Computational skills are essential for students’ preparation to participate in computationally intensive STEM fields and the emerging workforce. However, in the U.S., Latinx and Spanish speaking students are underrepresented in these fields and expanding opportunities for these students to learn computing is an urgent need. The Collaborative Research Broadening Participation of Latinx Students in Computer Science by Integrating Culturally Relevant Computational Music Practices (Remezcla) aims to directly address the lack of representation of Latinx and Spanish-speaking students in computer science. This NSF-AISL funded program between Georgia Tech and the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras will expand middle and high school students’ STEM engagement and opportunities within both the continental United States and Puerto Rico.
As part of this project, we are adapting EarSketch, a music platform that helps students learn coding with Python and JavaScript through music mixing, to be more culturally and linguistically accessible to Latinx students. The redesign includes the ability to switch between Spanish and English, and incorporates new beats and sounds representative of traditional and contemporary Latin musical genres. We are also creating, implementing, and assessing a new informal and inclusive learning curriculum in Atlanta and Puerto Rico. This curriculum uses culturally relevant pedagogical practices that allow students to establish connections to their own cultures, communities, and lived experiences while acquiring computational thinking skills.
Our research will explore the impact of these culturally- focused technical and curricular innovations on students' computational skills, content knowledge, and other psycho-social factors like computer science identity.
Excellent program! This is about situating the knowledge in the comfort zone of the learners. I voted!
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Isaris Quinones Perez
Diley Hernández
Lead Presenter Associate Vice President
May 10, 2022 | 11:06 a.m.
Thank you so much! Please let us know if you have any questions.
Diley Hernández
Lead Presenter Associate Vice President
May 10, 2022 | 11:10 a.m.
Welcome to the Remezcla project video page!
Our grant "Collaborative Research Broadening Participation of LatinX Students in Computer Science by Integrating Culturally Relevant Computational Music Practices" aims to expand middle and high school students' STEM engagement and opportunities within both the continental United States and Puerto Rico. Through our creative approach we teach code and music composition by designing, implementing, and assessing a new informal learning curriculum.
We are looking forward to your questions and our discussion!!!
3
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Lilliana Marrero Solis
Rafael Arce
Isaris Quinones Perez
Isaris Quinones Perez
Co-Presenter Coordinator
May 10, 2022 | 02:17 p.m.
Hi everyone!
My name is Isaris Quiñones, the program coordinator of Remezcla in Puerto Rico. I hope you see in Remezcla a way to bring students from the challenges of programming to a comfort zone (as says Ekundayo Shittu) through music, as they learn to program, creating their own musical composition.
I had the opportunity to experience the motivation of some middle schoolers who want to continue studying computer science related courses. I have also seen high schoolers integrate their culture using latin music. It has been a pleasure to work in Remezcla!!!
2
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Lilliana Marrero Solis
Rafael Arce
Emily McLeod
Facilitator Director of Teaching and Learning, Code.org
May 10, 2022 | 02:52 p.m.
Thank you, Diley, for sharing this exciting project! I love the ways that the project infuses computational thinking and coding into approaches that are relevant and responsive to the Latinx students you are working with. I was wondering how students become participants in the program—do they opt-in? Is this a new program or part of an existing structure?
You mentioned that you are conducting research on outcomes for students – do you have any preliminary observation, anecdotal evidence, or feedback from students on their experiences so far? Look forward to learning more about the work!
Rafael Arce
Co-Presenter Professor
May 11, 2022 | 04:44 a.m.
Hello Emily, thank you for your kind words. As you guessed, the students opt in (with their parents' expressed consent in the case of those who participate in the research activities). Both the afterschool workshops and the summer camp are delivered as informal learning activities, which is part of the novelty of our project. We are learning a lot as we go.
We have some very encouraging preliminary results from the past summer (still processing these year's). Indicators for sense of belonging, intention to persist, and self efficacy (gathered through a pre/post questionnaire) had significant increases. In several of those indicators the increase was even more notable for women students.
Students love it and, as I see in some the comments in this thread, so do their parents and teachers.
1
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Lilliana Marrero Solis
Emily McLeod
Facilitator Director of Teaching and Learning, Code.org
May 14, 2022 | 03:10 p.m.
I can see why students love it, Rafael! Thanks for sharing more about your preliminary results--and very interesting to see that increases are greater for female students.
Diley and Team, that is great! Are you planning to use and test different musical genres to validate the approach and see whether the musical genre affects the results? If so, what kind of measures will you use?
Diley Hernández
Lead Presenter Associate Vice President
May 11, 2022 | 07:06 a.m.
