This is all about my teaching practice in SMA Negeri 3 Samarinda. This includes the procedure in my teaching, time management and organizing activities, problem solving, and classroom management.
I was assigned by Mulawarman University (UNMUL) in Sekolah Menengah Atas Negeri 3 Samarinda at Jalan Juanda. It is a public senior high school which starts from grade 10 until 12. The principal of the SMA 3, Pak Abdul Rozak Fahrudin, M.Pd, he gave me a cooperating teacher in math which is Ibu Tri Widyasari, S.PD, M.Pd. to guide me during the my practicum in their school. Ibu Tri gave me 5 classes in grade 10 which are the IPA 1, IPA 2, IPA 3, IPA 4, and IPA 8 – they are all in science classes. They gave me the science classes because the students can understand and speak in English.
The Class of X IPA 1
The Class of X IPA 2
The Class of X IPA 3
The Class of X IPA 4
The Class of X IPA 8
"Ako ay is _____name______." (My name is __________)
"Galing ako sa ___your place___." (I came from ______)
They really enjoy the activity and it was nice to see that they are learning a new language.
After the introduction, I let them ask question about me and about the Philippines so that they will get to know me more and from where I came from. The purpose why I let them think of a question or ask something is to improve their skill in formulating a question in English, since they are not used to use the English inside the classroom. During the question and answer portion, it was nice to see that the students are raising their hand and ask question/s – which validates that they are curious from what I came from, like they ask about what they can see in the Philippines, and they ask about how was my stay in Samarinda, it is good or not.
It was nice to have an interactive discussion with my students because all students are involved. We get to know more about each other, I get to know more about them and about Indonesia, and they get to know about me and about Philippines.
After the 1st week of observation and introduction, my cooperating teacher brief me to what I will teach for the next 3 weeks, which is about Vectors in Geometry. Vectors in grade 10 is just an introduction to the high version of Vectors so this is somehow easy and I can teach my student in an easy way so that they will get to understand the lesson really well.
The first thing I will do is to prepare my lesson plan and to be submitted before I teach. Next, is to translate the book that my cooperating teacher gave me – this is the book that the students are used to use in math class. Lastly, I will make a power point presentation that uses both the language, English and Indonesian language – so that students can understand what I am trying to say.
Procedures of Teaching
The method I used in teaching is lecture demonstration – which involves preparation, presentation, actual demonstration, and evaluation.
In preparation, it involves the preliminaries like prayer, checking of attendance, and recap of what they have discussed last meeting. Next, presentation, in this area I will present the objectives for today and a brief introduction about what we will be discussed. Third, actual demonstration, this is the part where I teach and deliver my lesson to the class – I usually start in building the concept of a certain topic and after a while, I will ask questions and seek information coming from the students – the purpose of this is to have a meaningful experience because the information from a certain part of the topic came from the students.
When learning mathematics, it always involves the process on how to solve a certain problem – what I did is I gave more simple example and one challenging problem (tricky problem but easy), so that the students will be challenge and will force to think of what is the best way in solving this kind of problem. After explaining to them the concept and demonstrating on how to solve some problems, we will have an evaluation, this is the last part of the lecture demo method. In this part, I will provide more examples for practice seat work, this is an individual task – this will validate if the students really understand what we have discussed for the whole period.
Time Management and Organizing Activities
My teaching hours in every meeting is 3 hours because in each week I will just met every class once a week. So in 3 hours of teaching, sometimes I cover 2 subtopics about vectors, starting from the discussion until seatwork/evaluation. There are also times that I just cover 1 subtopic and I will just give more seat works so that I can see if they have any questions or clarifications in a certain process or about the topic.
Problem-Solving
Since I teach math specifically geometry, I make sure that my sample problems and practice sets are simple but challenging, so that students will be able to use their critical thinking skills.
In building the student’s understanding of a certain topic and on how to solve some problems, I gave them sample problems and seat works with different level of difficulty but easy. I start with a simple problem and explain to them the process on how to solve it. Next, I try to change some of the problem into somewhat tricky problem – I explain to them the process and on how to solve it also. After the showing and demonstrating the different problems, I compare the process and result of the first example to the second example or among the examples, so that they will be able to look the differences of the problems.
There are times that they find the challenging problem difficult but in fact it was easy, so what I did is I try to explain it to them with hints. If the students really don’t get it, what I did is I try to illustrate it and make them realized the what if it is like this and like that – this uses a little bit of manipulation so that they will be able to arrive at the correct answer.
Classroom Management
All of my students from IPA 1-4, and IPA 8 are all active in the class and shows interest about what I am discussing to the class. All of my student can understand English but it was hard to them to speak in English.
My students are not that very rowdy and noisy because every time that I’m in front of the class they all listen to me and they are focus on the discussion. When someone is talking, they are the one who will say quiet to his/her classmate.
They are very respectful students, they follow the rule about respect – that "when someone is talking in front of the class, the students must listen."
REFLECTION
My practicum in Indonesia is one of my life-changing experience because this made me grow in the field of teaching in terms of communicating to my teachers and my students and to get along with the people around me. I do not have any problems in terms on how I teach them because the theories that I have about it guided me throughout the practice teaching, but one thing that struck me and I will never forget is how I to interact and immerse myself to the other people that is different what usually used to do. During my stay in the school, I feel respected because they have this tradition that every student must salim it is an etiquette as a sign of respect. This salim gesture is similar to hand-kissing, with exception it is only tip of nose or forehead that touch the hand, not the lips (Wikipedia.com).
After my 4 weeks of staying and teaching in SMA 3, I am honored and glad because I was able to experience to teach in SMA 3 and I will never forget the learnings that I gained and the people that impart in my life. I am also glad that I have a lots of lovable students (I really love my students and I super miss them) and lots of very kind teachers (thank you for your care ibus and paks). Saya akan selalu mengingat SMA 3 (I will always remember SMA 3). Aku cinta SMA Negeri 3 (I love SMA Negeri 3) and terima kasih (thank you) everyone.
My Cooperating Teacher Ibu Tri and My Mentor Pak Sugeng