MOOCs as facilitator: Online learning and women in STEM

Abstract

The scarcity of female students in computer science programs is one of the most troubling challenges facing the discipline today. Enrollment of women in computer science undergraduate courses has fallen by over 50% from its high point in the 1980s, and is believed to be due, in part, to unwelcoming classroom environments. We postulate that the virtual classroom offered by Massively Open Online Courses (“MOOC”s) may provide a more comfortable learning space for many female students. This paper relates the experience of three female upper-level computer science majors when encountering a MOOC classroom for the first time.