skip to main content
10.1145/3653666.3656093acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesrespectConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article
Open access

Lessons Learned from Developing and Implementing a High School CS Bridge Program

Published: 16 May 2024 Publication History

Abstract

This experience report describes the design and implementation of the BridgeUP STEM program, which connects women and gender non-binary individuals from historically underrepresented racial or ethnic groups to learning opportunities in computing subfields. Faculty, staff, and students from Georgia Tech collaborated with NCWIT to provide participants computer programming and research experience. We describe the program and present reflections from the facilitation team to capture knowledge and advice on successful and unsuccessful strategies for developing an effective bridge program. We provide a summary of lessons learned by those involved and conclude with guiding questions to help others in designing successful programs.

References

[1]
[n. d.]. Helen Gurley Brown Foundation. https://www.thehgbfoundation.org/
[2]
Carlon G Ami. 2001. The Effects of a Four-Week Summer Bridge Program. Technical Report ED460016. Department of Education.
[3]
Michael Ashley, Katelyn M Cooper, Jacqueline M Cala, and Sara E Brownell. 2017. Building Better Bridges into STEM: A Synthesis of 25 Years of Literature on STEM Summer Bridge Programs. CBE-Life Sciences Education, Vol. 16, 4 (2017), es3.
[4]
Thomas Ball, Abhijith Chatra, Peli de Halleux, Steve Hodges, Michał Moskal, and Jacqueline Russell. 2019. Microsoft makecode: embedded programming for education, in blocks and typescript. In Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on SPLASH-E. 7--12.
[5]
Nicole A Buzzetto-More, Ojiabo Ukoha, and Narendra Rustagi. 2010. Unlocking the barriers to women and minorities in computer science and information systems studies: Results from a multi-methodolical study conducted at two minority serving institutions. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, Vol. 9, 1 (2010), 115--131.
[6]
Sapna Cheryan, Allison Master, and Andrew N Meltzoff. 2015. Cultural stereotypes as gatekeepers: increasing girls' interest in computer science and engineering by diversifying stereotypes. Frontiers in psychology (2015), 49.
[7]
Wendy M DuBow, Beth A Quinn, Gloria Childress Townsend, Rosario Robinson, and Valerie Barr. 2016. Efforts to make computer science more inclusive of women. ACM Inroads, Vol. 7, 4 (2016), 74--80.
[8]
Shawna L Fletcher, Dana C Newell, Mary R Anderson-Rowland, and Leyla D Newton. 2001. The women in applied science and engineering summer bridge program: Easing the transition for first-time female engineering students. In 31st Annual Frontiers in Education Conference. Impact on Engineering and Science Education. Conference Proceedings (Cat. No. 01CH37193), Vol. 3. IEEE, S1F--5.
[9]
Maribel Gonzalez, Lucy Vasserman, Sara Owsley Sood, and Tzu-Yi Chen. 2011. Leveraging Existing Outreach Programs to Reach Underrepresented Minorities. J. Comput. Sci. Coll., Vol. 26, 4 (apr 2011), 190--196.
[10]
Michael J. Johnson, Rachel Baker-Ramos, Christopher Lynnly Hovey, and Betsy DiSalvo. 2023 a. Keeping Mindful of Modality: A Comparison of Computer Science Education Resources for Learning. In 23rd Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli Calling `23) (Koli, Finland) (Koli Calling `23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3631802.3631819
[11]
Michael J. Johnson, Betsy Disalvo, Ashmitha Julius Aravind, Cedric Stallworth, Christopher Lynnly Hovey, Matt Muchna, and Sherri Sanders. 2023 b. Advice for Building Recruiting Pipelines from High School to College: BridgeUP STEM Program. In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2. 1190--1191.
[12]
Phoebe Kotlikoff, Ahmed S Rahman, and Katherine A Smith. 2022. Minding the gap: academic outcomes from pre-college programs. Education Economics, Vol. 30, 1 (2022), 3--28.
[13]
Tonisha B. Lane, Kali Morgan, and Megan M. Lopez. 2020. “A Bridge Between High School and College”: A Case Study of a STEM Intervention Program Enhancing College Readiness Among Underserved Students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, Vol. 22, 1 (2020), 155--179.
[14]
Dee Michell, Anna Szorenyi, Katrina Falkner, and Claudia Szabo. 2017. Broadening participation not border protection: how universities can support women in computer science. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Vol. 39, 4 (2017), 406--422.
[15]
Iwona Miliszewska, Gayle Barker, Fiona Henderson, and Ewa Sztendur. 2006. The Issue of Gender Equity in Computer Science--What Students Say. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, Vol. 5, 1 (2006), 107--120.
[16]
Leotis L Parrish, Ava W Dickens, and Tamara L Fuller. 2017. Helping Orient Minorities to Engineering (HOME) Program: A Pre-College Bridge Program. In 2017 FYEE Conference.
[17]
Joan M Raines. 2012. FirstSTEP: A preliminary review of the effects of a summer bridge program on pre-college STEM majors. Journal of STEM Education: Innovations and Research, Vol. 13, 1 (2012).
[18]
A. Richter, J. Yamamoto, and E. Frachtenberg. 2023. Why Are There So Few Women in Computer Systems Research? Computer, Vol. 56, 02 (2 2023), 101--105. https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2022.3219633
[19]
Eric S Roberts, Marina Kassianidou, and Lilly Irani. 2002. Encouraging women in computer science. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, Vol. 34, 2 (2002), 84--88.
[20]
Linda J Sax, Hilary B Zimmerman, Jennifer M Blaney, Brit Toven-Lindsey, and Kathleen Lehman. 2017. Diversifying Undergraduate Computer Science: The Role of Department Chairs in Promoting Gender and Racial Diversity. Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering, Vol. 23, 2 (2017).
[21]
Greg Scragg and Jesse Smith. 1998. A Study of Barriers to Women in Undergraduate Computer Science. In Proceedings of the twenty-ninth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education. 82--86.
[22]
Brendan Tangney, Elizabeth Oldham, Claire Conneely, Stephen Barrett, and John Lawlor. 2009. Pedagogy and processes for a computer programming outreach workshop-The bridge to college model. IEEE Transactions on Education, Vol. 53, 1 (2009), 53--60.
[23]
Scott Vandenberg, Sharon G. Small, Meg Fryling, Robin Flatland, and MaryAnne Egan. 2018. A Summer Program to Attract Potential Computer Science Majors. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Baltimore, Maryland, USA) (SIGCSE '18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 467--472. https://doi.org/10.1145/3159450.3159562
[24]
Heather Wright. 2017. Compared to Men And Women, Non-Binary Students Report Lower Levels of Peer Support. Computing Research News, Vol. 29, 6 (2017).
[25]
Staff Writers. [n.,d.]. Women in Computer Science: Getting Involved in STEM. https://www.computerscience.org/resources/women-in-computer-science/ io

