1. Hip-Hop Education (HipHopEd)
HipHopEd is an approach to teaching and learning that focuses on the use of hip-hop culture and its elements in teaching and learning both within and outside of traditional schools. #HipHopEd is also a Twitter chat where educators convene every Tuesday night at 9 p.m. EST to discuss this approach to teaching. HipHopEd involves the use of hip-hop music, art and culture to create philosophies for teaching. It also uses hip-hop to develop and implement teaching tools and helps to create contexts for teaching and learning that youth are comfortable in. In its simplest form, HipHopEd involves the use of rap lyrics as text to be used in the classroom. In a more complex form, it involves raps created by students as classroom assignments that are used to measure knowledge. In its most advanced form, it uses the elements of hip-hop (b-boying/girling, graffiti, deejaying and MC-ing) as ways to describe/explain content, develop classroom activities, and create tools for empowering youth.
Most recently, the use of hip-hop in education has included elements of hip-hop culture like the rap battle to enhance learning and create competitions that spur on learning. This approach has been used to increase student attendance, motivation and content knowledge.