We put the S-Cubed AI Coach to the test- And the possibilities are bigger than I imagined

When I first started building the S-Cubed AI Coach, the obvious goal was pretty simple:

Help teachers successfully teach the S-Cubed Sight Singing Program.  In the original program, I did my best to dot every "i" and cross every "t" by including video links to teaching examples and teaching tips for every lesson.  It was a mammoth project that took two years.  Even so, I still get tons of questions via email that I have answered for years, and I don't mind it, but...what if I were right by your side?  That's what this is like...

We've been testing it for weeks. Click here to see what it can do.

The possibilities with this app are way stronger than I thought when I started this journey in late July 2026.  

This Coach can help teachers navigate far more than the mechanics of teaching sight singing.

As you can see from the video, it can navigate a multitude of problems.

My longtime friend and fellow music educator David Stauffer has been putting the Coach through its paces and sending me screenshots daily.  

He's been asking hard questions.

We wanted to know what would happen when a teacher brought it the kinds of messy, complicated, very human situations that actually happen in a middle school chorus classroom.

Because teaching chorus isn't just about:

“What exercise should I teach tomorrow?”

It’s also about the seventh-grade boy whose voice suddenly doesn’t work the way it did three weeks ago.

It’s about helping that student understand that nothing is wrong with him while his voice is changing.

It’s about finding ways to keep him singing while protecting his confidence and dignity.

It’s about the child who is terrified to sing alone.

The student who is embarrassed because everyone else seems to be getting it faster.

The class that suddenly becomes unusually talkative.

The rehearsal where classroom management begins slipping away from you.

The group that isn't progressing as quickly as you expected.

The class that meets twice a week instead of five times a week.

The teacher wondering whether to slow down, move forward, reteach something, change the activity, or simply give the students another day.

Those are teaching problems, not just S-Cubed problems.

And that distinction is becoming increasingly apparent to me as we do more to make sure it reflects my teaching approach.

I didn't want a generic AI telling teachers what to do

One of my biggest concerns while creating this Coach was that I did not want teachers asking an S-Cubed question and receiving generic teaching advice pulled from somewhere out in the universe.

I wanted the answers to sound like the philosophy I have shared with teachers since I began putting S-Cubed into the world in 2013.

So I've continued feeding the Coach the thinking behind the program.

My syllabus was uploaded so it would show how I handle classroom management issues.

My writings and videos about classroom management that I've used for years were uploaded as well.  

My philosophies about teaching middle school students have been included.

Material from my blog posts and other resources I've created over the years has been incorporated so the Coach understands not only what I teach, but why I teach it that way. 

I didn't want an app with my name attached to it that did anything other than reflect my teaching philosophies.  

S-Cubed has never simply been a collection of sight-singing exercises.

I've always said S-Cubed is part method and part philosophy.

There is a philosophy about pacing.

There is a philosophy about mistakes.

There is a philosophy about adolescent voices.

There is a philosophy about classroom management.

There is a philosophy about creating a room where children feel safe enough to take musical risks.

There is a philosophy about knowing when to push and when to back off.

And there is a philosophy I have believed deeply for years:

Protect the child first.  Respect is circular.

The changing male voice is a perfect example

Anyone who has taught middle school chorus knows how vulnerable this period can be for boys.

A voice that once felt predictable suddenly cracks.

Notes disappear.

Range changes.

A student may feel as though everyone in the room can hear something happening to him that he cannot control.

Handled poorly, that experience can make a boy decide he “can't sing.”

Handled well, it can help him understand that his voice isn't broken.

It is developing.

That requires more than knowing which pitch to give him.

It requires empathy.

It requires language.

It requires knowing how to adjust expectations without making him feel singled out.

It requires maintaining his dignity in front of his peers.

Those ideas are deeply embedded in the way I have taught for decades, and I wanted them embedded in this Coach too.

