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 the best way to play the piano. Since launching, I’ve seen the necessity, want and influence: Make Music Rely is in over 400 faculties with 60,000 registered college students and 20,000+ downloads on iOS and Android gadgets.
And immediately, I’m excited to share a brand new milestone: we now have partnered with IBM to make use of their cutting-edge synthetic intelligence (AI) instruments to assist personalize college students’ academic journeys, empowering college students to expertise the real-time purposes 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 instrument for all youngsters’s academic success. Too usually, math instruction generally is a one-size matches all strategy, which may 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 Rely to particularly assist second via twelfth-grade college students clear up math equations. Each time a scholar will get a math downside proper, the reply unveils a musical observe. 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 music streams in parallel. Because of this, we’ve seen college students’ confidence and efficiency in arithmetic enhance all whereas enjoying—and studying—the piano.
And now, IBM has helped us take our platform to the subsequent degree by embedding IBM watsonx Assistant and IBM Watson Discovery into Make Music Rely’s internet software. With this integration, we’re ready 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 out of doors the classroom
Early on, we recognized that math instruction wants to incorporate the experiences and cultures of children at school. We noticed that college students have 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 creating Make Music Rely, dialog was on the core. We discovered that creating alternatives for dialogue empowered college students to take possession over their very own schooling. 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 with the intention to expertise the music in full.
To assist ship on this, our workforce constructed a digital assistant to coordinate discussions amongst a number of college students. Now academics inside our associate college districts are given time again for productiveness as a result of college students are capable of navigate via our supplemental STEAM and SEL curriculum on their very own at their very own tempo.
Academics and tutors can now spend extra time personalizing their classes with college students in-person, whereas the chat perform might 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 can 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 like, as an AI technique and its enterprise execution can appear daunting, however IBM put my thoughts comfy and made the complete course of seamless and helped educate me about how watsonx might help startups like ours. I can now see the great that AI can do for school rooms, which is an oft-overlooked facet of know-how within the classroom.
Our IT workforce wanted assistance on the again finish with knowledge administration and navigating consumer insights so we will preserve fine-tuning our platform and assets. The IBM workforce helped us find out about and implement the IBM Watson Discovery platform, and it was not an enormous carry. This milestone is a spot the place we will begin and develop, and the AI instrument goes to study as we use it with our college students serving to our workforce transition from solely being supplemental to a core curriculum math studying platform.
By co-creating with IBM Ecosystem Engineering, we will save capital round our buyer assist headcount.
Making music depend for all (and for the longer term)
Accessibility has all the time been an emphasis for our Atlanta-based workforce. We consider 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 Rely with college districts throughout the USA, and even across the globe.
We additionally see thrilling alternatives to scale Make Music Rely 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 methods and might help associate with us to search out new collaboration alternatives. Whether or not you favor a laptop computer, telephone or pill, check out Make Music Rely and make math and music enjoyable by enjoying your favourite songs on the (mathematical) piano.
Learn how to start building with IBM
Explore how Make Music Count can inspire your students