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Theoretical understanding of bilingualism has advanced tremendously in recent decades, moving from colonialist understandings of named languages as static, separate entities to decolonializing conceptualizations of dynamic translanguaging (García, 2009)—or dynamic use of speakers’ whole linguistic repertoires to serve communicative needs. As we work to include this theoretical shift into teacher education and into instructional practice in diverse contexts, we ask what facilitates educators’ learning of new ways of seeing bilingualism and what gets in the way? This presentation examines adults’ learning experiences in a collaborative research project to use translanguaging pedagogy as a way to increase minoritized bilingual students’ access to computer science education. We —a team of teachers, administrators, teacher educators, and researchers working onthe US-Mexico border—use ethnographic data to explore how our beliefs about bilingualism and language in education surface and shift in the work. We discuss the potential of science education as a location and opportunity to advance educators’ understandings of holistic, dynamic bilingualism, and we draw connections to possibilities in science education in Paraguay. 

The Sol y Agua researcher-practitioner partnership (RPP) project introduces computational thinking (CT) in the middle school of the Paso del Norte region using a linguistically and culturally responsive approach. At the core of this RPP is the Sol y Agua game, a bilingual, culturally- and environmentally-relevant educational game developed at the University of Texas at El Paso to introduce computing and STEM topics in middle school. The Sol y Agua RPP includes some critical areas for a successful RPP, including partnership building and the focus on a linguistically and culturally-responsive pedagogy and content development. We describe our approach to build a sustainable RPP, incorporating bilingual pedagogy, and integrating CT through a culturally- and environmentally-relevant game as part of our RPP experience.