Integrating International Students into Computer Science Programs: Challenges and Strategies for Success Michael J. Oudshoorn (leader) Northwest Missouri State University Maryville, MO, USA +1 660 562 1764 oudshoorn@nwmissouri.edu Joseph A. Abandoh-Sam Valley View University Oyibi, Ghana +233 27 745 5565 abandoh@vvu.edu.gh Shoba Ittyipe Mount Royal University Calgary, Alberta, Canada +1 403 440 6787 sittyipe@mtroyal.ca Alison Clear (co-leader) Eastern Institute of Technology Auckland, New Zealand +64 9 300 7410 aclear@eit.ac.nz Christabel Gonsalvez Monash University Clayton, VIC, Australia +61 3 9905 5806 chris.gonsalvez@monash.edu Aparna Mahadev Worcester State University Worcester, MA, USA +1 508 929 8715 amahadev@worcester.edu Janet Carter (co-leader) University of Kent Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom +44 1227 827978 j.e.carter@kent.ac.uk Leo Hitchcock Auckland University of Technology Auckland, New Zealand +64 9 921 9999 leo.hitchcock@aut.ac.nz Janice L. Pearce Berea College Berea, KY, USA +1 859 985 3569 jan_pearce@berea.edu ABSTRACT International students are an important and desirable constituent in most computer science programs. These students help to enrich the programs, bring new perspectives into the classroom, diversify the student population, globalize the curriculum, broaden the perspective of domestic students, and generate revenue for the host institution. Each of these characteristics is desirable and increasingly important in today’s highly connected world and job market. Most institutions invest resources in attracting international students and provide orientation sessions for them on arrival to help acclimate them to the new environment and to introduce them to other students. There are often clubs to provide support groups and social functions to help them meet and make friends with domestic students. However, challenges for international students, and for the faculty teaching them, persist at many institutions despite these efforts to help international students deal with culture shock, differing academic expectations and teaching methods, and different attitudes toward issues such as plagiarism. CCS Concepts • Social and Professional topics➝Adult education, computing education programs Keywords International students; computer science education; computing; information systems; information technology; information and communication technology. 1. INTRODUCTION The goal of this working group is to bring together of international faculty to discuss the challenges faced at various institutions and to explore those challenges and identify strategies to ameliorate them. Parricipants in the working group come from diverse institutions with diverse missions. Several of the participants have been international students themselves. Each institution, however, attracts international students into their graduate and/or undergraduate programs, and must face and address the challenges presented as a result. These challenges are faced by the students who travel to the host country in order to pursue a degree, but also by the faculty and administration at these institutions. These challenges persist despite the resources invested by institutions to create and provide an inclusive and supporting environment for the international students. Support comes in many forms including clubs, social events, orientation sessions, and regular meetings with support staff in an attempt to acclimate the students in their new environment. Faculty at many institutions are not provided any training on the challenges facing international students, or on their cultural backgrounds or norms. As a result, classroom challenges arise. Often these are born from a cultural misunderstanding, or simply a lack of knowledge of the student’s home countries educational system. 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 profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author(s). Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). ITiCSE’17, July 3–5, 2017, Bologna, Italy. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-4704-4/17/07. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3059009.3081326 Working Groups Session ITiCSE '17, July 3-5, 2017, Bologna, Italy 386