Ismael Villegas Molina

Ismael Villegas Molina

he/him/el

Ph.D. Candidate @ UCSD | Computer Science Education | U.S. Latines in Computing

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Posts

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Blog Post number 1

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portfolio

publications

The Effects of Spanish-English Bilingual Instruction in a CS0 Course for High School Students

Published in Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1, 2023

Prior studies in multilingual computing education have shown that many non-native English speakers (NNES) in India struggle with introductory programming courses as they learn both a programming language (e.g., Java) and a natural language (e.g., English) concurrently. Although multiple studies have been conducted with NNES in India whose first language is Hindi or Tamil, we do not yet know the influence a students’ native language may have among Spanish speaking students in the United States. This replication study investigates the effects of an instructional design integrating the students’ native language along with English on high school students’ learning and engagement in a two week CS0 course using the block-based programming language, Scratch. We designed an experiment to teach introductory computing topics (e.g., algorithms, variables, loops, conditionals) to two groups of students from a rural area spanning multiple institutions in the US. The experimental group was taught using English and Spanish (students’ native language) and the control section was taught using only English. A pre-test and post-test was conducted to test students’ programming knowledge before and after the course. We also recorded all the questions students asked during the course to measure student engagement. We found that teaching Scratch programming using Spanish and English is no different than teaching Scratch programming using only English to high school students whose native language is Spanish. We also found that the students in the experimental group asked more questions when compared to the control group.

Recommended citation: Ismael Villegas Molina, Adrian Salguero, Shera Zhong, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj. 2023. The Effects of Spanish-English Bilingual Instruction in a CS0 Course for High School Students. Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1. (June 2023). https://doi.org/10.1145/3587102.3588845

U.S. Latines in Computing – A Review of the Literature

Published in Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) V. 1, 2024

Though there is a known issue with enrollment disparities across race/ethnicity in computing, U.S. Latin American (Latine) students have remained chronically underrepresented for decades. In order to actively support the recruitment, retention, performance, and experiences of U.S. Latines, we must make sure that we are carrying out studies with this population across outreach practices, interventions, student outcomes, and testimonies. To offer a more comprehensive understanding of the existing body of work on U.S. Latines in computing, we reviewed computing education papers that either fully center around or dedicate specific analyses to U.S. Latines. We analyzed 53 papers and found the following results: most research focuses on Student Experiences and Institutional Perspectives with very few studies on Research Opportunities; the educational setting tended to be K-12 with a severe lack of community college studies; there is a low number of popular pedagogical practices studied with U.S. Latines; research has mainly focused on students, but seldom focused families despite strong Latine connections to family; there was a strong spike in studies in 2021; and the U.S. location of the studies tended to line up with the U.S. Hispanic populations, but many states are under-performing. We discuss the implications of our findings and suggest future research directions to better understand, recruit, and support Latines in computing.

Recommended citation: Ismael Villegas Molina, Audria Montalvo, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj. 2024. U.S. Latines in Computing A Review of the Literature. Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) V. 1. (March 2024). https://doi.org/10.1145/3626252.3630954

Generation and Evaluation of a Culturally-Relevant CS1 Textbook for Latines using Large Language Models

Published in Proceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE) V. 1, 2024

In the United States, culturally relevant computing (CRC) is one of the most popular pedagogical implementations for Latin American (Latine) students. Culturally-relevant learning resources are a valuable tool for implementing CRC. However, the traditional method of creation and maintenance of textbooks takes a significant amount of time and effort. Given the duration required for textbook production, the development of culturally-relevant learning resources may become lengthened, as it requires close attention both on the material and the incorporation of cultural referents. In order to accelerate the process, we used the advancement of large language models (LLMs) to our advantage. Through prompt engineering, we created a series of prompts to produce a textbook for an introductory computer science course (CS1) that incorporates Latine culture. This textbook was evaluated on metrics regarding sensibility, correctness, readability, linguistic approachability, appropriateness of examples, and cultural relevance. Overall, the generated textbook was mainly sensible, correct, readable, and linguistically approachable. Code examples were not always appropriate due to the usage of libraries that are not typically used in a CS1 course. The cultural relevance was apparent, but it often included surface-level cultural referents. The main incorporation of culture was through geographical locations and people’s names. This suggests that the use of LLMs to generate textbooks may serve as a valuable first step for writing culturally-relevant learning resources. Though this study focuses on Latines, our results and prompts may be applicable for generating culturally-relevant CS1 textbooks for other cultures.

