Only 25 high school girls in all of Missouri took the AP Computer Science exam in 2013. One-fifth of those students were from Villa Duchesne. So when the school’s computer science teacher, Claudia Dicken, moved to Florida this summer, the school got creative rather than cancel the class. “We had this amazing teacher we didn’t want to lose,” says Sapna Jos, Villa’s director of marketing and communications. This fall, Dicken will again teach computer science at Villa—but through an online course she designed.
Dicken knows the value of computer science education firsthand: Before teaching, her first career was in programming. “There are amazing jobs, the pay is great, it’s enriching and rewarding, and it’s the future,” she says. Yet relatively few high schools offer introductory classes that could interest girls in pursuing programming and engineering in college. Providing that opportunity is a priority at Villa. “We believe our online AP Computer Science program will help prepare more women for careers in fields currently dominated by men,” Jos says. “That was part of the reason we didn’t want to lose the course as part of our curriculum.”
Using online instruction to teach computer science seems fitting. Dicken, who has taught online classes at Saint Louis University, will post video lessons, hold weekly discussions and ask students to keep journals. The students’ summer assignment is to experiment with the Alice Project, a teaching tool that enables them to create 3-D animation.
Encouraging young women to consider computer science is important not only for their careers, Dicken says, but also for all consumers of technology. “I think computer science is all about innovation, and you need to have diversity among the people who are doing innovations,” she says. “We need to mirror our population. If all you have are guys writing programs, they’re going to be tailored to guys. What about the interests of women?”
With that concern in mind, Villa opened its online course to other schools in the Sacred Heart Network. Students from Greenwich, Conn., and Halifax, Nova Scotia, will join St. Louis students in digital learning. “The girls here are so excited,” Dicken says.
Pictured: Villa Duchesne students
