2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 309: Improving Teachers' Attitudes Toward Sound and Waves Through the Connections with Music

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

Children can feel disengaged from STEM subjects taught in schools, which are often presented in ways that are not connected to their interests and everyday experiences. The subject of waves is fundamental for understanding a variety of scientific and engineering processes, from gravitation to telecommunications. Furthermore, the subject of waves presents an excellent opportunity to bring to the school activities connected to one of children’s deepest interests: music. For this, we created Listening to Waves, a program that has been developing web applications and curricular activities that allow users to connect with the science of waves by playfully exploring and creating sound and music. Previous work by our team has shown that these types of activities can be powerful for engaging children in science, especially those typically underrepresented in STEM domains. However, a fundamental step for their spreading is that they are also engaging for teachers. To disseminate the program and evaluate its potential to engage teachers, we created a three-day professional development workshop for teachers serving underserved communities. We administered quantitative and qualitative surveys before the workshop, immediately after the workshop, and after the teachers implemented the materials in their classrooms. The surveys indicate that the experience improved teachers’ attitudes toward the subject, including their comfort in teaching the subject, their enjoyment, and their perception of the children’s enjoyment. This effect was particularly relevant for teachers who were not initially engaged, either because of a lack of experience or lack of knowledge. Taken together, these results indicate that activities connecting music and STEM have the potential to spread throughout the formal educational system by engaging teachers, and that they can be instrumental in engaging children in STEM. This research is funded by NSF’s ITEST award “Increasing Students' Interest in STEM through the Science of Music.”

Authors

Eunice Chow WestEd [biography]

Eunice Chow, M.A., is a Research Associate at WestEd. She has extensive experience leading and supporting research and evaluation studies funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Her research focuses on educational technology and early learning. Her expertise ranges from usability and implementation studies to multi-year randomized controlled trials. She earned her M.A. in Education from Stanford University and her B.S. in Psychology and Learning & Organizational Change from Northwestern University.
Linlin Li WestEd [biography]

Dr. Linlin Li, Research Director at WestEd, has more than 20 years of experience in research, evaluation, and consulting, including key roles on cross-site, multi-year federally funded projects. Her research work focuses on the areas of developmental psychology, math, science, and social-emotional interventions, and family engagement. Her recent work involves using interactive games to design and evaluate interventions for students living in poverty and at risk for academic difficulties. She received her PhD in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Nagarajan Akshay University of California San Diego [biography]

Akshay Nagarajan is a cognitive science doctoral student at the University of California San Diego. His work extends the science of music tools for computing education and data literacy to low-income schools globally. With a Master's in Robotics, he has designed haptic simulators for vocational skills training, and established educational makerspaces in rural Indian schools. His contributions to impactful initiatives in India include introducing constructionism in rural and tribal schools, massive women's empowerment programs, and promoting water and sanitation stewardship.
Dr. Alec Barron University of California, San Diego [biography]

Dr. Alec Barron is the Director of the San Diego Science Project at UC San Diego CREATE. Through this role, he supports science educator networks, delivers engaging science programs and resources, and builds bridges between researchers and educators through shared learning. In previous roles as a K12 science teacher and administrator, he led the design of new curricula, professional learning, and instructional coaching to support NGSS implementation. As a leader, he is interested in how we develop systems and supports for science educators to continuously improve and innovate as equity designers.
Susan Yonezawa University of California, San Diego
Dr. Victor Hugo Minces University of California, San Diego [biography]

Corresponding author, victorminces@gmail.com. Dr. Minces studied physics at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and obtained his Ph.D. in Computational Neurobiology at the University of California, San Diego. His interests are very diverse, including the arts, the neurobiology of perception, and the physics of the senses. He is the founder of listeningtowaves.com, a program engaging children in STEM through the connections with music. He is also a sound artist.

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