IMPROVING MUSIC AND MATH SCORES
IN [Insert your school district here]
1. PROJECT GOALS AND SCOPE
The goal of this project is to test out a promising approach for improving the test scores of our students in math and music. We are requesting funding for each elementary school in our district for a full-blown, [insert # of schools] campus demonstration project involving # music teachers, # math teachers, and # students.
Music education has many side benefits that we believe [insert School District] can more fully exploit. In previous studies around the country, music education has been found to have the following synergistic benefits. Music students tend to:
· Perform better in school by lengthened attention spans and sharpened listening skills. Studies show that students who are involved with music fare better in mathematics, science, and languages than their peers. Students involved with music also have higher school attendance and graduation rates.
· Develop Intellectually on both sides of the brain - not only the right or creative side by stimulating imagination, but also the left or analytical side by promoting problem solving and critical thinking. Students involved in music also have higher SAT scores.
· Develop Faster Emotionally by tapping into moods, allowing for expression of feelings, or offering relief from boredom or stress.
· Learn Self-Discovery and develop self-esteem by allowing students to reveal talents of which the teacher and the student may not be aware.
· Broaden Friendships and Community by connecting with other students learning about music - through an ensemble, a band, or simply through social networking.
In this project, we wish also to focus on the relation between music and math education. Recently there has been a significant breakthrough in music education by a firm in Nashville, Tennessee called QuaverMusic.com. This company has developed 21st Century teaching resources that have been receiving rave reviews and winning nationally-recognized awards. The program is being adopted by forward-thinking school districts, now in 39 states. Go to QuaverMusic.com/ParentTeacher for a full description of the program and extensive testimonials.
The program is revolutionary because it uses integrated video and web-based resources to equip teachers to teach students, providing a tool to facilitate the learning process. Over 30 fun-packed, high-energy DVD episodes cover Music Theory, Musical Instruments, Music History, and Musical Styles. Additionally,this program offers options for our middle school students that would facilitate a front-loaded classroom setting, allowing students to watch episodes at home and come to class prepared to work, which would align with the laptop initiative our district has invested in. The Teacher Guides offer many suggestions for developing a lesson plan and emphasize Cross Curriculum Activities addressing Math, Science, Social Studies and the Arts. The web based program supports the high-tech needs of teachers through over 150 interactive whiteboards, over 400 musical tracks and scores, hundreds of printable activities, and a Teacher Tool Box. The program also meets the needs of the students by providing an online virtual world on a multi-media platform designed specifically to teach music in an engaging way via games and creative activities that support higher level thinking skills. Quaver meets students where they live – in the classroom and on the computer at home – making this a great anywhere, anytime learning, too.
The goal of this project is to determine how effective this new educational paradigm is – not only in our music classes but also the indirect impact on our math programs.
2. IDENTIFY LEARNING OBJECTIVES
As stated in our goals, we expect: (1) to elevate and significantly enhance the music programs of [insert School District] , and (2) have a positive, if indirect, impact on math proficiency of our students. We address math proficiency first in this section since the Grant Committee places priority on funding math and reading improvement programs.
2.1 Common Core Math Practices
The Quaver Music program indirectly addresses each of the Common Core Math Practice Standards, especially in Music Theory. The descriptions below are illustrative only since a complete description would required many pages. Here are the eight Common Core Math Practice Standards and how they relate to music education.
· Make Sense of Problems and Persevere in Solving Them – Music is full of math problems to be solved. From determining time signatures, to completing measures with the right number of beats and note durations, to forming chords and even constructing wave forms,students must look for entry points and where to begin to solve these problems.
· Reason Abstractly and Quantitatively – Many of the creative activities in music requires abstract reasoning to determine melody lines as well as emotional swells and quantitative reasoning to conform to the mathematical structures of music.
· Construct Viable Arguments and Critique the Reasoning of Others – While music does not address this math practice directly,students must learn how to listen and ask useful questions.Students can also be asked about the meaning of different musical pieces and have their reasoning critiqued by others.
· Model With Mathematics – Music conforms basically to a mathematical model. This model is characterized by a time signature, a key, note durations, intervals for chords, and other quantitative relationships. Audio engineering and encoding music are also highly dependent on math.
· Use Appropriate Tools Strategically – There are multiple tools in music to compose music, from piano players, to drum machines, to Garage Band type applications. There are waveform generators and recording tools all available to teach students how to use tools strategically. These tools will be available in the proposed program.
· Attend To Precision – In performing music, precision is required, especially when in a chorus or band. Music teaches rhythms and precision in working together. This attention to detail is highly correlated with the attention to detail required in math.
· Look For and Make Use of Structure – As stated earlier, music has structures in terms of time signature, key, tempo, and dynamics. Students will learn to identify and use these structures in classroom activities. Musical compositions also have structures in terms of Verse and Chorus, Theme and Variation, and Rondo forms.
· Look For and Express Regularity in Repeated Reasoning – Most musical pieces have characteristics in common. Students are encouraged to identify the regularities such as tempo, dynamics, beats per measure, and the like. These characteristics vary by musical styles.
In sum, the links between math and music are very strong. And while Quaver’s Program is specifically designed to improve music education, we believe it will also help with math skills. And in this project, we will make sure to emphasize those components of music education that promote the math practices defined in the Common Core. The students will see real examples of math applied to one of their favorite pastimes – music. This will make math more meaningful to them.
