Agile software development practices, which focus on iteration and adaptability, are commonly used in software engineering companies. Girls Who Code designed an after-school Clubs curriculum for middle and high school students that gives girls first-hand exposure to these practices. We use agile processes for two reasons. The first is practical: Over the course of a year-long Club, all participants collaboratively create a large project. Agile practices organize this effort. The second is mission-driven: We believe using real-world techniques and terminology will build girls' identities as computer scientists. Girls Who Code recognizes that when teaching 40,000 girls at scale, not every Clubs Facilitator will have had first-hand experience with agile development practices. We have created a curriculum to empower volunteers from any background to teach in an agile manner. Facilitators are given Session Outlines for each Club session that provide activities to structure the Club experience, as well as additional facilitator tips on topics such as finding an audience, researching pre-existing solutions, and developing solutions.

Girls Who Code is a national nonprofit that operates after-school and summer programs to engage female students with computer science with the goal of reaching gender parity in the field. The Girls Who Code teaching philosophy and curriculum is designed around four major components: (1) developing a breadth of technical and computational thinking skills, (2) building on students' prior interests, (3) providing authentic exposure to mentors and real computer science projects, and (4) cultivating a community-focused classroom. Using qualitative and quantitative data collected from more than 1,500 students that have participated, this work explores the impact of Girls Who Code's intervention and the value of building community for effective computer science education.

Gameful course designs require a significant shift in approach for both students and instructors. Transforming a standard course into a good game involves fundamentally altering how the course functions, most notably by giving students greater control over their work. We have developed an application, GradeCraft, to support this shift in pedagogy. A key feature of the application is the Grade Predictor, where students can explore coursework options and plan pathways to success. We observed students in two gameful courses with differing designs using the Grade Predictor in similar ways: they spent similar amounts of time per session, increased usage when assignments were due and before making significant course decisions, predicted different types of assignments at different rates, and made more predictions in preparation for the end of semester. This study describes how students plan their coursework using the GradeCraft Grade Predictor tool.

At a time when less than twenty percent of AP Computer Science test-takers are female, Girls Who Code [GWC] has developed a unique teaching philosophy and effective curriculum to engage young women in CS early in their careers. This curriculum is built around cultivating exposure, interest, community and support, and technical skills. More than 500 young women have participated in GWC's Summer Immersion Programs, a seven-week, full-time computer science program for high school students. Ninety-five percent of participants said they are definitely or more likely to consider a major / minor in computer science after participation.

The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) enables researchers to capture information about participants' experiences in the moment. Adding an end-of-day retrospective survey also allows participants to elaborate on those experiences. Although the use of photos in retrospective interviews and surveys for memory elicitation is well known, little research has investigated the use of photos in ESM studies. As smartphone adoption increases facilitating ESM studies and making photo sharing easier, researchers need to continuously evaluate the method and investigate the role of photos in such studies. We conducted a large-scale ESM and retrospective survey study via Android smartphones with more than 1,000 US participants, and analyzed participants' photo submissions, including how photo use correlated with participants' data quality and what, if any, value photos added for researchers. Our study sheds light on the role of photos in ESM and retrospective studies that researchers can reference when constructing future study designs.