Designing an E-Learning Curriculum

Background

Stoilescu and McDougall (2011) highlighted the presence of the gender digital divide in computer science undergraduate programs in Canada. They found that the female undergraduate students were not lacking computer resources, but what was lacking was equity in instruction with computers and opportunities to participate in the computer culture. The latter two issues gave rise to the female students’ high anxiety levels, low confidence, and ultimate underachievement. These female students needed to have more valuable experiences in the field. Stoilescu and McDougall (2011) proposed giving them more opportunities to access the computer culture in formal and informal settings. One way of improving opportunities in informal education was to allow female students to have more opportunities to practice writing code.

The current level of participation in engineering education by women is low compared to that of men. Schiebinger and Schraudner (2011) argued that although much had been done to try to achieve gender equality in educational institutions, there was the need for “gendered innovations in scientific knowledge and technology design” (p. 157). They argued that a gender analysis must be present as a control from the beginning of a project to ensure rigor in science, engineering, and medicine research, policy, and practice. In the design of an e-learning curriculum, as Schiebinger and Schraudner (2011) have pointed out, it is paramount that a checklist be created that helps technology designers to identify key gender components for operationalizing sex and gender analyses for designers. Some components suggested in the article can be applied in the design of an e-learning curriculum. These are rethinking language and visual representation, rethinking stereotypes, analyzing academic disciplines, redefining key concepts, and rethinking theory.