Characteristics of an effective secondary school design thinking curriculum

This study examines the effectiveness of course materials, design methods and teaching strategies in a design thinking-based curriculum. As part of a multiple case study, we developed, ran and studied an interaction design course for Canadian students in grade 9 and grade 10 (14–15 years old). We gathered qualitative data in the forms of interviews of students and teachers at the end of each class and at the end of the course, and we observed their activities and performance throughout the course. We also evaluated the curriculum by tracking the changes we made and justifying the intentions behind these curriculum modifications in the context of the research. From this research, three main curriculum characteristics were found to be essential for a design thinking course to be effective and engaging: experiential activities, real-world applications and characterised consequences. We recommend that design educators consider these characteristics

Evaluation of Musical Creativity and Musical Metacreation Systems

The field of computational creativity, including musical metacreation, strives to develop artificial systems that are capable of demonstrating creative behavior or producing creative artefacts. But the claim of creativity is often assessed, subjectively only on the part of the researcher and not objectively at all. This article provides theoretical motivation for more systematic evaluation of musical metacreation and computationally creative systems and presents an overview of current methods used to assess human and machine creativity that may be adapted for this purpose. In order to highlight the need for a varied set of evaluation tools, a distinction is drawn among three types of creative systems: those that are purely generative, those that contain internal or external feedback, and those that are capable of reflection and self-reflection. To address the evaluation of each of these aspects, concrete examples of methods and techniques are suggested to help researchers (1) evaluate their systems' creative process and generated artefacts, and test their impact on the perceptual, cognitive, and affective states of the audience, and (2) build mechanisms for reflection into the creative system, including models of human perception and cognition, to endow creative systems with internal evaluative mechanisms to drive self-reflective processes. The first type of evaluation can be considered external to the creative system and may be employed by the researcher to both better understand the efficacy of their system and its impact and to incorporate feedback into the system. Here we take the stance that understanding human creativity can lend insight to computational approaches, and knowledge of how humans perceive creative systems and their output can be incorporated into artificial agents as feedback to provide a sense of how a creation will impact the audience. The second type centers around internal evaluation, in which the system is able to reason about its own behavior and generated output. We argue that creative behavior cannot occur without feedback and reflection by the creative/metacreative system itself. More rigorous empirical testing will allow computational and metacreative systems to become more creative by definition and can be used to demonstrate the impact and novelty of particular approaches

The Beatback system: exploring interactive percussion for promoting rhythmic practice

This thesis details the development and research of Beatback, an interactive percussion system for promoting rhythmic practice. Beatback is a software based system which with MIDI-enabled hardware controllers - such as an electronic drum-kit - allows users to play with their own rhythmic material in two interaction modes: (1) Call-response allows users to reflect on their own playing with system generated responses learnt from the user\u27s own performance. (2) Accompaniment enables users to build up complex rhythmic patterns by layering their own looped drum patterns. The first of two studies focused on drummers practising patterns with the system filtering out (or zoning) drums being played by the user, which found significant benefits to the zoned method. Research focusing on the Beatback system in its entirety demonstrated that both naive and experienced drummers feel more competent (in call-response) and enjoy interacting (in accompaniment) with the system significantly more than having open time to play the drum-kit. The results from both of these studies suggest the possibility of employing systems such as Beatback to benefit those practicing or learning how to play the drum-kit

Characteristics of an effective secondary school design thinking curriculum

This study examines the effectiveness of course materials, design methods and teaching strategies in a design thinking-based curriculum. As part of a multiple case study, we developed, ran and studied an interaction design course for Canadian students in grade 9 and grade 10 (14–15 years old). We gathered qualitative data in the forms of interviews of students and teachers at the end of each class and at the end of the course, and we observed their activities and performance throughout the course. We also evaluated the curriculum by tracking the changes we made and justifying the intentions behind these curriculum modifications in the context of the research. From this research, three main curriculum characteristics were found to be essential for a design thinking course to be effective and engaging: experiential activities, real-world applications and characterised consequences. We recommend that design educators consider these characteristics

A Real-Time Tempo and Meter Tracking System for Rhythmic Improvisation

Music is a form of expression that often requires interaction between players. If one wishes to interact in such a musical way with a computer, it is necessary for the machine to be able to interpret the input given by the human to find its musical meaning. In this work, we propose a system capable of detecting basic rhythmic features that can allow an application to synchronize its output with the rhythm given by the user, without having any prior agreement or requirement on the possible input. The system is described in detail and an evaluation is given through simulation using quantitative metrics. The evaluation shows that the system can detect tempo and meter consistently under certain settings, and could be a solid base for further developments leading to a system robust to rhythmically changing inputs