This nonprofit is teaching women everywhere to code using a simple theory

Pedagogy, or the study of how best to teach children, is often cited in discussions about education. But although the majority of formal learning takes place throughout the adolescent years, technology's ever-changing landscape has created a growing need for adult education.

This changing education landscape has boosted the importance of andragogy: the study of how best to teach adults.

Girl Develop It, a nonprofit organization providing affordable educational resources to women interested in learning web and software development, embraces andragogy at the core of its practice, and is creating a network of technically skilled women in its wake.

Girl Develop It was founded in New York City in 2010 by Vanessa Hurst and Sara Chipps with a mission to increase diversity in tech. Its plan for doing so was to teach women of all backgrounds and ages how to develop web and mobile applications. Today, the organization has chapters in 53 cities, with over 55,000 members nationwide.

The nonprofit offers a variety of classes for women learning to code, from introductory to intermediate courses in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. These classes are taught to optimize andragogy practice, as adults tend to learn best by doing. With this in mind, Girl Develop It creates curricula that emphasize project-based tasks, examples, metaphors and experiences to teach fundamental technology skills.

“When you start to break down the way the environment in which computer science is traditionally taught in academia and you put it in the context of real life — where you’re building projects, pairing people together or asking socratic questions — it ends up being an environment in which people thrive," said Girl Develop It NYC chapter leader, Erin Kidwell. "And that’s regardless of gender." 

Girl Develop It New York City is the organization’s largest chapter, with over 2,000 students in its network. Its students are all women, typically between 25 and 34, and the chapter has become a popular resource for local university students. In the organization’s classes, there is one teacher for every 25 students and two teacher’s assistants for every 12 students. Classes range from $5 to $90, and scholarships are available. 

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