Over the previous ten years, I’ve been on a journey to create an interactive, patented curriculum that mixes the facility of math with the enjoyment of music. In our program Make Music Count, college students from elementary to highschool get hands-on expertise fixing math equations whereas studying find out how to play the piano. Since launching, I’ve seen the necessity, want and influence: Make Music Depend is in over 400 colleges with 60,000 registered college students and 20,000+ downloads on iOS and Android gadgets.
And as we speak, I’m excited to share a brand new milestone: we’ve got partnered with IBM to make use of their cutting-edge synthetic intelligence (AI) instruments to assist personalize college students’ instructional journeys, empowering college students to expertise the real-time functions of studying.
Creating the foundational instruments for scholar success
Make Music Count was born out of the understanding and realization that math is a foundational software for all youngsters’s instructional success. Too typically, math instruction could be a one-size matches all method, which might finish with college students pondering that “math is boring.” Our multidisciplinary technique builds engagement in math by centering play within the scholar’s studying course of.
We designed Make Music Depend to particularly assist second via twelfth-grade college students resolve math equations. Each time a scholar will get a math downside proper, the reply unveils a musical be aware. As soon as all questions in a given set of issues are answered, the corresponding notes are highlighted on a digital piano, enabling college students to play their solutions on a digital keyboard whereas the unique tune streams in parallel. Consequently, we’ve seen college students’ confidence and efficiency in arithmetic enhance all whereas taking part in—and studying—the piano.
And now, IBM has helped us take our platform to the following stage by embedding IBM watsonx Assistant and IBM Watson Discovery into Make Music Depend’s internet utility. With this integration, we’re in a position to make use of AI to customise lesson plans round every scholar’s distinctive wants, enabling college students to ask questions and offering real-time math assist for college kids via chat.
Seamless collaboration inside and outdoors the classroom
Early on, we recognized that math instruction wants to incorporate the experiences and cultures of children in school. We noticed that college students had been getting left behind of their math research, largely as a result of they didn’t see themselves mirrored within the curriculum. As we started growing Make Music Depend, dialog was on the core. We discovered that creating alternatives for dialogue empowered college students to take possession over their very own training. On common, we see a median enhance of 28% in a scholar’s rating from pre- to post-test, and our app sees 100% engagement throughout every scholar’s session, as college students are self-motivated to finish every session so as to expertise the tune in full.
To assist ship on this, our staff constructed a digital assistant to coordinate discussions amongst a number of college students. Now lecturers inside our companion college districts are given time again for productiveness as a result of college students are in a position to navigate via our supplemental STEAM and SEL curriculum on their very own at their very own tempo.
Lecturers and tutors can now spend extra time personalizing their classes with college students in-person, whereas the chat operate may help get college students up-and-running and ask extra primary questions. The AI will study query patterns over time, and we’re excited concerning the insights it would compile to assist us information our curriculum sooner or later.
Personalizing an AI technique that match our enterprise
I used to be cautious at first about what an AI funding would appear to be, as an AI technique and its enterprise execution can appear daunting, however IBM put my thoughts comfortable and made your entire course of seamless and helped educate me about how watsonx may help startups like ours. I can now see the great that AI can do for school rooms, which is an oft-overlooked side of expertise within the classroom.
Our IT staff wanted assistance on the again finish with knowledge administration and navigating person insights so we are able to preserve fine-tuning our platform and sources. The IBM staff helped us find out about and implement the IBM Watson Discovery platform, and it was not an enormous raise. This milestone is a spot the place we are able to begin and develop, and the AI software goes to study as we use it with our college students serving to our staff transition from solely being supplemental to a core curriculum math studying platform.
By co-creating with IBM Ecosystem Engineering, we are able to save capital round our buyer assist headcount.
Making music rely for all (and for the longer term)
Accessibility has all the time been an emphasis for our Atlanta-based staff. We imagine that each scholar ought to really feel included throughout instruction and welcomed to the chance of being profitable within the classroom. Our platform continues to function a supplemental useful resource for math courses, music courses and intervention areas, in addition to enrichment for after-school packages. We look ahead to persevering with to scale Make Music Depend with college districts throughout the US, and even across the globe.
We additionally see thrilling alternatives to scale Make Music Depend into youngsters’s hospitals, bringing each studying and enjoyable into the fingers of those that want them. IBM already has a presence with many hospital techniques and may help companion with us to seek out new collaboration alternatives. Whether or not you favor a laptop computer, telephone or pill, check out Make Music Depend and make math and music enjoyable by taking part in your favourite songs on the (mathematical) piano.
Learn how to start building with IBM
Explore how Make Music Count can inspire your students
