A Qualitative Study on Engaging Students in Computing Through Computational Remixing with EarSketch

Computer Science fields have a difficult time engaging underrepresented populations such as African Americans and women. EarSketch is an approach to engage these student through authentic STEAM learning involving computational music remixing. EarSketch has been used in several pilot studies. In this study, students from one pilot study participated in a focus group to understand the effectiveness of EarSketch in engaging underrepresented minorities. Qualitative analysis shows a variety of contributing factors in engagement such as motivation, confidence, identity, conceptualization, and creativity.Undergraduat

Computational Thinking and Its Mathematics Origins through Purposeful Music Mixing with African American High School Students

Computational thinking (CT) is being advocated as core knowledge needed by all students—particularly, students from underrepresented groups—to prepare for the 21st century (Georgia Department of Education, 2017; Smith, 2016, 2017; The White House, 2017; Wing, 2006, 2014). The K–12 Computer Science Frameworks (2016), written by a national steering committee, defines CT as “the thought processes involved in expressing solutions as computational steps or algorithms that can be carried out by a computer” (p. 68). This project investigated current national introductory CT curricula and their related programming platforms used in high schools. In particular, the study documents the development, implementation, and quantitative outcomes of a purposeful introductory CT curriculum framed by an eclectic theoretical perspective (Stinson, 2009) that included culturally relevant pedagogy and critical play through a computational music remixing platform known as EarSketch. This purposeful introductory CT curriculum, designed toward engaging African American high school students, was implemented with a racially diverse set of high school students to quantitatively measure their engagement and CT content knowledge change. The goal of the project was to increase engagement and CT content knowledge of all student participants, acknowledging that what benefits African American students tends to benefit all students (Hilliard, 1992; Ladson-Billings, 2014). An analysis of the findings suggests that there was a significant increase in student cognitive engagement for racially diverse participants though not for the subset of African American students. Affective and conative engagement did not significantly change for racially diverse participants nor for the African American student subset. However, both the racially diverse set of students’ and their subset of African American students’ CT content knowledge significantly increased. As well, there was no significant difference between African American students and non-African American students post-survey engagement and CT content knowledge post-assessment means when adjusted for their pre-survey engagement and pre-assessment knowledge respectively. Hence, showing that purposeful music mixing using EarSketch designed toward African American students benefitted a racially diverse set of students in cognitive engagement and CT content knowledge and the African American subset of students in CT content knowledge. Implications and recommendations for further study are discussed

Programming music with Sonic Pi promotes positive attitudes for beginners

Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The AuthorProgramming is often misaligned with beginner students' interests and viewed as difficult. However, most students and teachers are not aware that it is possible to utilise domain-specific programming languages that combine programming with other domains like music making. Sonic Pi is one free domain-specific programming platform that enables beginners to code music, which has been designed for and used in schools since its first release in 2012. However, there is a lack of academic research on the Sonic Pi platform about the extent it may affect beginner student attitudes towards programming in a school context. The aim of this study was to investigate the extent Sonic Pi may help to promote positive attitudes towards programming. A mixed-methods case study was developed and trialled in school time with a middle school class, which measured student attitudes with the three subscales of enjoyment, importance, and anxiety. Overall, the results confirmed an alternative hypothesis that all students’ subscales for programming attitude increased significantly. While these findings are not generalisable due to its limited scope, they are very positive to inform the design and use of platforms like Sonic Pi in comparison to similar music coding platforms like EarSketch and TunePad.Peer reviewe

A multiple case study of high school perspectives making music with code in Sonic Pi

The purpose of this study was to investigate perceptions of high school students who made music with code in Sonic Pi. This qualitative multiple case study focused on individuals in an extracurricular club at a public charter high school who volunteered to participate on-site and remotely asynchronously via Canvas learning management system. This study was guided by five research questions, including: (1) What musical ideas, if any, do participants report learning or demonstrate through making music with code in Sonic Pi? (2) How does making music with code impact participants’ perceptions of their music making? (3) How does making music with code impact participants’ perceptions of their ability to learn to make music? (4) How does making music with code impact participants’ interest in music courses? (5) How does making music with code impact participants’ interest in computer science courses? Participants completed research study materials, including a series of tutorials for Sonic Pi. Data included answers to questionnaires and surveys, multimedia artifacts including the source code and exported audio of participants’ music making, and interviews of participants that were codified and analyzed in two cycles, utilizing descriptive coding, values coding, and longitudinal coding. Participants’ code and multimedia artifacts revealed a close alignment to the four properties of sound, including: pitch, duration, intensity/amplitude, and timbre. Participants’ artifacts revealed themes and demonstrated ideas extending beyond the four properties, including: form, non-traditional music notation, and randomization. Participants all agreed their coded artifacts are music. Additionally, participants’ varied responses about musicianship and composers suggests that making music is something anyone can engage in, regardless of how one identifies themself. All participants agreed that Sonic Pi is a useful tool for learning and understanding musical concepts and that Western staff notation is not required knowledge for making music. Participants’ interests in music or computer science courses were impacted by their prior experiences in music and/or coding. This study concludes with a discussion of themes based on the findings

The pop song generator: designing an online course to teach collaborative, creative AI

