Hi Chip,

Thanks for the question! In our work, we pay close attention to the learning environment and/or context in which young people engage in computational making. We attempt to bridge this gap by highlighting how computational making can and does exist in the spaces and practices that young people navigate, i.e., dance studios, the art of DJ'ing, making beats in recording studios. Thus, arguing that computational making can live beyond the confines of computer labs that have historically been viewed as the places for computational learning. 

Thank you for viewing the video and asking this question, Nancy. We greatly appreciate the interaction. In the initial cycle of the project, we had a large number of girls that participated in the computational STEM camp. Specific to your question about the recruitment and persistence element, I am not positive that using hip-hop was the determining factor. We intentionally "brought" and situated computational making within the context of a hip-hop dance studio as a way to explore the importance of context in the work. In this space, young people were able to see and witness the ways that they were both dancers AND contributors to space dedicated to computational making. 

Thanks Dionne for your reply. I'm also interested on how you recruited your target audience and the duration of the full program?

Hi Shihadah! Thanks for the question.  The project is actually being implemented in three sites, in three different cities across the country (Gary, IN, Philadelphia, PA, and Cambride, MA). Each program is 60 hours, which for some means a few weeks over the summer and for others can mean a few hours per week over the course of a semester.  The recruitment process for each site is also different. For this initial implementation in Gary, Indiana, we stared with the community that was already a part of our community-based dance center partner and branched out from there.  Things spread very quickly by word of mouth from the families who were participating.

One very interesting unintended outcome of parterning with and recruiting through the community-based dance center was that we ended up with a group of participants that spanned a much wider age range than we initially expected. The camp was initially aimed at serving 20 middle school aged youth. However, we ended up with a range of ages that spanned from 6-16 because families often asked to sign up older or younger siblings and other relatives. We made the choice to accommodate all and to shift our program design to reflect the authentic demand from the community. As a result, we learned a lot about the benefits of intergenerational collaboration in this type of learning environment.

Hi Cheryl, 

It looks like there is a lot of overlap in our projects! We have only had one full implementation but we expect some of those young folx to come back this summer! For us, just as much as it is the activities in which youth are enagaging is including the cultural ecologies of the spaces in which the activities are happening. So, for instance, what you see in the video is our work in a dance center that incorporated the afro-centric focus, the multiple intergenerational relationships, and the focus on movement and dance pedagogy. For us, incorporating what is already compelling to youth in whatever space they are in is a major thrust of our work. We have written a paper about it here: (Designing for) learning computational STEM and arts integration in culturally sustaining learning ecologies. If anyone would like a copy of the paper and needs access, please email me: etuckerr at bu dot edu. 

Hi Shihadah and thank you for the question! The project includes iterating the design of the learning environment across three different research sites in three different cities. The work highlighted in the video was the first iteration and did not include interactions with sound board engineers and data scientists. However, the current iteration being conducted in a different city includes these kinds of interactions as we are focusing on computational making and music streaming sites.

Hi Rachael,

Thank you for the question. Collaborations are between the institutional researchers (e.g., Drexel, Boston University, University of Florida, Tufts University, Olin College of Engineering) and community facing organizations within the cities of Gary, IN, Boston, MA, and Philadelphia, PA. Thus, the research looks to consider how similar models of learning and engagement are also informed by the culture and context of the community facing organizations. We have general design principles that we utilize when considering how we implement the models in different cities, while also understanding that each locale will have its own flare and elements that they want to highlight and accentuate. With all of that being said, our design principles are very much grounded in considering ways for empowering young people in the refinement and transformation of what these designed spaces look like and become. 

Hi Kimberly and thank you for taking the time to look at our work. We, too, are very excited to engage in this interdisciplinary project and look forward to learning so much more from the young people we work with!

Thanks Ari!

It was really great to see that project come together. The girls put a lot of thought into the different features of the battle station, from how to give the user an experience that simulated mixing by separating beats and sound effects from lyrical tracks, to seeking out lyrical tracks that were "family appropriate." Because they wanted the experience to feel authentic, they designed a cardboard headset with a foil contact to touch the ear, so that the users could "DJ" with two hands while maintaining contact with the Makey Makey "earth" button (You must be touching the "earth" contact on the Makey Makey in order to trigger a reaction). The girls had a great time using sounds, materials, and their bodies to develop codes to bring their interactive DJ battle station to life.

Hi Daniel,

Various members of the team have worked together and known each other in different ways sometimes working together for over 10 years. You could say the epicenter of that is a non-profit called TERC, where Chris, Dionne and I all served as Post Docs at different times with the Cheche Konnen Center. Chris and Ayana work together at Drexel, Chris and Brian went to graduate school together. Brian and Amon and I have had several other projects together. Dionne and I as well as Chris and I have had other projects together. That said, Dionne and Ayana bring a strong arts background, Amon is a computer scientist, Dionne and Chris and Brian are engineers and we all have a love for hip hop, learning, and transforming STEM learning spaces to be more humanizing especially for youth whose humanity is often denied in schools.

We're also friends. Like you said, it is hard to get funding for novel work and this wasn't our first attempt together. It is important to us that we work with people we like on projects we believe in. We feel very fortunate to be able to do this work. I can't speak for the others, but my first attempt as a researcher to connect hip hop and learning was in 2001 and I was naysayed into dropping the idea. It took almost 20 years to see that dream come about in this project. And it really took this interdisciplinary team and our collective experiences in combining the arts, computing, learning sciences, and engineering for it to manifest. 

Thanks for sharing your story, Eli.

I'm really happy to see the dream come true.

Hi Momo,

In general, participant attitudes toward STEM trended positively but not statistically significant in most items on pre/post surveys. What DID come out differently according to our chi square analysis was that participants saw more overlap between hip hop and computing and recognized that some of the same practices exist in both spaces. Because we really want to highlight that overlap in our work more than art-in-service-of-stem/computing or stem/computing-in-service-of-art, we are excited to see that outcome. Those practices include representing something in the real world; identifying problems while in the act of creation; identifying the right tools, materials, and procedures to solve them; and systematically figuring out why something is not working.