This Innovative Practice paper describes the Local Research Experiences for Undergraduates (LREU) program that was established by the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) at Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) in 2021 to increase the number of students, particularly students from underrepresented populations, who enter graduate programs in computer science. Since its first offering in Spring 2022, the LREU program has involved 182 faculty and 253 students. The LREU program funds undergraduate research experiences at the students' home institutions with an emphasis on first-generation students and those with financial needs. The motivation for the program is to address the low number of domestic students, particularly Hispanics and other minoritized populations, who seek and complete graduate degrees. Research shows that participation in research activities predicts college outcomes such as GPA, retention, and persistence. Even though these studies inform us of the importance of REU programs, many programmatic efforts are summer experiences and, while students may receive support, faculty mentors rarely receive coaching or professional development efforts. What distinguishes the LREU program is the focus on the deliberative development of students' professional and research skills; faculty coaching on the Affinity Research Group model; and the learning community established to share experiences and practices and to learn from each other. Students, who are matched with faculty mentors based on their areas of interest, work with their mentor to co-create a research plan. Students keep a research journal in which they record what they have learned and identify areas for their growth and development as researchers. The LREU provides an opportunity for the LREU participants to cultivate a growth mindset through deliberate practice and reflection from personal, professional, social, and academic perspectives. The paper discusses the multi-institutional perspectives that help CAHSI understand the types of challenges faced in undergraduate research programs, how faculty mentors communicate and make decisions, and how mentors resolve challenges, allowing the research community to better understand students' and faculty experiences. In addition, the paper reports on research and evaluation results that documented mentors' growth in their knowledge of effective research mentoring practices and students' learning gains in research and other skills. The paper also describes the impact of the learning community, e.g., how it supports developing strategies for interaction with and mentoring students from underrepresented populations.

This innovative practice WIP paper describes an effort to introduce future teachers, who are primarily Hispanic and planning to be PK-8 teachers, to computational thinking for teacher preparation at a Hispanic Serving Institution located on the U.S.-Mexico border. An interdisciplinary team of education and computer science faculty is implementing efforts to increase pre-college student engagement in computational thinking (CT) along with increased equity, particularly for Hispanic and women. One aspect of these efforts is the modification of an existing CT course that will eventually be required for all teacher preparation students. The first pilot of this CT course was conducted in the fall 2023 and included quality pedagogical approaches to teach CT content to primarily Hispanic pre-service elementary teachers.

This research WIP paper describes computer science undergraduate students' perceptions of career pathways and becoming K-12 computer science teachers. Computer science (CS) education has become critical with the rapid pace of technological development to better prepare students for national technology and economic competitiveness and security. According to Code.org, 57.5% of U.S. public high schools offer foundational computer science courses in 2023; unfortunately, access to the courses remains unequal and maintains wide disparities by race/ethnicity and social class. For instance, Hispanics are 1.4 times less likely to take foundational CS courses compared to their white and Asian peers, and students with low socio-economic status are underrepresented in the overall population. The shortage of CS teachers is one of the significant barriers to why minoritized groups of students do not have equal access to learning CS. Various programmatic efforts have been implemented to address the gap, including the recruitment of undergraduate students who will earn bachelor's degrees in computing. This approach has been considered innovative in building a new pipeline for producing highly qualified CS teachers with the ability to transform computing education and the CS teacher community rather than training in-service teachers certified in other disciplines to receive credentials to teach CS. Studies report that CS degree recipients opt for industry roles and exhibit disinterest in alternative career pathways, such as teaching because they perceive this profession as having lower salaries and unfavorable aspects associated with the job. However, we need a more prosperous and in-depth understanding of why CS degree holders consider industry jobs of greater importance rather than teaching, which would reduce the disparity in K-12 computing education. As a first attempt to better understand the perceptions of computer science undergraduate students at an Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), we collected qualitative data (i.e., student artifacts) in a course offered in the computer science department. Driven by social cognitive career and FIT-choice theory, our findings from the preliminary analysis indicate that CS undergraduate students at an HSI acknowledged the importance of K-12 CS teachers in their communities, but at the same time, they have more concerns about the underpayment and undervaluation of the job. They have shown a conflict between their perceptions of teaching CS and their own career aspirations as CS teachers. These preliminary findings draw attention to the importance of uncovering common career plans among CS undergraduate students.

This research-to-practice paper aims to examine the Collective Impact Model and its application during a network meeting to illustrate its utility in supporting efforts in building a community among a complex system of partnerships and initiatives. We collected data from small group discussions among 56 CAHSI faculty staff and administrators using a Communities of Practice approach to collect evidence of community knowledge development. Emerging themes from data analysis included: a) successful initiatives for CAHSI students; and b) collectively identified challenges. These findings illustrate how the Collective Impact model supports CAHSI network members to be intentional in their efforts by assessing their progress toward a common goal, evaluating the effectiveness of their efforts, and making plans toward next steps. Moreover, capturing the dynamics of the Collective Impact Model allows CAHSI to promote multidimensional change by creating culturally responsive initiatives and learning opportunities for Hispanic students in CAHSI.

