Your Voice is Power: Integrating Computing, Music, Entrepreneurship, and Social Justice Learning

2024 · 1 citations

• Computer Science
• Computer Science
• Sociology

Abstract Computational thinking has become pervasive across many technical and creative disciplines. Creating a computationally literate workforce capable of recognizing and eliminating algorithmic discrimination requires diverse perspectives and lived experiences. Your Voice is Power is a 5-class period curriculum targeted for K-12 audiences that seeks to promote racial equity and increase interest in computing careers by integrating elements of computing, music, social justice, and entrepreneurship. Centering around the song "Entrepreneur" by Pharrell Williams, students engage in lyrical analysis to extract and explore themes of social justice using the OUTKAST Imagination framework. Students then engage with musical concepts from a computing perspective and implement them using EarSketch, a web-based, learn-to-code through music remixing platform developed at Georgia Tech. In this paper, we present a description of the Your Voice is Power Curriculum and results from an evaluation study. The curriculum overview includes a description of the content and activities, as well as a discussion of the frameworks and theories underlying the curriculum's development. We also present results from a program evaluation covering both a pilot and a full implementation of this newly developed curriculum during the 2020-2021 academic year. Participating high school students and teachers were recruited to respond to online surveys regarding their awareness of and interest in computing, music, and social justice, and their experiences in the competition. Teachers felt that competition participation conferred a variety of benefits to their students and expressed positive attitudes around the social justice focus of the curriculum. Students provided largely positive feedback on the competition and reported a positive impact on their understanding of social justice and equity. Students also demonstrated high levels of understanding of the ubiquity of coding skills and applications. Taken together, program evaluation results show that this integration of themes is effective in engaging students in difficult conversations about race while building interest in computing.

Music, Coding, and Equity: An Exploration of Student and Teacher Experiences in Decoding Messaging and Discussing Equity with the "Your Voice Is Power" Curriculum

2024 · 1 citations

• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Political Science

Abstract Your Voice is Power is a curriculum that seeks to promote racial equity and increase interest in computing careers by integrating elements of computing, music, social justice, self-expression, and entrepreneurship. The curriculum consists of five modules lasting 60-90 minutes each. Students engage with music through lyrical analysis to extract and explore present themes of social justice using the OUTKAST Imagination framework. Students then engage with musical concepts from a computing perspective to create their own remixes using EarSketch, a web-based, learn-to-code through music platform developed at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). These elements are further supported by discussions around racial justice and the pathways to equity. The program culminates with an optional online competition with student submissions judged by industry professionals. This program has been ongoing since the 2019-2020 school year, and program evaluation efforts have been undertaken since the program's inception. Participatory evaluation framework principles were followed, including a process to obtain input from program leaders and staff to create program goals and a logic model that maps out the program's activities and how these link to the goals. The evaluation includes the collection of data from all program participants (i.e., teachers, students, and judges) via online surveys conducted immediately after the conclusion of the online competition. In these online surveys, we gather participants' feedback on various aspects of the competition, as well as their perspectives on their motivation to participate. Additionally, the survey is designed to measure the impact that program participation has had on them (and on their students, in the case of teacher participants). Program evaluation results from the first two years have suggested that, in general, participants in all three groups find Your Voice is Power to be a valuable experience, one they would repeat and/or recommend to a friend or colleague. For the year three data collection, following the past years' evaluation findings, we further investigated two areas of interest to program leaders: 1) students' experiences with a framework (the OUTKAST Imagination framework) [1] included in the curriculum to guide students through a detailed analysis of a song's lyrics and their meaning, and 2) teachers' self-efficacy for and attitudes around teaching on racial equity-related topics, including the specific pedagogical approaches non-racist teaching, culturally relevant teaching, and anti-racist teaching. This paper will present the results of the current evaluation with a specific focus on these two newly added areas of inquiry. Results indicate that students and teachers found lyric analysis and the OUTKAST Imagination framework to be a useful and valuable tool, and that teachers are generally comfortable with, and seek opportunities for, teaching on race-related topics, but they vary in their self-efficacy for specific pedagogical approaches to teaching on race-related topics.

Developing Computational Thinking in Middle School Music Technology Classrooms

2024 · 1 citations

• Computer Science
• Computer Science
• Mathematics education

To engage diverse populations of students who may not self-select into computing courses, a curriculum for a middle school music technology + computer science course that addresses learning standards for both subjects was developed and deployed. Students who engage with the curriculum learn modern music production techniques and computational thinking concepts. This is through a mix of traditional approaches to music technology education (digital audio workstations) and computational approaches via a culturally relevant learning platform that introduces students to coding through music production and remixing. This poster reflects on the last two years of curriculum design and deployment, teacher training, and student and educator engagement and feedback to provide insight into the teaching (and learning) of computational thinking in the music technology classroom.

Your Voice is Power: Integrating Computing, Music, Entrepreneurship, and Social Justice Learning

2021 · 1 citations

• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Artificial Intelligence

Computational thinking has become pervasive across many technical and creative disciplines. Creating a computationally literate workforce capable of recognizing and eliminating algorithmic discrimination requires diverse perspectives and lived experiences. Diversity within computing is a persistent problem; in 2014, several large tech companies released diversity reports and made commitments to improvement. As of 2020, improvements have been minor, especially for Black employees. Compared to US demographics, the percentage of Black and Latinx students pursuing degrees in computing remains low, even as numbers improve in STEM more broadly. It is more important than ever to prioritize a diverse computing workforce and a computationally literate workforce, more broadly, whose interests reside with equitable outcomes.