Designing Hip-Hop Ecologies for Learning: Relational Approaches to Computation

• In Event: Humanizing Computer Science Education: Addressing Critical Issues for K–12 Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Purpose
This poster explored the designed cultural ecology of a hip-hop and computational STEM camp and the ways in which the ecology contributed to culturally sustaining learning experiences for middle school youth. Using principles of hip-hop as a culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) for design, we questioned how and what computational practices were supported or emerged, and how they became resources for youth engagement in the space. We argue that the emergent ecology created humanizing approaches to learning computational STEM.

Framework
We draw upon three theoretical orientations in ways that informed our design and subsequent analysis of a computational learning environment that was grounded first in humanizing the lives of young people. We argue that: (a) cultural ecological perspectives help to shape the design and understanding of computational STEM learning in expansive ways (Lee, 2010), (b) hip-hop can inform culturally sustaining engagement in computational STEM (Paris & Alim, 2017), and (c) making grammars, as an expansive definition of computational STEM (Knight & Stiny, 2015), open possibilities for understanding learning in integrated computational STEM learning spaces.

Method
We used design-based research to create a learning environment for the emergence of a hip-hop computational STEM learning ecology for 28 Black middle school youth. It included aspects of the ecology that were intentionally designed, histories of the dance center, and aspects that emerged as new ideas were brought in and co-developed with participants. Using qualitative research methods, we sought to highlight meanings and perspectives that were important to participants. Data were primarily collected from daily observations and pre/post interviews. Data were analyzed through multiple conversations and repeated reading and viewing of data.

Findings
Through close examination of youth’s interactions as they made computational hip hop projects, we constructed a case that illustrates how the learning ecology provided access to resources, including making grammars, and relational, spatial, and the physical resources of the dance center in integrated culturally responsive ways that allowed humanizing practices to emerge. Additionally, we show how hip-hop/computational themes of breaking down and building up, claiming/making space for others, self-expression, authenticity, interactivity, and making-do manifested through the youth’s work. Activities were designed to encourage interactivity and self-expression. Youth created their own computational hip-hop innovations by making-do with materials available in the space. They explored breaking down and building up technology and codes, as well as exploring algorithms through music- and dance-making.

Significance
Through this work, we argue for a critical re-imagining of computational STEM learning opportunities for Black youth that centers their whole selves within an ecology, rather than centering curriculum or content. Our work sought to connect hip-hop and computational practices for the purpose of learning both, not as using computation to serve in the creation of hip-hop practices or hip-hop as motivation for learning computation, but to guide the ways in which we constructed the integrated learning ecology and to expand definitions of computation in more culturally sustaining and humanizing ways (Eglash et al., 2013).

Authors

• Dionne Champion, University of Florida

• Christopher George Wright, Drexel University

• Eli Tucker-Raymond, Boston University

• Ayana Allen-Handy, Drexel University

• Rasheda Likely, Kennesaw State University

• Brian Gravel, Tufts University

• Amon D. Millner, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering