Are Children Better at Math When They Take Music or Art

A new way of teaching known as STEAM is breaking down the barriers between science, technology, engineering, art and maths. Image credit - Laura Taverna/ Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia

A new style of teaching known as STEAM is breaking downwards the barriers between science, technology, engineering, art and maths. Image credit - Laura Taverna/ Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia

Staring at rows of numbers or formulas on a page tin exist off-putting for many children studying mathematics or science in school. But music, drawing and fifty-fifty body movement are providing promising new ways of didactics complex subjects to youngsters.

The thrum of a violin string or shell of a drum might at beginning appear to take footling to do with physics, fractions or angles. Indeed, science and artistic subjects similar music have traditionally been treated entirely separately in pedagogy.

But researchers believe breaking down the arbitrary barriers betwixt science and art could help pupils grasp catchy concepts more than easily. Information technology is leading to a new manner of teaching that aims to combine science, technology, engineering science, arts and maths, collectively known as STEAM.

'We are trying to brand this STEAM learning approach known to the educational community,' said Dr Vassilis Katsouros from the Athena Enquiry Centre's Found for Linguistic communication and Spoken language Processing in Athens, Greece, and coordinator of a project called iMuSciCA. 'When yous bring people together from the arts and Stalk subjects, they tin work together to accept very creative ideas.'

This sort of interdisciplinary collaboration is increasingly common at university level and in industry, often leading to exciting new developments in technology, scientific discipline and art. Dr Katsouros and his colleagues are hoping to introduce this way of thinking at an earlier stage.

Wave theory

The iMuSciCA project is using music to teach secondary schoolhouse children virtually difficult concepts like moving ridge theory in physics and equations in mathematics. Students design a virtual musical instrument on a computer, where they tin can alter its physical properties to understand how that impacts the sound it produces.

'If they change the metallic that a string is fabricated of then the way the string vibrates and the waveform of the audio it produces is different,' explained Dr Katsouros. 'The students tin see how the density of the material affects the sound and run into the sound wave it produces. It can help them understand concepts like frequency and amplitude.'

'Visual data is not always the best way of communicating things like geometry or arithmetic.'

The team have created an online 'workbench' that allows teachers to incorporate the technology and tools developed as office of iMuSciCA into their lessons. Through the online tools, students can create stringed or percussion instruments using the iMuSciCA programme.

The technology can likewise enable students to acquire other higher-level concepts similar geometry and symmetry by demonstrating how irresolute the shape or orientation of a surface tin can change the mode audio is reflected off it. It tin also provide insights into randomness and periodicity.

Pupils are encouraged to work in teams to etch their own music, fifty-fifty creating physical versions of the instruments they have designed online with the help of 3D printing. At one pilot event students formed a band to perform together besides.

'At the moment these are only wind instruments, as 3D printing in plastic is cheaper and easier than in materials similar metallic,' said Dr Katsouros.

So far iMuSciCA has been piloted in x schools in Greece, France and Belgium, involving more than 300 students aged 15-xvi years one-time. Threescore teachers accept also taken part in workshops to learn how to comprise the musical tools into their lessons.

Motivation

'We are still measuring and analysing the impact it has had,' said Dr Katsouros. 'But we have seen the motivation of the students increase considerably. Students at this age are very familiar and interested in music, so it seems to connect with them.'

But music is not just providing new means of teaching teenagers nigh science and mathematics. Researchers have been combining it with body movements, clapping and touching physical objects to develop new ways of pedagogy younger children besides.

'Visual data is not always the best way of communicating things like geometry or arithmetic,' said Dr Monica Gori, a neuroscientist at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Genoa, Italian republic, and coordinator of the WeDraw projection.

Her team has been creating a series of games with technologies that encourage children under the historic period of eight to create angles with their bodies or play with audio.

I game, chosen RobotAngle, uses movement-sensing cameras to detect when students spread their arms above their heads to create angles. Each bending is associated with dissimilar musical notes similar to those from a violin, with higher pitch used for acute angles and low pitch for obtuse angles.

RobotAngle is designed to aid children understand astute, obtuse and right angles by moving their arms.

The same organization allows children to create fractions by opening their artillery to modify the numerator and legs to alter the denominator. Clapping was also used to trigger a pulsate beat in time with a moving spot on the screen, once more helping to teach children nearly fractions through the use of rhythm.

Another game, chosen Cartesian Garden, allows children to draw shapes in a virtual environment by physically walking effectually a room to collect objects. A third, called Spaceshape, teaches children about three dimensional shapes by encouraging them to draw them and movement them on a touch-screen.

Tests

Initial tests in master schools in Italian republic, Ireland and the UK by the WeDraw team saw more than than 200 children endeavor the games in 10 different classes. In each, half a class used the multi-sensory games for xv minutes every 24-hour interval for a calendar week as part of their lessons and the other half were taught using a simplified version of the game that used traditional visual techniques.

'We are seeing improvement in most of the children,' said Dr Gori. 'For the Spaceshape game, for example, we saw an agreement of shape and 3D motion.'

But some of the improvements only seem to be apparent in specific historic period groups. For instance, the team only saw improvement in agreement of fractions and shapes in seven-year-olds.

''This is the historic period they should start to sympathise these concepts and so are more sensitive to the potential benefits,' said Dr Gori.

The team take also been developing the multi-sensory techniques so they can exist used by pupils who have dyslexia or visual impairments. Using body movements associated with sound can really help blind children understand angles, for example.

Dr Gori added that they hope in the future to combine the musical and body movements even further to use trip the light fantastic toe as a teaching tool.

'Then far we take been using arm movements, clapping and sound, but information technology would exist prissy to apply dance in the future,' she said.

The inquiry in this article was funded by the Eu. If you liked this article, delight consider sharing information technology on social media.

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Source: https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/how-music-and-movement-can-help-kids-understand-maths

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