UI lecturer invents mathematics song, MATMUSIC to help students pass course

A lecturer from the University of Ibadan, Dr Ishola Akindele Salami, has invented a hip-hop song to solve mathematics problems.

Dr Salami whose primary interest is in early childhood education stated that the hip-hop song he developed was aimed at enhancing knowledge of pupils at the primary school foundational level.

Salami revealed that the “failure of dreaded mathematics is attributable to poor childhood learning-friendly toolS to enable students grasp the right formula to use in solving mathematical questions.”

As a solution to curb students' dismal performances in mathematics, the Unversity don formulated MATMUSIC, a song that comprises of songs with Mathematics ideas, principles and procedures as the messages.

He said: “Learning Mathematics has always been a serious challenge for many learners start 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 the preparation of effective teachers and methods of teaching it.

“Songs have also been used as instructional strategies to teach mathematics but there is a dearth of information on effort targeting child-friendly music to teach mathematics. It was discovered that one of the music types children love to listen to, is hip hop music.