Index Terms

  1. Lessons Learned from Developing and Implementing a High School CS Bridge Program

        Recommendations

        Comments

        Information & Contributors

        Information

        Published In

        cover image ACM Conferences
        RESPECT 2024: Proceedings of the 2024 on RESPECT Annual Conference
        May 2024
        321 pages
        ISBN:9798400706264
        DOI:10.1145/3653666
        This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

        Sponsors

        Publisher

        Association for Computing Machinery

        New York, NY, United States

        Publication History

        Published: 16 May 2024

        Check for updates

        Author Tags

        1. bridge programs
        2. computer science
        3. diversity, equity, and inclusion
        4. student recruitment

        Qualifiers

        • Research-article

        Conference

        RESPECT 2024
        Sponsor:

        Upcoming Conference

        Contributors

        Other Metrics

        Bibliometrics & Citations

        Bibliometrics

        Article Metrics

        • 0
          Total Citations
        • 204
          Total Downloads
        • Downloads (Last 12 months)204
        • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)41
        Reflects downloads up to 06 Feb 2025

        Other Metrics

        Citations

        View Options

        View options

        PDF

        View or Download as a PDF file.

        PDF

        eReader

        View online with eReader.

        eReader

        Login options

        Figures

        Tables

        Media

        Share

        Share

        Share this Publication link

        Share on social media