This qualitative research paper presents findings from an interpretive case study of five undergraduate Hispanic computer science (CS) students in a pilot leadership course in the CS department of a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI). The course design drew on the relational model of leadership, a model that focuses on ethics and professional skills development and enhancing students' readiness to meet the demands of an ever changing global and diverse technological world. These students applied their skill set at a national conference for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) faculty and students. Data were collected from interviews with these five leadership students who participated as panelists in a faculty professional development workshop. Themes that emerged from the data analysis included students' views of leadership, self, and self with others. The students considered their participation in both the leadership course and the conference as critical in shaping their leadership identities. Moreover, the study demonstrates how the leadership course supported students in enhancing their leadership meaning-making from a relational perspective while at the same time fostering the development of strong Latinx CS identities. These findings support the need for responsive curricula and learning opportunities that promote the development and practice of professional skills to prepare undergraduate CS students, those who are Latinx, to meet workforce and societal demands.

Involving diverse individuals who bring different perspectives, experiences, and disciplinary knowledge in solving problems is critical in our nation's ability to innovate and compete in a global economy. Unfortunately, the trends in the number of graduates with advanced degrees, in particular ethnically and racially diverse citizens and permanent residents, are insufficient to meet current and future national needs. This is exacerbated in computing, which is one of the least diverse fields. Despite the growth in numbers of Hispanics nationally and their representation in undergraduate studies, the number of Hispanic citizens and permanent residents who enter and complete graduate computing studies is disturbingly low. Studies report that Hispanic graduate students across all fields of study feel isolated and alienated, face lack of support, experience low expectations from faculty, and a negative racial/ethnic climate. Students often encounter a STEM culture centered on competition and selectivity, and this must be addressed to increase pathways to the doctorate to support our nation's economic and national security goals. This paper describes a collective effort of institutions with high enrollments of Hispanic students that have built partnerships among non-doctoral-granting and doctoral-granting institutions to increase representation of Hispanics in graduate studies. Led by NSF's Eddie Bernice Johnson Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI), the collective employs evidence-based practices grounded in the Hispanic-servingness literature to address the root causes.

This Innovative Practice Work-In-Progress paper elucidates the approach of the NSF-funded CAHSI INCLUDES Alliance for creating change in students' competencies by an effort across eight institutions to support the delivery of one-and two-credit hour courses for three levels of problem solving in Computer Science: general problem solving, computational thinking in problem solving, and algorithmic thinking in problem solving. The courses were developed to address industry's need for improved problem-solving skills, incorporating consistent, deep collaboration with Google technical staff The first of its kind for CAHSI, the problem-solving courses are fewer credit hours than typical courses in order to fit within a traditional curriculum. The intent is to instill complementary problem-solving, computational thinking skills, and logical reasoning needed to succeed in computer science, and make this content available across different student populations at various stages in their academic pathways. Advanced problem solving prepares students for competitive interviews. The courses create opportunities to learn across academic levels, and create new student communities, mentorship opportunities, and social connections to support retention. The paper reports on the course design, student reflection, assessment and evaluation, and an ethnographic study of the courses.

This panel focuses on the challenges of collecting and analyzing data relating to retention of students in undergraduate computer science education programs. The panelists will share learnings and recommendations from the final report of the ACM Retention Committee and share their individual perspectives on data collection challenges, promising interventions, and recommendations for actively addressing retention for all students.

Full paper, Research-to-Practice. With the nation's continuing shortage of scientists and engineers, there is an urgent need for diverse students, especially Hispanic students, to enter and complete science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education at all levels. Contributing factors to the low representation in STEM areas are the lack of Hispanic youth's exposure to engaging and relevant experiences with science in their early stages of development and the lack of Latino scientists as role models that are visible, tangible, real, and inspiring to their communities. In addition, student experiences in math and science in the middle grades have emerged as a “filter” that prevents many students from pursuing advanced STEM courses in high school and, therefore, limits their knowledge of and interest in exploring STEM subjects and careers later in their education. This paper presents a research-based approach to attract middle school students to STEM fields in a majority Hispanic region, using a game-based learning platform. The platform integrates computational thinking in the area of water conservation at middle-school level by using simulations and data visualization in concurrent learning modules. The concepts introduced in the platform are universal enough to be successfully employed in other geographical regions with different student demographics.

The goal of this panel session is to introduce audience members to the challenges and successes of significant cultural and curricular change as enacted by awardees in the NSF program Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments (RED). This panel will explore how organizations go about the process of cultural investigation and how they embark on culture change, using RED awardees of 2016 as the featured panelists (the second cohort). These teams are engaged in high-risk, high-trust-required activities focused on both the organizational and operational structure of their departments, and on re-envisioning engineering and computer science curricula to create professionals with 21st century skills like problem solving and teamwork. A panel session allows the wider community to peek into these projects to see from the inside what's happening, even if only a bit. This paper captures short narratives on different themes of interest, developed by the individual teams and aggregated here as a first glimpse into the operations, challenges, and successes of these projects.