Recommended citation: Ismael Villegas Molina, Audria Montalvo, Shera Zhong, Mollie Jordan, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj. 2024. Generation and Evaluation of a Culturally-Relevant CS1 Textbook for Latines using Large Language Models. Proceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 (July 2024). https://doi.org/10.1145/3649217.3653600

Undergraduate Computing Tutors’ Perceptions of their Roles, Stressors, and Barriers to Effectiveness

Published in American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference & Exposition, 2025

Undergraduate teaching assistants (tutors) are commonly employed in computing courses to help students with programming assignments. Prior research in computing education has reported the benefits of tutoring both for students and for the tutors’ own learning. In contrast, recent research that examined actual tutoring sessions has reported that these sessions may be less productive than one might hope, with tutors often just giving students the answers to their problems without trying to teach the underlying concepts. To better understand why tutors may be employing these suboptimal practices, we interviewed ten tutors across early computing courses in higher education to identify their perceived role in these sessions, what stressors and factors influence their ability to perform their job effectively, and what kinds of best practices they learned in their tutor training course. Tutors reported their roles around student learning, gauging student understanding, identifying or providing solutions to students, and providing socioemotional support. They reported their stressors around environmental factors (e.g., number of students waiting to be helped, preparation time, peer-tutor frustrations), internal influences, student behavior, student skill levels, and feeling the need to ‘‘read a student’s mind.’’ Regarding their tutor training course, Tutors reported learning about interaction guidelines and procedures and question-based problem solving. We conclude by discussing how these results may contribute to the less-effective behaviors seen in prior research and potential ways to improve tutoring in computing courses.

Recommended citation: Ismael Villegas Molina, Jeannie Kim, Audria Montalvo, Apollo Larragoitia, Rachel S Lim, Philip J Guo, Sophia Krause-Levy, and Leo Porter. 2025. Undergraduate Computing Tutors' Perceptions of their Roles, Stressors, and Barriers to Effectiveness. Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (February 2025). https://doi.org/10.1145/3641554.3701784

Leveraging LLM Tutoring Systems for Non-Native English Speakers in Introductory CS Courses

Published in American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference & Exposition, 2025

Computer science has historically presented barriers for non-native English speaking (NNES) students, often due to language and terminology challenges. With the rise of large language models (LLMs), there is potential to leverage this technology to support NNES students more effectively. Recent implementations of LLMs as tutors in classrooms have shown promising results. In this study, we deployed an LLM tutor in an accelerated introductory computing course to evaluate its effectiveness specifically for NNES students. Key insights for LLM tutor use are as follows: NNES students signed up for the LLM tutor at a similar rate to native English speakers (NES); NNES students used the system at a lower rate than NES students—to a small effect; NNES students asked significantly more questions in languages other than English compared to NES students, with many of the questions being multilingual by incorporating English programming keywords. Results for views of the LLM tutor are as follows: both NNES and NES students appreciated the LLM tutor for its accessibility, conversational style, and the guardrails put in place to guide users to answers rather than directly providing solutions; NNES students highlighted its approachability as they did not need to communicate in perfect English; NNES students rated help-seeking preferences of online resources higher than NES students; Many NNES students were unfamiliar with computing terminology in their native languages. These results suggest that LLM tutors can be a valuable resource for NNES students in computing, providing tailored support that enhances their learning experience and overcomes language barriers.

