Tag Archives: Greg Crowther

Music videos for teaching science and a Baba Brinkman update

Leave a reply

I have two news bits concerning science and music.

Music videos and science education

Researchers in the US and New Zealand have published a study on how effective music videos are for teaching science. Hint: there are advantages but don’t expect perfection. From a May 25, 2016 news item on ScienceDaily,

Does “edutainment” such as content-rich music videos have any place in the rapidly changing landscape of science education? A new study indicates that students can indeed learn serious science content from such videos.

The study, titled ‘Leveraging the power of music to improve science education’ and published by International Journal of Science Education, examined over 1,000 students in a three-part experiment, comparing learners’ understanding and engagement in response to 24 musical and non-musical science videos.

A May 25, 2016 Taylor & Francis (publishers) press release, which originated the news item, quickly gets to the point,

The central findings were that (1) across ages and genders, K-16 students who viewed music videos improved their scores on quizzes about content covered in the videos, and (2) students preferred music videos to non-musical videos covering equivalent content.  Additionally, the results hinted that videos with music might lead to superior long-term retention of the content.

“We tested most of these students outside of their normal classrooms,” commented lead author Greg Crowther, Ph.D., a lecturer at the University of Washington.  “The students were not forced by their teachers to watch these videos, and they didn’t have the spectre of a low course grade hanging over their heads.  Yet they clearly absorbed important information, which highlights the great potential of music to deliver key content in an appealing package.”

The study was inspired by the classroom experiences of Crowther and co-author Tom McFadden [emphasis mine], who teaches science at the Nueva School in California.  “Tom and I, along with many others, write songs for and with our students, and we’ve had a lot of fun doing that,” said Crowther.  “But rather than just assuming that this works, we wanted to see whether we could document learning gains in an objective way.”

The findings of this study have implications for teacher practitioners, policy-makers and researchers who are looking for innovative ways to improve science education.  “Music will always be a supplement to, rather than a substitute for, more traditional forms of teaching,” said Crowther.  “But teachers who want to connect with their students through music now have some additional data on their side.”

The paper is quite interesting (two of the studies were run in the US and one in New Zealand) and I notice that Don McFadden of the Science Rap Academy is one of the authors (more about him later); here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Leveraging the power of music to improve science education by Gregory J. Crowther, Tom McFadden, Jean S. Fleming, & Katie Davis.  International Journal of Science Education
Volume 38, Issue 1, 2016 pages 73-95. DOI: 10.1080/09500693.2015.1126001 Published online: 18 Jan 2016

This paper is open access. As I noted earlier, the research is promising but science music videos are not the answer to all science education woes.

One of my more recent pieces featuring Tom McFadden and his Science Rap Academy is this April 21, 2015 posting. The 2016 edition of the academy started in January 2016 according to David Bruggeman’s Jan. 27, 2016 posting on his Pasco Phronesis blog. You can find the Science Rap Academy’s YouTube channel here and the playlist here.

Canadian science rappers and musicians

I promised the latest about Baba Brinkman and here it is (from a May 14, 2016 notice received via email,

Not many people know this, but Dylan Thomas [legendary Welsh poet] was one of my early influences as a poet and one of the reasons I was inspired to pursue versification as a career. Well now Literature Wales has commissioned me to write and record a new rap/poem in celebration of Dylan Day 2016 (today [May 14, 20160) which I dutifully did. You can watch the video here to check out what a hip-hop flow and a Thomas poem have in common.

In other news, I’ll be performing a couple of one-off show over the next few weeks. Rap Guide to Religion is on at NECSS in New York on May 15 (tomorrow) [Note: Link removed as the event date has now been passed] and Rap Guide to Evolution is at the Reason Rally in DC June 2nd [2016]. I’m also continuing with the off-Broadway run of Rap Guide to Climate Chaos, recording the climate chaos album and looking to my next round of writing and touring, so if you have ideas about venues I could play please send me a note.

You can find out more about Baba Brinkman (a Canadian rapper who has written and  performed many science raps and lives in New York) here.

There’s another Canadian who produces musical science videos, Tim Blais (physicist and Montréaler) who was most recently featured here in a Feb. 12, 2016 posting. You can find a selection of Blais’ videos on his A Capella Science channel on YouTube.