Hi Douglas, and thank you for your question. Yes, this is one of the aspects of the project we are interested in exploring. Right now, we are exploring how to determine what genres students used through an analysis of their EarSketch scripts, while also asking the students about the musical choices and the reasons for those selections, in our focus group interviews.
1
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Douglas Lusa Krug
Roxana Hadad
Facilitator Associate Director
May 10, 2022 | 08:52 p.m.
Oh my goodness, this is such a fun and innovative project! Can you please clarify if the students in Puerto Rico collaborate on music with the students in Atlanta? If so, what does a collaboration look like?
1
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Rafael Arce
Rafael Arce
Co-Presenter Professor
May 11, 2022 | 04:20 a.m.
Hello Roxana, we have just completed our first year of summer camps and afterschool semesters. Although the idea has floated around, through the year we did not have a specific activity for the Atlanta and Puerto Rico students to collaborate (mainly because of logistics). Students have had the opportunity of listening to their remote peers' creations on the final activities that showcase their musical pieces. These music jams are always a blast. In one school, some students had a dance group choreograph a mix of the students' creations. I think your idea is great and we'll make sure to foment such collaborations going forward.
Roxana Hadad
Facilitator Associate Director
May 11, 2022 | 06:01 a.m.
Omg, I LOVE that they choreographed dances to what they made! ¡Felicidades en un proyecto tan creativo!
1
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Diley Hernández
Zidny Medina
Parent
May 10, 2022 | 10:38 p.m.
Was an incredible experience! My 12 years son loved it and thanks to this his looking for universities or options to continue related computing studies.
4
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Isaris Quinones Perez
Lilliana Marrero Solis
Diley Hernández
Rafael Arce
Brenda Lee Estevez Moreno
K-12 Teacher
May 11, 2022 | 01:17 a.m.
Una verdadera Remezcla de lenguaje computacional, lenguaje musical y cultura.
3
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Isaris Quinones Perez
Diley Hernández
Rafael Arce
Brenda Lee Estevez Moreno
K-12 Teacher
May 11, 2022 | 09:35 a.m.
Excelente iniciativa en la que tuve la oportunidad de participar este año junto a mis estudiantes de escuela superior. Una magnífica Remezcla de programación musical. Jóvenes sin conocimiento previo, aprenden de una manera divertida tanto de lenguaje computacional como de música.
3
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Isaris Quinones Perez
Lilliana Marrero Solis
Jayma Koval
Do you see that this culturally adapted version engages children more than the previous version?
Thanks!
Diley Hernández
Lead Presenter Associate Vice President
May 17, 2022 | 09:12 a.m.
Hi Victor, This is a good question and one that we hope to explore in some way since we are collecting some metrics similar to those collected in other previous EarSketch programs. However, we are very conscious that this is a program built with Latinx students in mind, with and for a Latinx student audience, so comparisons between this and other EarSketch curriculum is complex and should have many, many caveats in my perspective.
Rosalina Alvarado
Informal Educator
May 11, 2022 | 09:36 p.m.
Sumamente honrada al ser invitada por una maestra excepcional, la Profa . BrendaLee Estevez para ver la presentación de Remezcla de sus alumnos. Cuanta emoción ( hasta las lágrimas) presenciar ( y bailar ) con las demostraciones de unos estudiantes que se empoderaron , disfrutando al máximo su proceso de aprendizaje. Proceso el cual pudieron realizar una genuina Remezcla de su esencia músico cultural (así como fortalecer las inteligencias múltiples, en especial la musical ) . Observamos cómo el descubrir , aceptar y dominar los retos de la ciencia computacional les condujo a maximizar procesos ( ej . trabajo colaborativo) y y canalizar emociones en estos tiempos difíciles. Nuestro respeto y admiración a un gran equipo que no dudó (puso su entusiasmo y ganas ) y creyeron en el grandioso potencial de los educadores como Mrs Estevez, y los estudiantes de Puerto Rico. Entendemos que es altamente necesario que cada escuela de PR (en todos los niveles de K-12), pudiera beneficiarse con este poderoso y necesario Proyecto de Ciencia computacional .
2
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Diley Hernández
Isaris Quinones Perez
Jan Cuny
Facilitator Dir DEIA for Strategy and Operations
May 12, 2022 | 12:07 a.m.
This is a really interesting project.
If the only outcome was that students became more interested in computing, that would be great. But it would also be interesting to see whether or not they understood the computing concepts they used and understood ho to apply them to other contexts.
Diley Hernández
Lead Presenter Associate Vice President
May 12, 2022 | 07:55 p.m.
