A service learning project,"Code Okie: One Line at a Time!", encapsulates the transformative learning experiences of a team of undergraduate students, namely the Computer Science (CS) Ambassadors. The CS Ambassadors are currently composed of three females and three males, who are from different cultural and national backgrounds and at various class standings. The CS Ambassadors are united for the common goal of generating interest in the computing field among high school students, especially those from rural communities, minority ethnic groups, and females in Oklahoma, by conducting project-based workshops. This poster presents the journey of the team with the project and their experiences in each tenet of University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) transformative learning. The participants of this poster session will have two takeaways. First, they will be informed of the current status of CS education in Oklahoma and will be encouraged to raise public awareness on it. Second, they will perceive a model of an effective undergraduate team and what it takes to help them undergo transformation in their personal and professional life.

The demand of workforce in computing field in the United States is expected to grow faster than the average for all occupations [1]. The number of graduates in CS each year, however, is significantly lower than the demand. In order to address this issue, different approaches are made in several states [2][3][4]. None of these approaches, however, targets students in rural high schools where lack of funding, CS teachers, and resources are the main obstacles to good CS education [5].

"Code Okie: One Line at a Time" is a service learning project that reaches out to high school students, especially from the rural areas, minorities, and females, to raise their interest in CS. A team of undergraduate students, namely CS Ambassadors designed and delivered the lesson plans of three modules that use Scratch, Raspberry Pi, and Robotics. Each module was designed with a specific purpose; the Scratch module introduces basic programming concepts through a drag and drop method in visual representation. The Raspberry Pi module introduces physical computing that shows the connection of software to hardware, using python programming language. The Robotics module goes further into the advanced use of Raspberry Pi that controls the movement of a robot.

In order to reach the current state of Code Okie, CS Ambassadors from different class standings and cultural backgrounds experienced various occasions that introduced them to the six tenets of University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) transformative learning. Our journey began with self-studies as we didn't have any prior knowledge of and experience with the three modules mentioned above. We also followed every step required in conducting research such as filling out an IRB application and receiving Qualtrics training, reading relevant literatures and presenting to the team, learning SPSS for data analysis, etc.

To make the workshops and administration more effective, we meet weekly under the guidance of a faculty supervisor and brainstorm ideas. In every rehearsal and meeting, we learned to present, debate and constructively criticize on different views of teammates. This, along with delivering lessons to high school students, enabled us to grow in communication skills. Being a part of Code Okie provided a sense of belonging to UCO community, as we represented UCO in front of participants. In addition, having an impact on a single student's life gave us an ecstatic feeling that in turn increased the sense of giving back to the community.

CS Ambassadors, though being involved in various university's organizations that enhanced leadership, teaching high schoolers in a professional manner was a different sector. We learned to give our best to create a positive and ethical influence on the participants. The great improvement in leadership was seen among the members who are introvert but started taking initiatives to complete a project by deadlines without relying on the supervisor. Through the passage of time, a great bond of friendship was developed among the members despite having language barriers and cultural differences. Now, we are able to communicate not only professionally but also personally.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. Occupational outlook handbook, computer and information technology occupations. www.bls.gov/ooh/, 2018 

Feaster, L. Segars, S. K. Wahba, and J. O. Hallstrom. 2011. Teaching CS unplugged in the high school (with limited success). In Proceedings of the 16th annual joint conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education (ITiCSE '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp. 248-252

Yadav, and et al (2011). Introducing computational thinking in education courses. In SIGCSE'11 - Proceedings of the 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 465-470), 2011

Hu, C. Heiner, and J. McCarthy, “Deploying Exploring Computer Science Statewide”, SIGCSE 2016

Myung Ah Park and Jaehee Lee, “Rural Minorities in Computing Education – A Study of Rural Schools with No CS/IT Courses in Oklahoma”, International Conference on Computational Science & Computational Intelligence – Symposium on Education, 2016

Poster

Critically Reflecting in Transformative Learning