And then there is classroom management

Middle school teachers know this situation well:

Yesterday's lesson worked beautifully.

Today you try exactly the same structure, and somehow the room has completely changed.

It's middle school after all!

Maybe one child is disrupting the rehearsal.

Maybe several students are feeding off one another.

Maybe the energy level is unusually high.

Maybe students are afraid of an activity, and their anxiety is showing up as talking, joking, or avoidance.

Good classroom management isn't always about finding a consequence.

Sometimes it is about figuring out why the behavior is occurring in the first place.

That is another area where the Coach surprised us during testing.

You can describe what is happening.

You can tell it what you've tried.

You can explain where you are in S-Cubed.

You can talk through the personalities involved.

And the conversation can become much more nuanced than:

“Here is Lesson 7. Teach these measures.”

What about the student who is afraid to sing?

That student has been in virtually every chorus room I have ever taught.

Sometimes they're shy.

Sometimes they're perfectionists.

Sometimes they're afraid their classmates will laugh.

Sometimes they genuinely believe they cannot sing.

Sometimes they have simply never been in an environment where using their singing voice felt safe.

No curriculum guide can predict every one of those situations.

A teacher has to respond to the human being standing in front of them.

That's where I believe a tool like this becomes particularly helpful.

Not because AI replaces the teacher.

Quite the opposite.

The teacher is still making the decision.

The Coach simply gives the teacher another experienced perspective to consider.

Imagine having someone to ask

One of the thoughts that has stayed with me throughout this entire project is how much I would have appreciated something like this when I was a young teacher.  

Someone I could ask:

“My boys' voices are changing, and suddenly this exercise isn't working. What should I do?”

“My students are getting frustrated. Should I move on?”

“I've got one student who refuses to sing. How can I help without embarrassing them?”

“My classroom management has fallen apart during this activity. What would you change?”

“We only meet twice a week. Am I moving too slowly?”

“My concert is coming up. How should I adjust my pacing?”

“What would you do tomorrow?”

For most of my career, teachers had to figure those things out alone.

Maybe you had an experienced colleague down the hallway.

Maybe you had a mentor.

Maybe you could email somebody and hope they had time to respond.

But many music educators—especially young teachers—don't have that person readily available.

That possibility is what excites me most about this project.

This is becoming bigger than I originally envisioned

The more we test the S-Cubed AI Coach, the more possibilities I see.

Yes, it can help you work through S-Cubed.

It can help with pacing.

It can help you think through lessons.

It can help you understand what might come next.

But it can also help you think about:

• the changing adolescent voice

• protecting students' dignity

• reluctant and shy singers

• classroom management

• student engagement

• differentiation

• pacing for different schedules

• responding when a lesson doesn't work

• reflecting on what happened today

• deciding what to change tomorrow

And we are still testing.

We are still asking harder questions.

We are still finding situations that I want the Coach to understand more deeply.

My goal has been to create something that helps teachers make better decisions for the children standing in front of them.

That has always been the heart of S-Cubed.

The technology may be new.

The philosophy behind it isn't.

It's the same philosophy I have been sharing with teachers for more than a decade:

Teach the child.

Protect their dignity.

Keep them singing.

Give them room to make mistakes.

Make learning challenging enough to matter and joyful enough that they want to come back tomorrow.

And now, teachers can have that philosophy available when they need it most.

The possibilities really are enormous.

Go check it out-  It's on Studio.com!

I'm doing a "live" demonstration of it on Tuesday, October 6th at 7 PM EST.

Reserve your spot-  Click here to get reminders.

If you’ve built an audience around your expertise, you may be sitting on an app idea without realizing it. Studio gave me a way to turn years of teaching knowledge, resources, and philosophy into an interactive AI Coach—and creators in many different fields could do the same. If you’ve ever thought, “I wish I could put what I know into something people could use anytime,” take a look at Studio through my affiliate link here: 

https://studio.com/join/daleduncanscubedcoach