Dear Jan, We are also looking into how the program impacts students' computer science content knowledge and skills. We will be analyzing students code for complexity so we can determine what programming functions students use in their music compositions. We are also exploring how to determine their computational thinking skills through assessments and cognitive interviews.
Diley Hernández
Lead Presenter Associate Vice President
May 12, 2022 | 07:47 p.m.
We would like to also acknowledge the great work of other team members and collaborators we could not include in our list of presenters:
This work would not have been possible without you.
1
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Isaris Quinones Perez
Jan Cuny
Facilitator Dir DEIA for Strategy and Operations
May 12, 2022 | 10:49 p.m.
For students who do get excited about computing through this experience, what do you think is their next step?
Diley Hernández
Lead Presenter Associate Vice President
May 17, 2022 | 09:07 a.m.
Hi Jan, Within our program, we are providing students who complete the camp or after school to return as mentors to new students so they can continue to improve their skills and help other beginner students. In terms of next steps regarding to other CS and course opportunities, we hope that this program helps them develop positive CS identity and makes them want to enroll in other programs or CS courses. However, opportunities to do this in after school programs and school curriculum differ in Atlanta and San Juan, so exploring this is part of our project. We do provide students with information about CS careers to help them connect formal learning opportunities to the work they do in Remezcla.
Hello! What a beautiful project that hits all of the right notes ;)
Watching your video made me first ask exactly how is coding mingled with music, and so I read a little bit more about EarSketch on your website. What a clean and attractive platform, and I also loved your other video with the students pitching the idea.
So that I can understand the 'nuts and bolts' - it seems that a student can start with neither musical nor coding experience, and if so, the site has a library of "sound collections" from which they can choose to mix using various pre-built coding functions - is that the idea?
But then I saw in the video and this chat references to students making their own music and choreographing dance, etc. So they can record and add to the sound collection?
Are you able to add commercial music to the sound collections or only open source music?
And one thought - although I am not native to Puerto Rico, I am learning more about Bomba - there are many groups in Mayagüez, and I see a resurgence among many young people. Is Bomba included in your collection?
¡Excelente trabajo y que siguen tocando!
1
Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available
Found helpful:
Lilliana Marrero Solis
Rafael Arce
Co-Presenter Professor
May 17, 2022 | 10:47 a.m.
Hello Chris, Thank you for your kind words for our project. In earSketch you can use the loops included in the library (4k+ of them), record you own or import from sound databases such as FreeSound. Once you have coded your musical piece using the loops or imported sounds, you can download your creation in mp3 or other music formats. The musical piece that was choreographed by students was made up entirely from loops from the earSketch library. Although it is technically possible, we discourage students from importing commercial music. With regards to Bomba: this summer we are adding loops and percussion instrument sounds of Plena, e.g. pleneras, guiros. EarSketch also already includes functions to create your own rhythms using the recorded percussion instruments, so you can create your own bomba rhythms (even if not using exactly the traditional instruments: example. )
2
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Found helpful:
Christopher Papadopoulos
Lilliana Marrero Solis
Excited to hear about this project and curious to learn more about what impact you expect to see in terms of computational thinking skills. Also, not being familiar with EarSketch, can you describe more what children get to do?
Diley Hernández
Lead Presenter Associate Vice President
May 17, 2022 | 09:23 a.m.
Hi Dorothy, Thank you for your question. Part of the research we will be conducting in the project will explore this connection between the program and CT skills. We still do not have clear findings we can report on this. With regards to EarSketch and what it can do, this page gives you some idea of what students can learn by using the platform: https://earsketch.gatech.edu/landing/#/learn
Ekundayo Shittu
Excellent program! This is about situating the knowledge in the comfort zone of the learners. I voted!
Isaris Quinones Perez
Diley Hernández
Associate Vice President
Thank you so much! Please let us know if you have any questions.
Diley Hernández
Associate Vice President
Welcome to the Remezcla project video page!
Our grant "Collaborative Research Broadening Participation of LatinX Students in Computer Science by Integrating Culturally Relevant Computational Music Practices" aims to expand middle and high school students' STEM engagement and opportunities within both the continental United States and Puerto Rico. Through our creative approach we teach code and music composition by designing, implementing, and assessing a new informal learning curriculum.
We are looking forward to your questions and our discussion!!!
Lilliana Marrero Solis
Rafael Arce
Isaris Quinones Perez
Isaris Quinones Perez
Coordinator
Hi everyone!
My name is Isaris Quiñones, the program coordinator of Remezcla in Puerto Rico. I hope you see in Remezcla a way to bring students from the challenges of programming to a comfort zone (as says Ekundayo Shittu) through music, as they learn to program, creating their own musical composition.
