Improving Girls’ Math Identity through Problem-solving and Mentorship (2020-2021)

Over the past three years, this team has inspired students to change their own relationships with math by building students' confidence, ownership and self-sufficiency in problem-solving, and by building awareness of gender stereotypes and their potential impacts. Each year, the project team has planned and run a series of free workshops for middle school students who identified as female in an attempt to improve their math identity. Outside of the workshops, Duke team members have also worked together to plan activities, discuss their own ideas and approaches and build an increased awareness of gender stereotypes.

As the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the team from holding in-person workshops for middle school girls in 2020-2021, the team instead worked in six small groups on projects to continue forward progress. These projects included:

Building a digital applet
Updating the project website and maintaining a social media presence
Performing data analysis to measure past program impact
Streamlining past workshop lesson plans and developing future workshop activities
Conducting a thorough literature review
Creating a survey instrument for local middle school students

In their work on these projects, students incorporated elements from their current research in topics like gender inequality in STEM, stereotypes, implicit bias and imposter syndrome.

Timing

Fall 2020 – Summer 2021

Team Outputs

Building Girls’ Confidence in STEM (2021 Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Virtual Showcase)

Improving Girls’ Math Identity through Problem Solving and Mentorship (poster by Sophia Santiallan, Victoria Akin, Leah Metcalf, Samatha Dilley, Morgan Feist, Julia Helm, Sydney Hunt, Tayla Jeter, Tess Lipskey, Naomi Rubin, Miryam Rudolph, Ann Sawers, Anna Song, Caroline Tang and Michelle Yin)