TY - GEN
T1 - Attracting Adults to Computer Programming via Hip Hop
AU - Lusa Krug, Douglas
AU - Mouza, Chrystalla
AU - Jones, W. Monty
AU - Barnett, Taylor
AU - Shepherd, David C.
N1 - This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2048792 and 2048793.
PY - 2023/3/2
Y1 - 2023/3/2
N2 - The demand for qualified computing professionals is high, with thousands of positions remaining unfilled each year. To create more qualified professionals, initiatives to attract and engage students in computer science have been proposed, but they tend to concentrate on primary, secondary (K-12), and post-secondary (college) level. With many adults looking for better career opportunities, it is surprising that few computer science initiatives focus on attracting adult learners to the field. This paper presents the results of an informal computer programming course that teaches the foundational concepts of computer programming to adults as they program hip-hop beats. This course is designed to attract adult learners that otherwise might have never considered computer programming, building their confidence and skills. We conducted this course online, two nights a week, for five weeks, for about 40 participants. Afterward, we conducted a qualitative analysis of written survey data. We found that the adult learners' perception of computer programming changed during the course, with many participants planning their next step in computing education.
AB - The demand for qualified computing professionals is high, with thousands of positions remaining unfilled each year. To create more qualified professionals, initiatives to attract and engage students in computer science have been proposed, but they tend to concentrate on primary, secondary (K-12), and post-secondary (college) level. With many adults looking for better career opportunities, it is surprising that few computer science initiatives focus on attracting adult learners to the field. This paper presents the results of an informal computer programming course that teaches the foundational concepts of computer programming to adults as they program hip-hop beats. This course is designed to attract adult learners that otherwise might have never considered computer programming, building their confidence and skills. We conducted this course online, two nights a week, for five weeks, for about 40 participants. Afterward, we conducted a qualitative analysis of written survey data. We found that the adult learners' perception of computer programming changed during the course, with many participants planning their next step in computing education.
KW - informal learning
KW - music
KW - tunepad
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85149848661&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85149848661&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3545945.3569800
DO - 10.1145/3545945.3569800
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85149848661
T3 - SIGCSE 2023 - Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
SP - 528
EP - 534
BT - SIGCSE 2023 - Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
T2 - 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2023
Y2 - 15 March 2023 through 18 March 2023
ER -