GU alum uses music to teach math to her third graders

Published: December 06, 2023

Author: Dave Bell

Rather than asking her third-grade students to memorize mathematical tables, Faith McPeek ’22 puts the exercise to music and watches her students breeze through it.

Somehow, when counting by sevens is accompanied by a Taylor Swift tune, for instance, the retention level goes sky high.

Counting by 8's tswift style

“We’re having fun, but we’re learning, too,” said McPeek, a 2022 Greenville University education alum, who now teaches at North Elementary School in Nokomis, IL.

She shared video clips of her innovative teaching techniques at a recent meeting of area teachers hosted by the GU School of Education.

“I got my inspiration from other teachers who record class activities on their phone and post them on social media,” McPeek said. “I started using it when I was student teaching and continued it when I got the job at Nokomis. Our principal said it was fine as long as I was posting teaching content. We don’t show students’ faces in the videos; instead, it’s mainly me leading the exercise.”

At the beginning of the school year, McPeek sent a letter to parents to let them know of her plans to record classroom activities. Many of them view the daily posts to see what their children are learning.

And it’s not just parents who are taking notice. One of her math videos went viral, with 36 million views on TikTok. Traffic on her Instagram account (mcpeekteaches) also has picked up, with more than 85,000 followers.