Virtual Outreach: Lessons from a Coding Club's Response to COVID-19

Undergraduate students at Michigan State University (MSU) have offered Spartan Girls Who Code (SGWC) clubs on the MSU campus for three spring semesters. Marketed to 6th-12th graders who identify as female, SGWC aims to (1) introduce participants to the fundamentals of computing, (2) contextualize computing in modern life, (3) improve participants' confidence and attitudes toward computing, and (4) foster an inclusive, supportive, and welcoming learning environment. Toward these ends, MSU students serve as near-peer mentors, guiding participants in active learning, collaborative learning, project-based learning and culturally-relevant computing activities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, SGWC was forced to abruptly transition to virtual meetings after the first five in-person meetings of the spring 2020 session. Club attendance fell in the immediate wake of Michigan public school closures by about 50%. But retention and morale of those who attended the first virtual session was high. Moreover, feedback from those who completed SGWC and their parents indicate overall satisfaction with the virtual adaptation of SGWC and support that it was successful in achieving its goals. This paper highlights lessons distilled over the course of SGWC's transition to a virtual format. Our goal is to provide a vision for the post-pandemic role of out-of-school time coding clubs in the diversification and development of future computer scientists.

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