Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
A lecturer in the Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Ibadan, Dr. Ishola Salami, has invented a hip-hop song that will simplify the study of Mathematics for students with a view to stemming mass failure.
Salami told journalists in Ibadan, Oyo State, yesterday, the song is tagged: MATMUSIC, and comprises tracks with Mathematics ideas, principles and procedures as core messages.
Salami, who specialises in early childhood education, explained that MATMUSIC was developed to enhance the knowledge of the subject by pupils at primary school foundational level.
He said mass failure in Mathematics and lack of interest by many students could be attributed to poor childhood learning friendly tools to enable students grasp the right formula for solving mathematical questions.
Salami said a person that could solve simple mathematics problems could quickly reflect on how to solve societal problems, adding that the Nigerian government should embrace more child-friendly strategies that would make the subjects simple for students to learn.
“Learning Mathematics has always been a serious challenge for many learners, starting from primary school level across the whole world. One of the reasons for this is the nature of the subject, which is rule-governed and abstract. To do well in mathematics, one has to remember a lot of rules and procedures.
“Past efforts to make the subject learning-friendly, focused largely on preparation of effective teachers and methods of teaching it. Songs have also been used as instructional strategies to teach mathematics. But there is dearth of information on effort targeting child-friendly music to teach mathematics.
“It was discovered that one of the music types that children love to listen to, is hip hop music. This is because of the beats, rhythm and the danceable melody it has. It was also discovered that when children love a given music, they tend to remember all the lyrics.
“So, if Mathematics principles, formulae, ideas can be put into a child-friendly music like hip hop, this should enhance the learning of the subject. It is against this background that hip hop music on primary mathematics was written and composed.
He said 2019 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results for private candidates, revealed that out of the 11, 892 candidates who sat for the examinations, only 3,102 obtained five credits which include English and Mathematics.