2.2 National Teaching Standards for Music Education
There are also nine national standards in music education. The team at QuaverMusic.com has developed an extensive crosswalk between these standards and the teaching resources offered, since it is designed to improve music appreciation and test scores in music. The crosswalk is described at www.QuaverMusic.com/ParentTeacher. Briefly, the crosswalk is as follows:
· Singing alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music – QuaverMusic.com has hundreds of music tracks for students. An interactive whiteboard Karaoke application lets students sing along. Multiple musical styles are provided, including hip-hop, rock, and pop. They can learn phrasing, breathing, and posture.
· Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music - Quaver prints scores of works that students composed so that they can play them in class. While the program does not teach individuals how to play instruments, it does teach them all about the instruments.
· Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments – QuaverMusic.com has “creatives” for creating melodies on the piano, guitar, and a Garage Band-like loops program called QGrooves. Students can write lyrics to their compositions as well.
· Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines – QuaverMusic.com allows compositions to be developed with different guidelines. QDo’s are classroom exercises where the student has to complete a composition that has already been started. Instructions are provided on how to complete the composition.
· Reading and notating music – There are episodes on notation and reading music as well as numerous class exercises on interactive whiteboards for doing so.
· Listening to, analyzing, and describing music – QuaverMusic.com has a magical Metro Station that transports students to famous musical venues that describe different styles of music. Students can listen to, analyze and describe the music.
· Evaluating music and music performances – The teacher helps students evaluate the music and music performance. Quaver’s Program is not a curriculum but a massive set of 21st Century Teaching Resources that the teacher can customize for his/her purposes.
· Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts – Again, the program emphasizes cross-curricular activities. For example in the Music History series, the relationship between the Impressionist Period in music is and the Impressionist Period in art is explored.
· Understanding music in relation to history and culture – There is also a magical English Phone Box at QuaverMusic.com that transports students back in time to over 15 venues from cavemen beating on logs to Beethoven to Francis Scott key. History and culture are stressed in the materials.
The end result is that the on and offline resources in Quaver’s Program are designed to achieve the benefits of learning music as described in Section 1. Project Goals and Scope.
3. NEED FOR PROJECT
Quaver’s Marvelous World of Music is destined to become the gold standard for music education. The program is strongly supported by the National Association for Music Education and numerous prominent music teachers around the country. The program is replacing textbooks as the medium to teach students music. Currently over 150 schools are basing their music programs on Quaver’s Program even though it was just released in May 2011! There are over 1,000 elementary and middle schools in 39 states actively considering Quaver for their music program, trying to work out procurement issues.
Recently, a Middle School teacher in Illinois conducted a rudimentary test to determine how well the Quaver episodes instruct the students.
He taught his students about verses, refrains, bridges, and interludes, as well as, forms – such as the Rondo form. He explained the concepts on one day to three separate classes, and then on the following day showed them Quaver’s Episode 16: Form. He gave a short test to his students both before and after the video viewing.
The test scores before the video averaged around 60% retention and after the video – over 90%, a major improvement. This test was by no means scientifically rigorous, nor statistically representative, but it proved that his students retained the Quaver material. When students are having fun and are being entertained by the material, they retain it. In fact the students wanted more. For further studies or to be connected with this educator, contact the Quaver team at
So Quaver’s Program will be a major boost to the music education program in the district as well as have indirect beneficial effects on the learning of other subjects including math. Because the Committee is interested in math, we will make a special effort to measure the effect on math scores as well as music scores.
4. COMMON ASSESSMENTS AND INSTRUMENTS
Quaver’s School Program consists of multi-media, state-of-the-art resources for teaching music in the classroom. As mentioned, the resources include episodes of various subjects, web-based classroom activities, and an online virtual world for students. The purpose of testing is to determine to what extent the Quaver Resources improves learning music in the classroom and also how well math skills are improved.
4.1 Research Questions
· Do Quaver’s resources increase student retention in the classroom?
· Do students like the Quaver approach more than their traditional program?
· Are students more interested in music after experiencing Quaver?
· Are there areas where the Quaver resources could be improved?
· Do student test scores in math improve after receiving Quaver’s Program?
· Do students see more reason for learning math after Quaver’s Program?
4.2 Research Variables
Certain variables need to be controlled for in order to ensure the results are representative for other districts and schools. These variables include:
· Grade Level of the Students (K through 6th)
· Experience of the Teacher (Experienced with Computers/Limited Experience with Computers)
· Nature of Material Taught (Music vs. Math - Right brain or Left brain)
· Existing Teaching Resources In School (Traditional/Enhanced)
4.3 Research Design
The research will be ongoing, but there will be an intermediate testing to show preliminary results.
Different types of material will be taught – lessons on music theory which emphasizes the math (or left-brain) aspect of music and lessons on music history, instruments, and styles which emphasizes the arts or right-brain) aspect. Initially we will focus just on Music History to complement the Music Theory/Math.
The research design will consider the different levels of experience of the teachers with computer learning.
To control for differences in the profile of the students, the demographic breakout of the students needs to be considered.
All grade levels should be included in the design to see if the resource materials are more suited to different grades.
Coordination with the teaching of math is essential to measure the impact of music on math scores.
4.4 Test Procedures
Selected tests will be conducted during the course of the project to measure the impact of the new program. For example, in one test, each teacher would teach two classes at the same grade level for each lesson. The first lesson should be taught where Classroom A receives Quaver’s Program and Classroom B does not. The teacher administers the test to each classroom and compares the scores.
The second lesson will be taught where Classroom B receives Quaver’s Program and Classroom A does not. This will control for the capability and interests of the students between classes. Similarly the teacher then compares the scores.