Most professions have reached gender equity with the exception of computer science and engineering. To understand the mitigating factors influencing Latinas' enrollment and persistence in engineering and computer science, an interdisciplinary team of scholars at a majority Hispanic four-year institution has undertaken a three-year project to explore these phenomena. The following overarching question has guided us: What is the relationship among identity, resilience, and persistence of Latinas in computer science and engineering? The study was framed using a sociocultural theory of identity drawn from the work of Gee and from Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain. Our findings suggest the majority of women encountered and dealt with some kind of adversity in their career trajectory. Their ability to overcome this adversity depended on many factors, such as the role of peer groups, family, and professors. Eighteen of the 26 participants referenced group participation phenomenon as beneficial to their success. They also identified spaces that accommodate group interaction including: the library, homes, local coffee shops, and university study areas.

Metacognition involves an ability to reflect upon a learning episode, understand what strategies provoked learning, and gauge one's current level of understanding. This paper details preliminary evidence regarding the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) Metacognitive Learners course, a pre-engineering course structured to develop metacognitive strategies and habits through scaffolded collaborative group work, small and large group discussions about learning, and guided writing exercises designed to support learner reflection. Course curriculum addressed metacognition and metacognitive skill development in three explicit ways: a) team problem solving, b) student goal setting, and c) reflective writing about group process, project progress, and individual learning. Following this course, student survey data across all 4 sections suggests initial success in creating a learning environment that supports developing metacognition - students considered how they learned best, described their knowledge to others, and were asked to check their own understanding and progress throughout the course via dialogue and reflective writing.

To meet the demand for increased engagement of diverse engineers who possess 21stcentury skills, a leadership program was established in 2011 at a majority Hispanic four-year institution with an aim to develop engineers who work effectively with others in both public and private sectors through ideating, innovating, and thinking holistically through a systems approach to engineering problem solving. Designers of the program drew on leadership theory combined with situated learning theory to design and develop the program. Two theories of leadership informed our blended design: the relational model of leadership and the distributive actions theory of leadership. Situated learning theory, a sociocultural theory of learning, informed the programmatic implementation emphasizing learners' participation in authentic activities and the social relations in which they are embedded. Integral to the development of the leadership program model was a mixed methods research design to investigate its efficacy in relation to student development, which was structured in part to emphasize awareness and self-realization of various leadership skills. Qualitative research findings show that students associate their participation in situated learning activities of the leadership program with greater initiative and efficacy in their engineering classes. These findings corroborated the findings of the quantitative study.

Part of a large-scale study on Hispanic engineering students at a university on the U.S./Mexico border, this paper focuses on participants' reported use of language in learning activities in engineering. Specifically, we call attention to the meaning-making resources that engineering undergraduates brought to learning activities. Semiotic (or meaning-making) resources include oral and written language (in one or more languages) as well as visual, gestural, or auditory modalities. Whereas border Hispanic students could be (and often are) positioned from a deficit perspective, we highlight the wealth of resources that participants avail themselves to in learning engineering. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and observations over a two-year period, we examine participants' reported multimodal and multilingual resources. We found that participating students 1) have a wide variety of language and literacy practices; 2) show a high awareness of language itself and how they use it and learn it; and 3) use bilingualism and biliteracy as a resource for learning in engineering.

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering (Olin) are establishing a student-centered hands-on interactive approach to engineering education (similar to Olin's) at UTEP, where it will reside in UTEP's innovative B.S. in Leadership Engineering (LE) program. The goal of the proposed collaboration is to catalyze UTEP's educational innovation through a cross-campus collaboration between the two institutions by incorporating the Olin educational process, both design and features, into the first offerings of the Bachelor of Science in Leadership Engineering (BSLE) program. Specifically, the collaboration includes faculty exchanges between the two institutions; a series of retreats for planning and assessment; curriculum development; and student recruitment practices. The 21st century workplace demands a new engineer — one who effectively contributes to solving problems using innovation, creativity, and strategic foresight. Graduates of the Olin-UTEP developed Bachelor of Science in Leadership Engineering (LE) program will possess these attributes through the program's rigorous yet flexible major in engineering, and in-depth study of leadership and its effect upon technology and society. In this panel we will share the context for our innovative approach, key features of the partnership to date, and acclaim the value of inter-institutional sharing.

This paper reports preliminary findings from a qualitative study of a research-based pedagogical intervention in a freshman-level course for engineering majors. In this intervention, engineering instructors collaborated with an applied linguist in education to design activities to improve writing skills, an important professional skill in engineering. Development of effective writing skills is challenging for students, and particularly for Latinos and English Language Learners (ELLs). This challenge can be effectively addressed with meaningful writing tasks and appropriate pedagogy. Preliminary findings show improved communication and interpersonal skills among students.