Mooc - Fostering women's participation to STEM through MOOCs

Course description

Gender stereotypes and under-representation of women in STEM affect the way girls and young women perceive themselves, and it is one of the reasons for their limited presence in the STEM field.
Believing that MOOC and gender-balanced educational content in general can be part of the solution, in this MOOC through the voices from the field of teachers, instructional designers, visual designers, students, and people who work for a more inclusive environment in the STEM field we will understand how to build a more inclusive environment.
We present a toolkit created in the frame of FOSTWOM Erasmus+ project to develop MOOCs according to a gender conscious perspective with a particular focus on: content and storytelling to be used, gender-aware language, gender-aware use of images and visual materials. The aim is to offer a practical tool to all people willing to create educational content in a gender-conscious perspective.

This MOOC is provided by Politecnico di Milano and developed in the frame of the FOSTWOM project.

Learning schedule

The course is organized in 3 weeks.

WEEK 1 – The importance of gender-balance in STEM Field

WEEK 2 – The FOSTWOM Toolkit

WEEK 3 – The Toolkit: scalability and limits

In particular, in week 1 we will listen to the voices from the field of people working toward a more inclusive STEM environment.
Week 2 illustrates the toolkit and the checklist created by FOSTWOM Erasmus+ Project, with a special focus on hints and examples coming from STEM MOOCs field and the approach used in developing it.
Week 3 is about the reusability of the checklist and its limits, giving a more broaden perspective toward universal design for learning.

Prerequisites

No prerequisite knowledge is required.

Activities

Over and above consulting the content, in the form of videos and other web-based resources, you will have the opportunity to discuss course topics and to share ideas with your peers in the Forum of this MOOC.
During this MOOC you will find some activities for self-reflection called “Food for thought”. They are not evaluated and not compulsory, and they are just a stimulus for reflection.

Assessment

The final grade for the course is based on your results from your responses to the quizzes you will find at the end of each week (weekly quizzes). You will successfully complete the course if you reach 60% (or more) of the total score by the end of the edition. The course’s total score will be calculated by averaging the scores of the assessed quizzes for each individual week.

Certificate of Accomplishment

The Certificate of Accomplishment will be released to anyone who successfully completed the course by achieving 60% of the total score on the assessed quizzes. You will be able to download the Certificate of Accomplishment directly on the website.

Once you have successfully passed the course, you can request the Certificate of Accomplishment without waiting for the end of the edition.

The Certificate of Accomplishment does not confer any academic credit, grade or degree.

Contact details

If you have any enquiries about the course or if you need technical assistance please contact pok@polimi.it. For further information, see FAQ page.