New Curriculum Combining Math and Music

Reprinted with permission from "The Parent's Guide: Getting the Most; Out Of Your Child's Band or Orchestral Experience" published by The; Selmer Company.
: Children Taught With New Curriculum
Combining Math and Music Score Higher
on Test of Advanced Math Skills and; Stanford 9; M.I.N.D. Institute shows building math education on; understanding of the brain helps children comprehend; advanced concepts at earlier ages and improve their; Stanford 9 math scores; Irvine, Calif. (February 24, 2000): A curriculum combining piano; lessons, educational math software and fun math problems can help; second graders achieve scores on certain tests comparable to fourth; graders, according to studies by the Music Intelligence Neural; Development (MIND) Institute.; The curriculum uses piano instruction to enhance the brain's ability to; learn, then allows children to apply that mental acuity toward math; problems, said Gordon Shaw, physicist and president of the MIND; Institute-a nonprofit group dedicated to research that uses music as a; window into higher brain function.; In the studies, second-graders from 95th Street Preparatory School in; inner-city Los Angeles were compared with fourth and fifth graders from; an Orange County school with a higher socioeconomic level. The; students took the advanced math concepts exams, which tested math; problem-solving ability, in 1999.; Second graders who received piano training, used the software and; practiced math puzzles and exercises every week attained scores; comparable to fourth graders. Half of these second graders scored in the; top 20th percentile of the nationwide Stanford 9 test in math, and these; students achieved scores on the advanced math concepts exams; comparable to the Orange County fifth graders.; "These are exciting results, and show the potential of connecting music; and math," said Shaw, professor emeritus of physics at UC Irvine. "Our; goal is to show that any school can get the results we obtained, and it can; be done economically."; So how does it work?; For 45 minutes two days a week, students get piano instruction from a; music teacher at school. Then they use computers to play an educational; game developed by the study's lead author and neuroscientist, Matthew; Peterson. They play the game, called Spatial-Temporal Animation; Reasoning (STAR) for 45 minutes on another two days a week. And one; day a week, their classroom teacher leads a math integration lesson, in; which students do brain-stretching problems aloud. These lessons add to; the regular math curriculum--they do not supplant it, Shaw noted.; Piano instruction is thought to enhance the brain's "hard-wiring" for; spatial-temporal reasoning, or the ability to visualize and transform; objects in space and time, Shaw said. Music involves ratios, fractions,; proportions and thinking in space and time. In a way, music primes the; brain to learn otherwise tough concepts for kids.; At the same time, when children use the STAR software, they are led on; geometric and math adventures by a penguin called JiJi--playing games; that boost their ability to manipulate shapes in their minds. Finally,; teachers bring the music and puzzles together for their math integration; lessons, tying the concepts into standard math lessons that concentrate on; a language approach. The children learn to enjoy exploring math, instead; of fearing making math mistakes.; Students taught with the curriculum demonstrated a heightened ability to; think ahead, Peterson said. "They were able to leap ahead several steps; on problems--in their heads," he noted.; MIND Institute researchers used the advanced math concepts test, which; tested skills in symmetry, graphs, fractions, pre-algebra problems and; proportional math, to evaluate the children's learning. These subjects are; all matched to topics covered in the state math standards for grades 2; through 5.; The findings are of major importance because a grasp of proportional; math and fractions is a prerequisite to math at higher levels, and children; who do not master these areas of math cannot understand advanced math; critical to high-tech fields. This type of math is ordinarily taught in grade; 5.; Four Los Angeles-area schools now use the curriculum, bringing music; and math to 380 second-graders. The MIND Institute hopes to expand to; 10 schools in the next school year, with second- and third-grade; curricula. The institute also hopes to eventually expand the curriculum to; grades K-5.; The MIND study, which is being submitted for publication, is only the; latest in a series linking musical training to the learning process. Prior; studies based on a mathematical model of the cortex predicted that early; music training would enhance spatial-temporal reasoning, and a 1997; study showed that preschool children given six months of piano; keyboard lessons improved dramatically on such reasoning. A 1999; study combined piano keyboard lessons with STAR to show that second; graders at the 95th Street school could master advanced math concepts; through spacial-temporal methods. By adding the math integration; lessons, the present study ties into students' standard math lessons.; The major results for second graders are now measured in dramatically; increased written test scores that are comparable to those of fourth and; fifth graders at a school with a higher socioeconomic status. These; second graders also achieved high scores on the nationwide Stanford 9; math test.; The MIND Institute recently opened new offices in Irvine. The group is; a community-based, nonprofit scientific research institute whose mission; is to explore relationships among music, reasoning and the brain to the; benefit of society in education and medicine. For more information,; consult the institute's website at www.MINDInst.org.; Source: http://www.mindinst.org