Have your research students maintain a weekly blog so they can share what they complete each week and serve as an example for other, curious students.
Create a program where local high school students come to your elementary school to teach younger students computer science in order to give your students relatable role models.
Reach out to incoming students who have expressed an interest being a CS major in order to begin building relationships with and advising these students to help them become a part of the CS community.
When lecturing with visual aids like PowerPoint, use large, bold fonts and uncluttered formatting, and make sure to read aloud and explain any content. This will help any students with visual impairments.
Model the software engineering process by having students design games or other projects for an audience. This helps students gain valuable, hands-on experience and make connections to real world applications.
Seek out others to be part of your mentees’ mentoring team to ensure they have access to a wide network of mentors that can relate to and provide support for the wide variety of situations they’ll encounter.
Create formal and informal environments for spending time with your mentees to build multifaceted personal and professional relationships.
Allocate computer time evenly among students, especially in elementary school, so all students get a chance to play.
Invite research teams from local universities to motivate your students by presenting their research.
To engage a wider range of students in intro courses, be sure to highlight the real-world context and applications of CS.
Show students the diverse set of people who hold CS careers. Make sure it’s clear that there is no one person, or one personality that exemplifies the field.
Don’t conflate interest in computer science with excessive amounts of time spent coding. This can discourage students who feel like they’re not into computer science because they don’t obsess over it.
Establish a gallery of current and past projects to motivate students and to build community as students get to show off their work.
Combat stereotypes about computer science and computer scientists. This shows students that, regardless of their personality or other hobbies outside of CS, they could become computer scientists too!
Emphasize that computer science teaches a way of thinking that can be used in careers in the tech industry and beyond.
If you refer to sample people to explain concepts (such as Eve the Eavesdropper), select names and personas that are diverse in gender, race, and nationality or are gender-, race-, and nationality-neutral
Have parents and peers also encourage students’ interest in Computer Science and problem solving to help influence their pursuit of it.