external evaluator provides information on the percent of teams that find the information useful, develop plans, implement them and increase enrollments of women. Surveys after the training and six months later are used to determine the components of the training that proved the most useful. A case study methodology is used to look in-depth at a sample of colleges that have successfully implemented their recruitment and retention plans. The National Women in STEM Broadening Impacts Project provides evidence-based mechanisms to increase the number of women in technical programs in community colleges. The mechanisms can be applied to other disciplines and educational institutions as well.