Creating CS Advocates with In-Service High School Teachers Michael J. Zawatski Priya V. Prasad Crystal Kalinec-Craig University of Texas at San Antonio michael.zawatski@utsa.edu Amanda S. Fernandez Emily P. Bonner Maria G. Arreguìn University of Texas at San Antonio Jina Wilde Darean Wilde Timothy T. Yuen University of Texas at San Antonio timothy.yuen@utsa.edu ABSTRACT CS4SA is an in-service teacher professional development (PD) pro- gram designed by our team for secondary teachers from a predomi- nately Latinx school district to create more computer science (CS) opportunities for their diverse classrooms. This poster presents our fndings on participants’ self-refections as emerging advocates for CS following the online PD program. 1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND A recent CRA survey shows 12.67% of CS Bachelor’s students iden- tifed as Hispanic/Latinx but received 8.5% of CS Bachelor degrees [4] indicating a sizeable gap in recruitment and retention of Lat- inx students in CS programs. Factors such as sparse resources, limited access to mentors, and poor connection between curricu- lum/pedagogy and cultural values were drove this disparity [1]. CS4SA created a cohort of secondary teachers to help them earn a state CS certifcation and to teach in a largely Latinx urban school district in South Texas. In-service teachers participated in a PD program ofering certifcation knowledge and skills to teach CS and culturally responsive pedagogies [2] in CS contexts. This year-long program aimed to help participants increase CS experiences within their culturally diverse classrooms and communities so that Latinx students can pursue CS and other STEM careers in greater numbers. 2 METHODS In July 2021, CS4SA implemented a 3-week online, synchronous Summer Institute (SI) with a cohort of 12 teachers that focused on CS instruction (including computational thinking, programming, data structures, and algorithms) and culturally responsive peda- gogies. Participants worked through 190 hours of asynchronous online modules focused on CS content and synchronous workshops on pedagogy and CS tutoring. In Week 3, participants engaged in a coding camp aimed at high school students to learn about coding tools and activities for secondary audiences. After the SI, partici- pants met online in monthly workshops to discuss their progress towards becoming a CS teacher and creating more CS opportunities for their students. Researchers conducted, recorded, and transcribed interviews with each teacher before, during, and after their year- long CS4SA program. This qualitative data was used to explore teachers’ CS experiences and perceptions. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for proft or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the frst page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s). SIGCSE 2023, March 15–18, 2023, Toronto, ON, Canada © 2023 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-9433-8/23/03. https://doi.org/10.1145/3545947.3576259 3 RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS Eight participants completed the CS4SA program and attempted the TExES Educator Certifcation Exam for CS 8-12. One participant passed the exam and others are considering reattempting soon. Interview analysis showed that teachers felt the need to advo- cate for inclusion of CS at multiple levels: in their classrooms (with resources and curricula), in their schools (with course oferings), and in the district (with a community of practice [3]). Most partic- ipants attributed their motivation to participate in CS4SA was in part to one of these advocacy goals. Moreover, Participant A saw opportunities to incorporate CS inside and outside of her classroom. Participant B initiated a CS club at school. Participant C discussed the importance of giving students STEM experiences, "Maybe you want to be engineer, but you’re afraid that you think you’re not smart but just to give [students] an opportunity to try it out, and to show them it’s not all dry and it’s a very rich subject.ž Participant G discussed that, "my goal is that I want computer science educa- tors. I’ve met 10 other teachers now that are interested in [CS] and it’s not an easy exam. . . it’s a lot of work. The only way that gets alleviated of my shoulders, and [CS] becomes sustainable is if I get more [CS] educators." 4 CONCLUSION This poster presents the frst full iteration of our CS4SA program. Although there was only one successful attempt in the CS teacher certifcation exam, our data shows that participants understand the importance of creating more CS and STEM opportunities for their students as well as forming a community of CS educators within their district to move this vision forward. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1923269. Any opinions, fndings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily refect the views of NSF. REFERENCES [1] Jill Denner and Steve Bean. [n. d.]. The Role of Relationships in Engaging Latino/a High School Students in Computer Science. In 2018 Research on Equity and Sus- tained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT). [2] Geneva Gay. 2018. Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. teachers college press. [3] Etienne Wenger. 1999. Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. [4] Stuart Zweben and Betsy Bizot. 2020. Taulbee Survey: Bachelor’s and Doctoral De- gree Production Growth Continues but New Student Enrollment Shows Declines. Computing Research News 33, 5 (2020), 67. 1312