I had the opportunity to experience the motivation of some middle schoolers who want to continue studying computer science related courses. I have also seen high schoolers integrate their culture using latin music. It has been a pleasure to work in Remezcla!!!
Lilliana Marrero Solis
Rafael Arce
Emily McLeod
Director of Teaching and Learning, Code.org
Thank you, Diley, for sharing this exciting project! I love the ways that the project infuses computational thinking and coding into approaches that are relevant and responsive to the Latinx students you are working with. I was wondering how students become participants in the program—do they opt-in? Is this a new program or part of an existing structure?
You mentioned that you are conducting research on outcomes for students – do you have any preliminary observation, anecdotal evidence, or feedback from students on their experiences so far? Look forward to learning more about the work!
Rafael Arce
Professor
Hello Emily, thank you for your kind words. As you guessed, the students opt in (with their parents' expressed consent in the case of those who participate in the research activities). Both the afterschool workshops and the summer camp are delivered as informal learning activities, which is part of the novelty of our project. We are learning a lot as we go.
We have some very encouraging preliminary results from the past summer (still processing these year's). Indicators for sense of belonging, intention to persist, and self efficacy (gathered through a pre/post questionnaire) had significant increases. In several of those indicators the increase was even more notable for women students.
Students love it and, as I see in some the comments in this thread, so do their parents and teachers.
Lilliana Marrero Solis
Emily McLeod
Director of Teaching and Learning, Code.org
I can see why students love it, Rafael! Thanks for sharing more about your preliminary results--and very interesting to see that increases are greater for female students.
Douglas Lusa Krug
Diley and Team, that is great! Are you planning to use and test different musical genres to validate the approach and see whether the musical genre affects the results? If so, what kind of measures will you use?
Diley Hernández
Associate Vice President
Hi Douglas, and thank you for your question. Yes, this is one of the aspects of the project we are interested in exploring. Right now, we are exploring how to determine what genres students used through an analysis of their EarSketch scripts, while also asking the students about the musical choices and the reasons for those selections, in our focus group interviews.
Douglas Lusa Krug
Roxana Hadad
Associate Director
Oh my goodness, this is such a fun and innovative project! Can you please clarify if the students in Puerto Rico collaborate on music with the students in Atlanta? If so, what does a collaboration look like?
Rafael Arce
Rafael Arce
Professor
Hello Roxana, we have just completed our first year of summer camps and afterschool semesters. Although the idea has floated around, through the year we did not have a specific activity for the Atlanta and Puerto Rico students to collaborate (mainly because of logistics). Students have had the opportunity of listening to their remote peers' creations on the final activities that showcase their musical pieces. These music jams are always a blast. In one school, some students had a dance group choreograph a mix of the students' creations. I think your idea is great and we'll make sure to foment such collaborations going forward.
Roxana Hadad
Associate Director
Omg, I LOVE that they choreographed dances to what they made! ¡Felicidades en un proyecto tan creativo!
Diley Hernández
Zidny Medina
Was an incredible experience! My 12 years son loved it and thanks to this his looking for universities or options to continue related computing studies.
Isaris Quinones Perez
Lilliana Marrero Solis
Diley Hernández
Rafael Arce
Brenda Lee Estevez Moreno
Una verdadera Remezcla de lenguaje computacional, lenguaje musical y cultura.
Isaris Quinones Perez
Diley Hernández
Rafael Arce
Brenda Lee Estevez Moreno
Excelente iniciativa en la que tuve la oportunidad de participar este año junto a mis estudiantes de escuela superior. Una magnífica Remezcla de programación musical. Jóvenes sin conocimiento previo, aprenden de una manera divertida tanto de lenguaje computacional como de música.
Isaris Quinones Perez
Lilliana Marrero Solis
Jayma Koval
Dr. Marci McMahon
This is fantastic! Thank you for sharing this work with us!
Isaris Quinones Perez
Diley Hernández
Victor Minces
I love to see earsketch going to new places.
Do you see that this culturally adapted version engages children more than the previous version?
Thanks!
Diley Hernández
Associate Vice President
Hi Victor, This is a good question and one that we hope to explore in some way since we are collecting some metrics similar to those collected in other previous EarSketch programs. However, we are very conscious that this is a program built with Latinx students in mind, with and for a Latinx student audience, so comparisons between this and other EarSketch curriculum is complex and should have many, many caveats in my perspective.
