Observing the teacher's way to teaching in SMA Negeri 3. This includes the planning for teaching, preparing lessons and materials, teaching in class, and measurement and evaluation.
The name of my cooperating teacher is Ibu Tri Widyasari, S.PD, M.Pd or Ibu Tri (the girl in orange hijab), she is a math teacher in SMA 3, she handles 8 classes – 5 science classes in grade 10 and 3 social classes in grade 12. In my observation week, I just observed the science classes in grade 10 – that is the classes that I will be handling for next weeks of my practicum.
The name of my mentor is Pak Sugeng M.Pd (the man in batik polo), he is a math lecturer in Mulawarman Univerisity.
The principal of Sekolah Menenggah Atas Negeri 3 Samarinda is Pak Abdul Rozak M.Pd (The man in brown uniform).
Planning for Teaching
Before she teaches the class she makes sure that the lesson plan is done before teaching because in doing the lesson plan, it includes planning of what she will teach and how she will teach them, so that they will understand and have a meaningful experience.
This is the area where she will plan on how she will organize the lesson, starting from the discussion to activities to evaluation. The lesson plan is also based on the curriculum that they have, it is called Kurikulum 2013 (revisi). They also targeted affective areas of the students (or the spiritual and social competencies), cognitive (or knowledge competencies), and psychomotor areas (or skill competencies).
Preparing Lessons and Materials
In preparing the lessons and materials, the teacher prepares guide questions to be asked during the discussion so that the students will participate and have an interactive discussion among the teacher and the students. During the teaching, the teacher either use the projector for power point presentation or she will use the board and textbook to teach the students. The teacher also prepares a set of seat works or tasks for the students, the purpose of this is to see if they have questions or clarification regarding to the topic that they have.
Aside from the seat works, she prepares for an evaluation or assessment that targets the affective, cognitive, and psychomotor of the students and that is to be recorded. The references that the teacher used in preparing her lesson is the textbook from the school, other reference book from others authors, and internet source – this helps the teacher to have a full understanding about the topic she will discussed to her students.
Teaching in Class
The learning approach used by the teacher is a scientific approach. Learning discovery is used in the learning model. With methods used such as discussion, guided discovery, lecture and question and answer. This method is very effective in math because mathematics is a scientific approach which includes computation and process on how to arrive at a certain solution.
The specific method that she used is the expository method – this is process where the teacher discuss the concept of the certain topic guided by the set of questions for the students. Then, proceed to the practice sets, the teacher will give problem sets for the students to answer it individually – when the students are doing the problem sets, the teacher will roam around the room and check the student’s progress, if there are some questions or clarifications, the teacher can easily check and clarify it. Expository is an effective method in teaching mathematics specifically geometry because there are some topics in geometry that needs more explanation and problem solving so that the students will really understand the concept of a certain topic.
Measurement and Evaluation
The teacher evaluates every after the topic ends. For example, the topic is about Vectors and there are 9 subtopics under it, let say, the three points in a line, after the teacher will discuss the three points in a line, the teacher will give a short evaluation to validate if the students understand the topic. Therefore, under the Vectors, they will have 9 short evaluations – the purpose of it is to have a mastery about the vectors, because after all the 9 subtopics the teacher will give a summative test that covers the 9 subtopics of the Vector.
For the measurement, the teacher uses the format of the school on how to grade the student in every assessment. (Refer to the Measurement and Evaluation System)
Reflection
The week of observation really helps me for my preparation of teaching because I will have the idea what method to use and what kind of strategy to use – so that I can be an effective teacher to my students. I also observed the student’s performance and participation in the class because this will help me to what kind of activities to prepare and kind of questions to formulate so that I will get to seek information to my students easily. My target for my practicum is to help my students develop more their critical thinking skills and their mathematical abilities in an effective way. I know that there’s difficulty in communicating to them because they are not used to speak in English, so my plan is to make things simpler even how I speak in English while targeting my goals for my students.