Recommended citation: Ismael Villegas Molina, Audria Montalvo, Benjamin Ochoa, Paul Denny, and Leo Porter. 2025. Leveraging LLM Tutoring Systems for Non-Native English Speakers in Introductory CS Courses. American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference & Exposition (June 2025). https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2411.02725

Faculty Implementation of Culturally Relevant Pedagogies at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Published in Proceedings of the 30th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE) V.1, 2025

Culturally Relevant Computing (CRC) has been shown to have positive effects on students, including increased classroom engagement, increased computing interest, and increased math performance. However, the vast majority of CRC studies take place in primary and secondary education, with little known about its efficacy in higher education. Despite the lack of literature on CRC in higher education, we believe that there may be CRC techniques presently being implemented in this context—yet not published in the research community. To investigate, we interviewed 21 professors from Hispanic Serving Institutions within the Computing Alliance for Hispanic Serving Institutions to document their implementation (if any) of CRC in the higher education context. Professors reported several CRC implementations including, but not limited to, culture in course materials, language-based approaches, providing opportunities outside the classroom, cultural sharing, and professional development. We conclude by discussing how these results may contribute to the promotion of leveraging students’ cultures in higher education to serve students—particularly of minoritized backgrounds in computing.

Recommended citation: Ismael Villegas Molina, Emma Hogan, Nawab Mulla, Josue Martinez, Bill Griswold, Leo Porter, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj. 2025. Faculty Implementation of Culturally Relevant Pedagogies at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Proceedings of the 30th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE) V.1 (June 2025). https://doi.org/10.1145/3724363.3729061

Faculty Reasons For Using or Refraining From Culturally Relevant Pedagogies at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Published in Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Research on Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), 2025

Culturally Relevant Computing (CRC) has shown positive effects on K-12 students. However, little is known about its implementation in higher education. This study explores why computer science (CS) educators at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) incorporate or refrain from using culture in computing curricula. Key takeaways include resistance to CRC among non-Latine faculty, often rooted in beliefs that culture is irrelevant to computing. Conversely, both Latine and non-Latine professors cited student experience, particularly engagement and belonging, as a strong motivator for incorporating CRC. Additionally, some non-Latine professors drew upon their own lived experiences to create more inclusive learning environments.

Recommended citation: Ismael Villegas Molina, Emma Hogan, Josue Martinez, Nawab Mulla, Bill Griswold, Leo Porter, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj. 2025. Faculty Reasons For Using or Refraining From Culturally Relevant Pedagogies at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Research on Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT). (July 2025). https://doi.org/10.1145/3704637.3734760

Faculty Identities and Their Effects on Implementing Culturally Relevant Pedagogies at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Published in Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Global Computing Education Conference (CompEd), 2025

The CS education research community has increasingly embraced researcher positionality as an important aspect influencing our research. However, how CS educators’ positionality impacts pedagogical choices is less known. In the U.S., where this study takes place, Black, Latine, Native, and Pacific Islander people are even less represented among CS faculty than among CS students in higher education. Recent work documents the benefits of culturally-relevant pedagogies in CS and strategies for implementation at the higher education level. This study investigates how CS faculty’s racial/ethnic identity impacts their use of these pedagogical strategies that leverage students’ culture. We interviewed 21 CS faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions in the U.S., five of whom identified as Latine, and report findings of a phenomenographic analysis, including benefits of Latine identity alignment, and strategies of non-Latine faculty to achieve cultural competence.

Recommended citation: Ismael Villegas Molina, Emma Hogan, Nawab Mulla, Josue Martinez, Bill Griswold, Leo Porter, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj. 2025. Faculty Identities and Their Effects on Implementing Culturally Relevant Pedagogies at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Global Computing Education Conference (CompEd). (October 2025). https://doi.org/10.1145/3736181.3747163

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