Rosalina Alvarado
Sumamente honrada al ser invitada por una maestra excepcional, la Profa . BrendaLee Estevez para ver la presentación de Remezcla de sus alumnos. Cuanta emoción ( hasta las lágrimas) presenciar ( y bailar ) con las demostraciones de unos estudiantes que se empoderaron , disfrutando al máximo su proceso de aprendizaje. Proceso el cual pudieron realizar una genuina Remezcla de su esencia músico cultural (así como fortalecer las inteligencias múltiples, en especial la musical ) . Observamos cómo el descubrir , aceptar y dominar los retos de la ciencia computacional les condujo a maximizar procesos ( ej . trabajo colaborativo) y y canalizar emociones en estos tiempos difíciles. Nuestro respeto y admiración a un gran equipo que no dudó (puso su entusiasmo y ganas ) y creyeron en el grandioso potencial de los educadores como Mrs Estevez, y los estudiantes de Puerto Rico. Entendemos que es altamente necesario que cada escuela de PR (en todos los niveles de K-12), pudiera beneficiarse con este poderoso y necesario Proyecto de Ciencia computacional .
Diley Hernández
Isaris Quinones Perez
Jan Cuny
Dir DEIA for Strategy and Operations
This is a really interesting project.
If the only outcome was that students became more interested in computing, that would be great. But it would also be interesting to see whether or not they understood the computing concepts they used and understood ho to apply them to other contexts.
Diley Hernández
Associate Vice President
Dear Jan, We are also looking into how the program impacts students' computer science content knowledge and skills. We will be analyzing students code for complexity so we can determine what programming functions students use in their music compositions. We are also exploring how to determine their computational thinking skills through assessments and cognitive interviews.
Diley Hernández
Associate Vice President
We would like to also acknowledge the great work of other team members and collaborators we could not include in our list of presenters:
This work would not have been possible without you.
Isaris Quinones Perez
Jan Cuny
Dir DEIA for Strategy and Operations
For students who do get excited about computing through this experience, what do you think is their next step?
Diley Hernández
Associate Vice President
Hi Jan, Within our program, we are providing students who complete the camp or after school to return as mentors to new students so they can continue to improve their skills and help other beginner students. In terms of next steps regarding to other CS and course opportunities, we hope that this program helps them develop positive CS identity and makes them want to enroll in other programs or CS courses. However, opportunities to do this in after school programs and school curriculum differ in Atlanta and San Juan, so exploring this is part of our project. We do provide students with information about CS careers to help them connect formal learning opportunities to the work they do in Remezcla.
Christopher Papadopoulos
Hello! What a beautiful project that hits all of the right notes ;)
Watching your video made me first ask exactly how is coding mingled with music, and so I read a little bit more about EarSketch on your website. What a clean and attractive platform, and I also loved your other video with the students pitching the idea.
So that I can understand the 'nuts and bolts' - it seems that a student can start with neither musical nor coding experience, and if so, the site has a library of "sound collections" from which they can choose to mix using various pre-built coding functions - is that the idea?
But then I saw in the video and this chat references to students making their own music and choreographing dance, etc. So they can record and add to the sound collection?
Are you able to add commercial music to the sound collections or only open source music?
And one thought - although I am not native to Puerto Rico, I am learning more about Bomba - there are many groups in Mayagüez, and I see a resurgence among many young people. Is Bomba included in your collection?
¡Excelente trabajo y que siguen tocando!
Lilliana Marrero Solis
Rafael Arce
Professor
In earSketch you can use the loops included in the library (4k+ of them), record you own or import from sound databases such as FreeSound. Once you have coded your musical piece using the loops or imported sounds, you can download your creation in mp3 or other music formats. The musical piece that was choreographed by students was made up entirely from loops from the earSketch library.
Although it is technically possible, we discourage students from importing commercial music.
With regards to Bomba: this summer we are adding loops and percussion instrument sounds of Plena, e.g. pleneras, guiros. EarSketch also already includes functions to create your own rhythms using the recorded percussion instruments, so you can create your own bomba rhythms (even if not using exactly the traditional instruments: example. )
Christopher Papadopoulos
Lilliana Marrero Solis
Dorothy Bennett
Excited to hear about this project and curious to learn more about what impact you expect to see in terms of computational thinking skills. Also, not being familiar with EarSketch, can you describe more what children get to do?
Diley Hernández
Associate Vice President
Hi Dorothy, Thank you for your question. Part of the research we will be conducting in the project will explore this connection between the program and CT skills. We still do not have clear findings we can report on this. With regards to EarSketch and what it can do, this page gives you some idea of what students can learn by using the platform: https://earsketch.gatech.edu/landing/#/learn
Ann Gates
Developing CT skills through music and fine arts is an exciting idea. Congratulations on this exciting project that provides entry into CS.
Further posting is closed as the event has ended.