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Using Music in the Classroom Helps Students with Math
[30-03-2012] |
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Untitled Document
 Almost all students want
do well on their tests and get good grades. Students in South
Korea are known to take studying and academics very seriously. To do better in
school, young people attend after-school programs and
have private tutors help them.
This sometimes can be very expensive, and not everybody can afford it. A new study has
found a new, free method that can improve exam scores by 50 percent
in mathematics.
According to the study done
by researchers at San Francisco
State University, listening to music during math lessons can enhance
math skills in children. The study, which will be published in the journal
Educational Studies in Mathematics, documented that children
had an easier time learning difficult fraction concepts when listening to
music. The results of the study were
conducted through an innovative curriculum that uses beats
and rhythms to teach fractions. Those who were in the program scored considerably higher on tests
than those who were in traditional classes. The
curriculum called “Academic Music” uses music notation, clapping, drumming and chanting to teach fractions
to elementary students.
 “If students
don’t understand fractions early on, they often struggle with algebra and mathematical reasoning later
in their schooling,” said Susan Courey,
assistant professor of special
education at San Francisco State University. “We have designed a method that uses
gestures and symbols to help children
understand and learn the academic language of math.”
The study was performed at an elementary school in San Francisco,
California. A total of 67 students participated in the program. The
students were divided equally into two groups -
one group took part in a six-week Academic Music curriculum and another
group was put into the school’s regular math course. Needless to say, those in
the Academic Music course scored much higher on an exam. Even the
lower-performing students
in the music-math classes scored higher than lower-performing students
in the regular classes.
“Students who started out with less fraction knowledge achieved final test scores
similar to their higher-achieving classmates,”
explained Courey. “Lower-performing
students might find it hard to grasp the idea of fractions
from a diagram or textbook. But when you add
music and multiple ways of learning,
fractions become second nature to them.” |
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