Computer Science and Computational Approaches to Music for Middle School and High School Students

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This Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) supports a pilot study at New York University(NYU), under which computer science (CS) is being taught to math and music savvy children ingrades 7-12. They are learning how CS principles apply to music, a technical field with knowncomputational applications including sound manipulation, music information retrieval, and musicrelatedartificial intelligence. The focus is on fundamental scientific concepts like algorithms anddata structures and how they apply to technical problems. This contrasts with previous approachesto teaching pre-college CS, e.g., AP computer science classes focus on a currently popular computerlanguage (JAVA) and other classes focus on currently popular computer applications (wordprocessing, spreadsheets, etc.). Follow up studies are anticipated for teaching other computationaldomains, such as robotics and artificial intelligence approaches to solving games. Again, the focuswill be on formal computational problem solving, rather than the use of currently popular computerlanguages and applications.This study explores the incorporation of basic CS into the middle/high school curricula, asignificant question for the educational and scientific research communities. The ubiquitousnessof computational thinking in current intellectual thought makes this an extremely significant lineof research.The teaching materials created in this pilot study will be available on the world wide web andresults will be submitted for publication. This pilot study is intended as a stepping stone to a realcomputer science curriculum for pre-college students, which should prove essential to the futureeconomic and intellectual development of the United States.