New Teaching Methods

MUSIC THEORY
The Music Theory Advantage^TM
by Max Maxwell

Music Theory Advantage

As a result of my experience developing math and music courses that have been used by schools in almost every state in the U.S., I discovered that a common structure of number exists in both mathematics and music. This discovery led to the invention of a new method of teaching that transfers the skill development priorities of basic mathematics to the study of music theory. The new method works by treating music as a mathematical system that applies operations to ordinal numbers. Even a first year elementary school instrument student, who takes this course of study with the help of a knowledgeable parent or music teacher and follows through with the recommended practice, will be more competent at spelling intervals, chords and scales than many musically accomplished high school graduates entering the first year of their college music major. This course of study is designed to develop more essential skill in less time and with less work than any other method.

My work with Dean Vaughn Learning Systems

I participated in the research and development of the education courses below. Each course we designed became a breakthrough in the teaching of its subject.

Mathematics
The Vaughn Cube^TM for Mathematics: Multiplication

http://www.deanvaughn.com/multiclass.php

Participating in the development of this course was a very satisfying experience. In one pilot, students with IQs below 100 and severe social / emotional problems requiring  their institutionalization in a special live-in school, were able to learn the multiplication table with the same success as the average public school classroom. The part that was particularly satisfying to me was that they were able to do this in only eight hours of classroom study. Average children do even better. It is not uncommon to have class averages in public schools in the high nineties with this method even for the second grade. Yes, that is a class average and not the highest score in the class. The key for success in this course is that you can successfully teach the 100 multiplication facts very quickly. Because the students already know the answers, they are free to practice for speed much sooner and much more effectively than with traditional methods. The Vaughn Cube^TM for Mathematics creates a superior developmental path for students learning multiplication. Educators have told us they deem this course to be a significant breakthrough in the history of elementary mathematics education. The course for individual use is at: http://multiplication.deanvaughn.com/

READING
The Read-It Robot^TM: Teaches the Alphabet

Reading Course Description and Demo Video

When I first heard the principles upon which Dean's reading course would be based, I was very intrigued. If we were going to create a course that did for the beginning of reading what I had seen done for other subjects, it would be a very important project. We proceeded to develop a two and a half hour DVD video that teaches the alphabet. Every time we ran pilots in public schools, those schools spent their own money to test our courses. We were always grateful to have such eager participation from schools that had seen our work in action. In this case, the school district attached the condition that they would run our pilot if we let them bus the worst students in from the whole district. If this course was going to be a breakthrough, it had to be a breakthrough for at-risk students. The pilot ran with a classroom full of the most at-risk students in the entire district. These students had just spent six months trying to learn the alphabet and many of them only had a few letters down. Their outlook was grim. After three two hour sessions we were able to teach them to easily recite the alphabet forwards or backwards. For these children, it was amazing progress. A woman, who was the curriculum coordinator for that district, happened to know one of the students in the classroom. This student also happened to be the least likely to succeed even in this class. When the curriculum coordinator saw this student stand up to easily and correctly recite everything he learned, her eyes filled with tears as she sat in the classroom. Her happy tears were not just because the most at-risk student in the district performed correctly after just a little instruction. It was also because that student did it with unprecedented enthusiasm and ease. There were times that I was so overworked in the research and development of these education courses that I wanted to quit. It was experiences like this in the field that helped me to hang on.

LANGUAGE
Instant Spanish^TM
Free Online Instant Spanish Course Demo
http://spanish.deanvaughn.com/lessons

It was especially enjoyable to help develop this course. As someone who has spent time studying ten languages, I must say that Dean's methods for handling language instruction are the most enjoyable and effective that I have ever encountered.  I am always fascinated by how much vocabulary that can be learned and retained so quickly with this method. With Dean's method, I learn more vocabulary in one hour than I used to learn in a week. Although I have seen many different uses of memory techniques to help retain vocabulary (some were not very effective), this is the most powerfully effective applied memory system I have ever seen for language. Try it yourself with the demo at the above link.

GEOGRAPHY
The Vaughn Cube^TM for World Geography

http://geography.deanvaughn.com/

This course was tested in a public school pilot at the fourth grade level. After four hours of video instruction and less than two hours of practice time, most of the students were able to draw a crude world map and label the countries correctly. The image based method makes it surprisingly easy to retain the information. With this method, you can learn and remember the name and location of every country in the world in less than six hours.