Dancing Across Boundaries of Computing Education

Overview

The project examines how to integrate machine learning, data science, and physical computing in the context of dance and cheerleading. The work is part of a collaborative grant between NYU and University of Colorado Boulder, which uses both locations to explore across a number of dance and cheerleading environments. The goal is to understand how to help learners leverage their expertise and cultural practices in order to engage them in authentic and personally meaningful computing. The dancers and cheerleaders will learn to create computing systems with programmable electronics worn on the body (physical computing), use those systems to create statistical models of movement and gesture (data science and machine learning), and then apply the models in a digital experiential learning environment. We are working closely with dance educators and learners to produce design principles, curricula, new educational technologies, and comparative analyses across contexts. In NYC, we have a partnership with the non-profit organization STEM From Dance and its founder and CEO Yamilee Toussaint Beach. The organization “gives girls of color access to a STEM education by using dance to empower, educate, and encourage them as our next generation of engineers, scientists, and techies.” Through working with Yamilee, their instructors, and learners we are building on the powerful programming they have already developed to expand the types of concepts the learners can encounter within a computational dance environment.

Research Questions Explored

This project addresses four main research questions:

1. How can computing be leveraged to build expertise in dance and cheerleading?
2. How can dance and cheerleading be leveraged to build expertise in computing?
3. What are the challenges of integrating computing into dance and cheerleading practices?
4. How can we meaningfully assess learning outcomes and dispositional shifts with respect to computing in the context of dance and cheerleading applications?

This research will produce curriculum and technology to support learning modules in machine learning, data science, and, physical computing, integrating multiple levels of abstraction across the boundaries of hardware and software (i.e., cyber-physical systems). Through this collaborative inquiry researchers will develop transformative knowledge about how to embed computing into established dance practices, resulting in computing curricula and tools that build on the learners’ and educators’ authentic practices and needs.

Research Team

• Yamilee Toussaint Beach - CEO & Founder of STEM From Dance
• Willie Payne - PhD Student in Music Technology @ NYU
• Dr. Kayla DesPortes (PI) - Assistant Professor of HCI and the Learning Sciences @ NYU
• Dr. Yoav Bergner (Co-PI) - Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences and Educational Technology @ NYU
• Dr. Ben Shapiro (Co-PI) - Assistant Professor of Computer Science @ CUB

Funders

This project has been funded by the National Science Foundation (STEM+C 1933961).