Merge branch 'main' of https://github.com/Lab-Lab-Lab/Composition-Blocks

Author: LukeHennessy501

docs/honors-thesis-presentation-notes.md

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+Composition Blocks
+* interesting programming challenge
+* arts are in trouble
+  * arts education funding plummeted faster than other kinds of ed funding in recent history
+  * music education is in trouble same reasons, but also because of evaluation
+    * individual teachers, programs, districts are evaluated by how their students perform in ensemble at competitions
+      * automatic ceiling on the scores based on the completeness of instrumentation (are all the instruments there)
+      * over emphasis on performance (national core arts standards outline the best practices as including Create, Perform, and Respond (and recently also "Connect", hence "CPR"))
+        * what if in language arts you were asked to
+          * read shakespeare at home
+          * take turns reading it in class out loud to learn and practice the rhythm
+          * maybe even to recite
+          * what if you were then asked to "write shakespeare" or alternatively for never asked to write a poem at all or never aksed to write on in any particular meter
+* not a musician, music is still important
+* how do I make an impact that i care about/that is positive on the world?
+* trying to close the theory-practice gap in music education
+  * any field of research has such a gap, so working to close it in any field is interesting as research, sometimes we can transfer things we learn to other ares
+* participatory design (interest? element?) about democratizing design and research and development
+  * the wizard of oz method you employed was in this vein
+* music ed lacks everything outside of performance
+* hidden curriculum in music ed
+  * recording yourself (to apply to a school, camp, program, share with friends and family)
+    * anecdotally music students have that one nerd friend that they pop over to record or send for edits
+  * understanding the recording as a file and getting it in the place (LMS, website, whatever)
+* classical western music hegemony
+  * what about other cultures musics?
+    * harrisonburg with a population (when JMU students aren't here) of 25,000 has speakers of 70+ languages how many music traditions are represented there?
+  * what about other genres?
+    * it's not "legitimate" or valid to study metal, hip-hop, EDM, country in middle school and high school band/orc
+      * esp. for genres that require (digital) music production, how/when might any student ever find out how to do it, or that they're even interested or capable to do it?
+* why is it interesting to even try composition blocks?
+  * on-ramp to computational thinking for a group that might otherwise have limited access (why would they take a CS course in college or high school. they're not familiar, never had a chance, misunderstand the possible scope of computation, i.e. don't realize it can support creativity)
+    * computer science teachers and courses are much less available than even music teachers and programs
+    * at elementary level, in many states all students get music education, and number of students in band and orchestra (middle and high school) far exceeds numbers in CS classes
+      * also the demographics of the students in music courses more closely resembles the schools' populations than the students in CS courses
+* if there's too few CS opportunities and too narrow a sample of students are encouraged or have an interest, perhaps integrating some CS (or at least CT) into courses that more students (both in quantity and in diversity) take can help provide more equitable access and to widen the entrance of the (talent) pipeline
+* why should it matter who takes any particular course/path/career?
+  * more diverse teams make better decisions and have more success
+    * fewer blindspots
+* at JMU (this is 2024 census date data) among programs with at least 10 students enrolled, CS and Information Technology rank the lowest in the entire university by percentage of women (< 16%) while the total JMU % women is 60%
+  
+music ed:
+1. only some music
+2. only performance
+3. students rarely available/introduced to tech (bc no one, but also the band/orc are often scheduled mutex with tech)
+
+Playing with (Composition) Blocks: Increasing Equitable Access to Computational Thinking through Integration into Instrumental Music Education to Narrow the Theory-Practice Gap in Music Education and Support Overburdened and Under-Resourced Teachers
+
+MusicCPR is an on-going multi-institutional, international, research collaboration including the design, research, and development of a niche/bespoke/custom Learning Management System for Instrumental Music Education. In MusicCPR, the collaboration is conducting research  in many different strands, one of which is studying various approaches to teaching music composition. The current work supports investigation of composition activities that include integrated computational thinking learning objectives via programming blocks.