research-article

Code Beats: A Virtual Camp for Middle Schoolers Coding Hip Hop

Authors:

Douglas Lusa Krug,

Edtwuan Bowman,

Taylor Barnett,

David ShepherdAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '21: Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Pages 397 - 403

https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3432424

Published: 05 March 2021 Publication History

Abstract

In spite of the efforts to provide computer science education for all, the percentage of Black and Latino Americans entering the computer science (CS) field has been stagnant for years. In an effort to attract and engage students many summer camps and after-school clubs use robotics, video-games, and even IoT devices, but these approaches seem to only attract those already considering STEM careers, a population low in Black and Latino students. To attract Black and Latino students to computer science a promising approach is to engage with their culture, making CS relevant to them personally. To this end, we present an approach that teaches middle school students to program using hip hop beats, intentionally leveraging a genre of music that appeals to a wide array of urban youth of color. This approach, called Code Beats, uses extensive scaffolding to support beginning students, authentic-sounding beats to engage students, and a expressive programming environment to support creative freedom. We present the results of our pilot camp, where students clearly showed an increase in computing enjoyment, confidence, belonging, and persistence. By the end of this course, all students were able to create their own, original beat from scratch, suggesting their progression to the Create phase of the Use-Modify-Create framework.

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Cited By

Tshukudu EDodoo EHermans FMudongo M(2024)Bilingual Programming: A Study of Student Attitudes and Experiences in the African contextProceedings of the 24th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3699538.3699561(1-11)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3699538.3699561
Fokum DChen Shui ZWright KParadise OMansingh GCoore DStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)A High School Camp on Algorithms and Coding in a Small Island Developing StateProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630762(352-358)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630762
Jones WHansen KKrug DSchad MWhittington NLiu X(2024)Digital music composition: the effects of computer coding musical compositions on adult learners’ attitudes toward computer scienceComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2024.2429059(1-33)Online publication date: 20-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2024.2429059
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Code Beats: A Virtual Camp for Middle Schoolers Coding Hip Hop
1. Applied computing
  1. Arts and humanities
    1. Sound and music computing
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computational thinking
      2. K-12 education

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE '21: Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 2021

1454 pages

ISBN:9781450380621

DOI:10.1145/3408877

General Chairs:
Mark Sherriff
University of Virginia, USA
,
Laurence D. Merkle
Air Force Institute of Technology, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Pamela Cutter
Kalamazoo College, USA
,
Alvaro Monge
California State University, Long Beach, USA
,
Judithe Sheard
Monash University, Australia

Copyright © 2021 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 05 March 2021

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SIGCSE '21: The 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 13 - 20, 2021

Virtual Event, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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The 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

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Cited By

Tshukudu EDodoo EHermans FMudongo M(2024)Bilingual Programming: A Study of Student Attitudes and Experiences in the African contextProceedings of the 24th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3699538.3699561(1-11)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3699538.3699561
Fokum DChen Shui ZWright KParadise OMansingh GCoore DStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)A High School Camp on Algorithms and Coding in a Small Island Developing StateProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630762(352-358)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630762
Jones WHansen KKrug DSchad MWhittington NLiu X(2024)Digital music composition: the effects of computer coding musical compositions on adult learners’ attitudes toward computer scienceComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2024.2429059(1-33)Online publication date: 20-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2024.2429059
Roberts CHorn M(2024)Computational musicking: music + coding as a hybrid practiceBehaviour & Information Technology10.1080/0144929X.2024.2402533(1-21)Online publication date: 13-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2024.2402533
Bănuț M(2023)Using the Sonic Pi Application for Educational Purposes – A Literature ReviewEducatia 2110.24193/ed21.2023.26.12(108-119)Online publication date: 21-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.24193/ed21.2023.26.12
DeFreitas PLayne A(2023)‘Guyanese Girls Code’ Goes Virtual: Exploring Instructors’ ExperiencesInternational Journal of Computer Science Education in Schools10.21585/ijcses.v6i2.1686:2Online publication date: 19-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.21585/ijcses.v6i2.168
Lusa Krug DZhang YMouza CBarnett TPollock LShepherd DLaakso MMonga MSimon Sheard J(2023)Using Domain-Specific, Immediate Feedback to Support Students Learning Computer Programming to Make MusicProceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3587102.3588851(368-374)Online publication date: 29-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3587102.3588851
Butler ZBezáková IBrilliantova ADoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)Putting a Context in Context: Investigating the Context of Pencil Puzzles in Multiple Academic EnvironmentsProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569848(353-359)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545945.3569848
Lusa Krug DMouza CJones WBarnett TShepherd DDoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)Attracting Adults to Computer Programming via Hip HopProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569800(528-534)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545945.3569800
Petrie C(2023)Design and use of domain-specific programming platforms: interdisciplinary computational thinking with EarSketch and TunePadComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2023.224065734:4(645-678)Online publication date: 28-Jul-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2023.2240657
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