Sing a song of science literacy

Leave a reply

Let’s applaud the American Educational Research Association for its plan to livestream part of its 2014 conference being held April 3 – 6, 2014 for free (you do have to register; pause for applause). Unfortunately, the one session I’d really like to hear is not one of the chosen ones. It’s the “Sing about Science: Leveraging the Power of Music to Improve Science Education” session being delivered by two researchers from the University of Washington (UW; state). From the April 2, 2014 UW news release (also on EurekAlert),

As the United States puts ever-greater emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education to keep competitive in the global economy, schools are trying to figure out how to improve student learning in science.

University of Washington researchers Katie Davis and Greg Crowther think music may be the answer for some kids. They studied the ability of music videos to enhance students’ understanding of scientific concepts.

Davis will present “Sing about Science: Leveraging the Power of Music to Improve Science Education” on Friday (April 4) at the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference.

Davis and Crowther aren’t just talking about music as a mnemonic device to help students memorize facts. Previous research has shown that music can reduce stress and increase student engagement in the learning process, so the researchers theorized that music videos could help some students process and retain information better.

“It makes sense that we shouldn’t teach all kids in the same way; we should individualize,” said Davis, an assistant professor in the UW’s Information School. “We need to provide multiple entry points in all subject matters. Music is a different entry point into scientific concepts.”

Crowther is a biologist but is so interested in music that 10 years ago he created a website with a database of songs about science and math; SingAboutScience.org now has links to more than 7,000 of them (the majority do not have video). Teachers can type in a topic and find music relevant to what they are teaching.

For their current research, they set up laptop computers at five science-related outreach events in Washington state. Most targeted students in K-12, but adults also participated. Participants in the study ranged from 3 to 76 years old, with a median age of 12. Each person sat in front of a laptop and selected a science-based music video to watch.

For instance, one video is titled “Fossil Rock Anthem,” and is a parody of the hip-hop song “Party Rock Anthem.” It shows a dancing archaeologist, graphics of fossils and ground striations and continental plates drifting. It’s a catchy tune with fun, colorful graphics.

…

Participants took a pre-video quiz of four questions related to information in the video, plus a bonus question not covered by the video. They were also asked to rate their confidence in their answers. They were randomly assigned to watch either a visually-rich music video or a music video that showed only the lyrics on screen. Then they took a post-video quiz that included the same content and confidence questions.

In two-thirds of the music videos (10 out of 15), participants had more correct answers after watching the videos. Quiz scores rose by an average of one more correct answer after watching the videos. The lyrics-only music videos were as beneficial to improving quiz scores as the visually-rich videos.

Participants improved their scores not only on factoid-type questions, but also the more complex comprehension questions, which shows that the videos improved people’s scientific understanding and not just memorization.

Pre- and post-quiz scores were no different for the bonus questions, which did not cover material from the videos. This finding suggests that the boost in quiz scores was due to watching the video, and not by some other variable.

The researchers say everyone learns in different ways, and past research has shown that students learn best with hands-on, personally relevant tools that utilize powers of observation and audio-visuals. They also note that a person’s memories can change based on an emotionally charged atmosphere. Since music is an emotional medium, it makes sense that our educational memory could be enhanced by it.

“We’re not saying this is the only way you should teach science, it’s just a different way,” Davis said. “We’re hoping it can engage a broader array of students, to help them find success and create identities as science learners.”

Added Crowther, “There wasn’t a teacher breathing down students’ necks telling them they had to learn this for a test. People voluntarily watched these videos for fun. This is exactly the type of opportunity we should be creating more of. Students will seek it out just because it’s fun and interesting.”

I went to Crowther’s website, Sing About Science (be careful, you may spend more time on the website than you planned), and picked this video from the listing,

It makes me think of protest songs from the 1960s. Here’s more about the video from its YouTube home,

Uploaded on Feb 25, 2011

NIMBioS Songwriter-in-Residence RB Morris performs his song “Science for the People.” For more information about the Songwriter-in-Residence program at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS), visit http://www.nimbios.org/songwriter

I most recently mentioned NIMBioS in a November 1, 2013 interview with Canadian rapper and science afficionado, Baba Brinkman who has also been one of their artists-in-residence.