This article describes and evaluates a new online AI-creativity course. The course is based around three near-state-of-the-art AI models combined into a pop song generating system. A fine-tuned GPT-2 model writes lyrics, Music-VAE composes musical scores and instrumentation and Diffsinger synthesises a singing voice. We explain the decisions made in designing the course which is based on Piagetian, constructivist 'learning-by-doing'. We present details of the five-week course design with learning objectives, technical concepts, and creative and technical activities. We explain how we overcame technical challenges to build a complete pop song generator system, consisting of Python scripts, pre-trained models, and Javascript code that runs in a dockerised Linux container via a web-based IDE. A quantitative analysis of student activity provides evidence on engagement and a benchmark for future improvements. A qualitative analysis of a workshop with experts validated the overall course design, it suggested the need for a stronger creative brief and ethical and legal content

Exploring Elementary Teachers', Students' Beliefs and Readiness toward STEAM Education

21st century demands education to promote students with STEAM competencies. Most researches on STEAM are mainly focused on students’ learning outcomes on STEAM, but only few address non-cognitive aspects. It is necessary to examine elementary teachers and students’ beliefs and readiness towards STEAM learning. The purpose of this research is to explore teachers’ and students’ beliefs and readiness towards STEAM learning. The survey-designed method was used in this research. A total of 34 elementary school teachers and 36 elementary school students in the city of Bandung participated in this research. The samples were selected using a random sampling technique. Questionnaires were used to collect research data. The results obtained from this research show that students and teachers have positive perceptions in career and benefit of STEAM learning. Students are actually interested in STEAM learning, but the competencies and factors that support and stimulate STEAM learning in schools are still low. The teacher has low competencies to implement STEAM learning. This is due to the lack of knowledge and understanding of teachers about STEAM. This research is expected to contribute to the novelty of teachers’ readiness and beliefs in STEAM education in the city of Bandun

El enfoque educativo STEAM: una revisión de la literatura

La aparición del movimiento maker y la filosofía DIY (Do It Yourself) está provocando el desarrollo de nuevas metodologías, enfoques y recursos educativos que se basan en principios como la creación, la colaboración y el aprender haciendo. Uno de estos nuevos enfoques es STEAM, que se fundamenta en la necesidad de apostar por las ciencias (S), la tecnología (T), la ingeniería (E), las artes (A) y las matemáticas (M) de manera transversal e interdisciplinar, para transformar los procesos de enseñanza aprendizaje, en procesos integrados y creativos (Yakman, 2008a). MÉTODO. En este trabajo se presenta una revisión de la literatura sobre estudios e investigaciones relacionados con el enfoque educativo STEAM, con el objetivo de obtener una visión general de la literatura científica producida sobre ello entre los años 2008-2019. Se han identificado en Scopus, ERIC, Dialnet, GoogleScholar y ResearchGate y analizado un total de 48 artículos con una hoja de registro elaborada a tal efecto. RESULTADOS. Los resultados muestran que el 83.3% de la investigaciones que se realizan son de tipo cuantitativo, el 12.5% cualitativas y el 4.1% mixtas. Siendo el objetivo principal (39.5%) el desarrollo, aplicación y evaluación de propuestas STEAM y la temática más recurrente (60.4%) el análisis de la combinación del arte con la ciencia, la tecnología o las matemáticas. DISCUSIÓN. La investigación confirma que STEAM se posiciona como un enfoque eficaz para aumentar la creatividad, la motivación y la autoeficacia del alumnado en los procesos de enseñanza aprendizaje, siempre que prime la interdisciplinariedad y la conexión con la vida real de los contenidos, a través de las metodologías de investigación o indagación. Siendo las principales dificultades para la puesta en marcha de proyectos STEAM, las limitaciones económicas, curriculares y temporales del profesorado.Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481A-2019/30

The kite project to improve junior high school students’ numeracy

This research occurred to improve students' numeracy skills. To help students acquire these skills, develop learning projects through a STEAM approach using kite-making and collaborative learning projects. Design collaborative learning projects using a STEAM approach to assist students in acquiring these skills. This study's primary purpose is to create kites to aid junior high school students in addressing problems concerning PLSV and the kite area. This study applies a design research type of validation study. The data collection technique used is using images, products, and review documents for data collecting. The research participants were 30 seventh-grade (Phase D) junior high school students in Palembang. This study developed a learning trajectory that includes three exercises and post-test questions. Students can investigate and address issues associated with kite construction using PLSV materials. In the second activity, students can create kites and estimate their area based on their kite-making skills. After the kite is built, students fly a kite and study it. Students can improve their numeracy abilities through project-based learning employing STEAM in the context of kite creation, as demonstrated by the findings of this study. This knowledge aids them in overcoming obstacles associated with PLSV content and expands kite-making

Exploring How Secondary STEM Teachers and Undergraduate Mentors Adapt Digital Technologies to Promote Culturally Relevant Education during COVID-19

The COVID-19 global pandemic presented unprecedented challenges to K-16 educators, including the closing of educational agencies and the abrupt transition to online teaching and learning. Educators sought to adapt in-person learning activities to teach in remote and hybrid online settings. This study explores how a partnership between middle and high school teachers in an urban school district and undergraduate STEM mentors of color leveraged digital tools and collaborative pedagogies to teach science, technology, and engineering during a global pandemic. We used a qualitative multi-case study to describe three cases of teachers and undergraduate mentors. We then offer a cross-case analysis to interpret the diverse ways in which partners used technologies, pedagogy, and content to promote equitable outcomes for students, both in remote and hybrid settings. We found that the partnership and technologies led to rigorous and connected learning for students. Teachers and undergraduates carefully scaffolded technology use and content applications while providing ongoing opportunities for students to receive feedback and reflect on their learning. Findings provide implications for community partnerships and digital tools to promote collaborative and culturally relevant STEM learning opportunities in the post-pandemic era