Does Musical Context Improve Computational Thinking Skills?In-PersonK12
The Make-To-Learn Lab at the University of Virginia developed TuneScope, a tool to facilitate computational thinking (CT) through music, to help democratize computer science education. Built upon the existing framework of Snap! (University of California, Berkeley), TuneScope leverages sound analysis, design, and music composition to engage novices with CT fundamentals. Existing research shows the benefits of using familiar contexts to teach CT, and TuneScope builds upon this with musical contexts. We have designed a course centered around the use of TuneScope to teach fundamentals of CT through music. In this paper, we investigate how students use TuneScope to develop sequential melodies, build chords, and sample recorded sounds while simultaneously learning fundamental programming principles such as algorithm design and abstraction. Using sentiment analysis, we demonstrate that students have had a largely positive experience in learning and grasping CT fundamentals throughout a diverse curriculum. As of today, the total enrollment of the course consists of over 45% female students with a 100% retention rate. TuneScope has also been accepted as an official Snap! library to be used by thousands of Snap! users worldwide.