Before the application, the consortium implemented a need analysis and realized that there is a great need for the teachers to understand the value of integrating music and creative movement in the field of Math in order to become positive to the STEAM approach. For the educators to fully understand the relationship of music and creative movement with Math, a theoretical knowledge of the concept of these was gained through a detailed explanation in a teachers guide. Further, to adequate the knowledge and skills needed to understand the relevance of music with math and be able to apply new practices and create their own activities based on the knowledge gained. This was achieved through the repository and the online course. The m2-cm coursevo platform offers the opportunity to create activity spaces that enables participating teachers to access the project results including the Teacher Guide and the Repository, upload their own materials and descriptions of learning activities using music and creative movement to teach mathematics, search and find materials offered by their peers, reuse, remix and further share them. A community of teachers was established that will continue to exist and evolve even after the end of project period
The last decade there is a great growth in the STEM job market that emphasizes the need of promoting interest and excellence in STEM education. Studies have proved that the students lack creativity and so our need of integration the Arts in STEM has arisen. More creative and innovative approaches towards teaching are becoming increasingly important to reverse an unfavorable school climate, a lack of learner centeredness and inadequate awareness of how to teach disadvantage students. Our vision was well prepared teachers ready for competence-orientated teaching to apply more project-based and cooperative teaching and learning. M2-cm project was for helping teachers overturn the typical approach of teaching math, shifting from traditional approach of teaching to an art-integrated approach. We wanted to help students not only becoming more active learners but also gain critical thinking through the integration of Arts. Math phobia that interferes with math performance is to overcome. Children will find math a creative subject. Learning math is more almost like learning music or art than it is to learn history or biology (Mahapatra, P.K, 2020). Continual support for teachers via a digital platform was the approach in teaching.