Undergraduate

Throughout nearly a score of years teaching AP calculus and college calculus, I have composed a number of songs to introduce, summarize, and solidify concepts. Not only do songs help pedagogically, they create an atmosphere of joy and excitement in the classroom. I will not only share songs that cover major topics in calculus, we will also discuss the fill in the blank method along with ways you can have students compose songs "live." Be prepared to sing along!

Music has long been recognized as an effective tool to help young children learn, but this teaching/learning strategy is rarely used at the high school and college levels. As a doctoral student of education (and a high school chemistry teacher) I am currently in the beginning stages of exploring topics to research for a dissertation. At this point in the process, the only idea I am passionate about is the general concept of using music to teach and learn STEM-related content. However, below I have included a few areas of possible research interest with respect to this general topic.

Encouraging students to express themselves via their own music surely promotes inclusiveness and equity in the classroom. Do these benefits also occur when the instructor writes or chooses the music, which is perhaps more common?

We are a group of high school math teachers (and college math professors) that encourage the use of song to teach math concepts. We are specifically passionate about supporting girls in STEM classes and careers. We have made 4 videos now, and some are really gaining attention on YouTube. In our presentation, we will discuss how the songs we choose help facilitate math learning and promote excitement in math class.

The possible benefits of using music to enhance learning of STEM content are numerous, diverse, and largely unproven. We sought to determine which of these possible benefits are most likely to be experienced by undergraduate students, and perhaps most worthy of further investigation. 440 students in eight physiology courses at two mid-sized American universities were asked to rate the usefulness of five short instructor-penned physiology songs, and to explain why these songs would or would not be useful study aids.

Thousands of STEM songs exist (the singaboutscience.org database alone has over 7000), but they vary widely in how readily a teacher can use them in her class. For some teachers, it may be enough that a song exists on the learning objective at hand, but for (probably, most) teachers, a song is not a self-contained lesson and it makes a huge difference if the song is supported by accompanying resources.

In this session, we introduce Deltaphone, a browser-based blocks programming language for generating musical scores. Just as learners used Logo's turtle geometry to explore mathematical space in a relative way, learners use Deltaphone's interval-based motion to explore musical space. The emphasis on intervals means that certain computational and musical ideas can be investigated quite naturally in code. For example, musical structures can be more easily abstracted into functions and reused in a variety of musical contexts, and custom chords and progressions can be built.

A presentation to explore the use of voice in composed and improvised music to explore concepts in astronomy and particle physics. The presenter has herself composed pieces for voice that explore neutrinos and pulsars and this proposal includes presentation and exploration of these works. Additionally structures of cosmic evolution and models of particle physics provide a rich source of inspiration for creating improvised soundscapes with the voice and voices that are easily accessible.

This presentation would include the following:

Numbers Never Lie will be presented as a music video that explores how statistics can both illuminate and distort issues pertaining to politics and social justice. It is produced by Rock In The Classroom which is a nonprofit organization promoting creative arts in education programs. A draft of the video will be included through the email link on the proposal page. The song examines how statistics can be a powerful tool that can empower historically marginalized populations and bolster arguments on the need to take action on environmental issues.