Baguio City, Philippines - For many students, learning mathematics is difficult or boring due to its complex problem-solving nature.
The lack of interest on the subject led to unsatisfactory performance. The 2022 Program for International Student Assessment showed that the average score in Math among young Filipinos is lower than the performance of those from other countries.
For a Math teacher in Baguio City, he devised a solution to keep his student's attention and let them have better understanding on the lessons while having fun.
Teacher Adonis Togana of Joaquin Smith National High School has proven that learning math is not at all dull. He went along with the trend and used the gamification, the process of applying elements of a game in order to encourage the involvement of the participant-learners.
The Math teacher incorporate games in his lessons and the students actively participate.
Togana, in his interview with the Philippine Information Agency Cordillera, shared that his methods of teaching were inspired by the experiences he had when he was yet a student.
“I do encounter some challenges like on how I am going to let them understand the lesson, or how I'm going to discuss a certain topic to some learners who are really encountering difficulty, or with learning disability,” he said.
Aside from games, he also published a book in 2018 titled “Let’s Play Math”, which is distributed not only in the Philippines, but also in other countries like Thailand, Laos, and Bangladesh.
With his efforts in helping students through his games and tutorials, Togana already earned several awards from different schools and institutions.
At present, he does free math tutorials at the Baguio City Library every Saturday and parents of those attending his sessions observed that their children’s grade in Math are improving.
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