Communities that face communication, infrastructure, educational, and economic challenges.
Published in Chapter:
Supporting Education in Marginalized Communities With Workshops Combining Music and Mathematics
Eric Roldan Roa (Univerisity of Tartu, Estonia), Erika Roldan-Roa (Technische Universität Münche, Germany & EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland), and Doris Kristina Raave (University of Tartu, Estonia)
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 24
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-3861-9.ch015
Abstract
In this chapter, the authors present the experience of a series of workshops given in a marginalized community in Mexico during the COVID pandemic as a mean to mitigate the educational gap lockdowns provoked. The whole intervention consisted of 12 workshop sessions plus a closing activity. The workshops aimed to jointly promote learners' conceptual and procedural knowledge of basic mathematics and develop musical rhythmic awareness and sensitivity in a collaborative problem-solving manner. Seventy children, ranging from 8 to 12 years old, participated in the workshops facilitated by an educational game, namely Musical Monkeys, consisting of a board game and an app. Using an initial evaluation, the authors mapped students' profiles in terms of background knowledge (procedural and conceptual) to form balanced playing teams, including low and high achievers, and to adjust the workshops according to students' needs and levels. The setting, challenges encountered during the intervention, and future research directions are discussed.