Michael Walker's "Multiply" Combines Music and Math to Help Children Retain Skills
03/18/2014
Michael Walker, an audiovisual technician at JSU, is making melodies and helping children with their math skills in the process. Walker recently began Musical Learning Tools (MuLT), which essentially takes the approved Common Core Curriculum being taught in K-12 classrooms and adds catchy music and lyrics to it. The purpose is to make learning fun and to help students retain the information; there is bountiful scholarly research that supports a strong positive correlation between music and learning. MuLT has been featured on ABC 33/40’s Talk of Alabama and WEAC TV 24’s East Alabama Today.
MuLT’s freshman project is a CD called Multiply. Multiply teaches kids multiplication facts 0-12 in a fun and exciting way by interweaving hip hop, Latin, Caribbean, and other popular musical flavors. Multiply can be ordered online at www.musicallearningtools.com or from digital outlets such as iTunes, CD Baby, and Spotify, to name a few (Search under Musical Learning Tools.). The digital outlets also offer four Multiply bonus tracks. Multiply was written and produced by Walker.
About Multiply, Walker says, “I am truly grateful that educators, parents, and students have embraced Multiply. Students can and should have fun while they learn.”