Contextual Teaching & Learning

Elaine B. Johnson mengatakan: “Jika otak hanya belajar, mengutip dan berlatih, ngebut sebelum ujian, maka dalam waktu 14 sampai 18 jam otak akan melupakan sebagian besar informasi baru tersebut”



Pendidikan tradisional menekankan penguasaan dan manipulasi isi. Para siswa menghafalkan fakta, angka, nama, tanggal, tempat, dan kejadian; mempelajari mata pelajaran secara terpisah satu sama lain; dan berlatih dengan cara yang sama untuk memperoleh kemampuan dasar menulis dan berhitung. Pendidikan tradisional dipengaruhi oleh pandangan yang muncul pada abad ke-18 bahwa kenyataan terdiri dari objek-objek yang bebas. Dalam pandangan ini pembelajaran teoritis dipisahkan dengan pembelajaran praktis, di mana pembelajaran teoritis dianggap lebih tinggi tingkatannya dibanding pembelajaran praktis.

Pendidikan tradisional bertujuan mengajari kepala, bukan tubuh. Mereka mengajak para siswa untuk menyerap, tetapi tidak menggunakan; mendengar, tetapi tidak bertindak; berteori tetapi tidak mempraktikan. Tugas para siswa adalah mengingat fakta dan gagasan, bukan mengalami gagasan itu dalam tindakan.

Pandangan baru yang dikembangkan oleh ilmu pengetahuan modern melihat kenyataan sebaliknya, yaitu kenyataan timbul dari kesaling-terhubungan antarobjek. Dari hubungan-hubungan tersebut terciptalah kenyataan. Bisa dikatakan hubungan-hubungan adalah kenyataan. Pandangan modern terhadap kenyataan ini menggarisbawahi pentingnya hubungan-hubungan dalam pengalaman manusia. Tujuan utama pendidikan pada abad ke-21 adalah untuk mempersiapkan anak agar dapat hidup mandiri, produktif, dan bertanggung jawab.

Pesan pokok dari Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) adalah ’learning by doing’ menyebabkan kita membuat keterkaitan-keterkaitan yang menghasilkan makna, dan ketika kita melihat makna, kita menyerap dan menguasai pengetahuan dan ketrampilan. CTL menghilangkan pemisahan antara pembelajaran teoritis dan praktis. CTL memadukan gagasan dan tindakan, mengetahui dan melakukan, berpikir dan bertindak.

Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) adalah sebuah sistem belajar yang didasarkan pada filosofi bahwa siswa mampu menyerap pelajaran apabila mereka menangkap makna dalam materi akademis yang mereka terima dan mereka menangkap makna dalam tugas-tugas sekolah jika mereka bisa mengaitkan informasi baru dengan pengetahuan dan pengalaman yang sudah mereka miliki sebelumnya.

CTL cocok dengan cara otak berfungsi. CTL adalah sebuah sistem yang merangsang otak untuk menyusun pola-pola yang mewujudkan makna. Otak mencari makna dan ketika otak menemukan makna, ia belajar dan ingat.

Ada tiga prinsip ilmiah dalam CTL, yaitu prinsip kesaling-bergantungan, prinsip diferensiasi, dan prinsip pengaturan diri. Prinsip kesaling-bergantungan menuntun pada penciptaan hubungan, bukan isolasi. Prinsip diferensiasi menyatakan bahwa setiap orang adalah unik, tidak sama. Kesamaan akan membuat hidup jadi datar dan gersang. Tanpa prinsip diferensiasi, alam semesta akan menjadi gumpalan sejenis yang rapuh dan siap runtuh. Prinsip pengaturan-diri mengungkapkan bahwa segala sesuatu diatur oleh diri sendiri, dipertahankan oleh diri sendiri, dan disadari oleh diri sendiri. Prinsip pengaturan-diri meminta para pendidik untuk mendorong setiap siswa untuk mengeluarkan seluruh potensinya.

CTL terdiri dari delapan komponen: Membuat Keterkaitan yang Bermakna, Pembelajaran Mandiri, Melakukan Pekerjaan yang Berarti, Bekerjasama, Berpikir Kritis dan Kreatif, Membantu Individu untuk Tumbuh & Berkembang, Mencapai Standar yang Tinggi, dan Menggunakan Penilaian Autentik.

1. Membuat Keterkaitan yang Bermakna
Keterkaitan yang mengarah pada makna adalah jantung dari CTL. Ketika murid dapat mengaitkan isi dari mata pelajaran akademik seperti matematika, ilmu pengetahuan alam, atau sejarah dengan pengalaman mereka sendiri, mereka menemukan makna, dan makna memberi mereka alasan untuk belajar.

2. Pembelajaran Mandiri
Pembelajaran mandiri membutuhkan pengamatan aktif dan mandiri. Pembelajaran mandiri memberi kebebasan kepada siswa untuk menemukan bagaimana kehidupan akademik sesuai dengan kehidupan mereka sehari-hari. Pembelajaran mandiri memberikan antusiasme yang sama pada anak-anak dari TK hingga universitas. Bebas menggambarkan gagasan, minat dan bakat mereka, para siswa bersemangat mengajukan pertanyaan, mengadakan penyelidikan, dan melakukan berbagai percobaan.

3. Melakukan Pekerjaan yang Berarti
Pekerjaan yang memiliki tujuan, berguna untuk orang lain, yang melibatkan proses menentukan pilihan, dan menghasilkan produk, nyata atau tidak nyata.

4. Bekerjasama
Membantu siswa bekerja dengan efektif dalam kelompok, membantu mereka memahami bahwa apa yang mereka lakukan memengaruhi orang lain; membantu mereka berkomunikasi dengan orang lain.



5. Berpikir Kritis & Kreatif
Menganalisis, melakukan sintesis, memecahkan masalah, membuat keputusan, menggunakan logika dan bukti.

6. Membantu Individu untuk Tumbuh & Berkembang
Tahu, memberi perhatian, dan meletakkan harapan yang tinggi untuk setiap anak. Memotivasi dan mendorong setiap siswa. Siswa tidak dapat sukses tanpa dukungan dari orang dewasa. Para siswa menghormati teman sebayanya dan orang dewasa.

7. Mencapai Standar yang Tinggi
Mengidentifikasi tujuan yang jelas dan memotivasi siswa untuk mencapainya. Menunjukkan kepada mereka cara untuk mencapai keberhasilan.

8. Menggunakan Penilaian Autentik
Penilaian autentik berfokus pada tujuan, melibatkan pembelajaran secara langsung, mengharuskan membangun keterkaitan dan kerjasama, dan menanamkan tingkat berpikir yang lebih tinggi. Pengujian standar (ujian nasional, ulangan umum, dll.) dan penilaian dalam bentuk angka bersifat ekslusif dan sempit, sementara penilaian autentik bersifat inklusif.

CTL adalah sebuah metode belajar mengajar terbaru dan paling mutakhir yang sesuai dengan cara kerja otak manusia. Sistem CTL berhasil karena sistem ini meminta siswa untuk bertindak dengan cara yang alami bagi manusia.

Questioning

Matthew Allen also wrote that questioning is the key analytical skill that enables us to develop complex knowledge about the world in the form of structures of related ideas, so as to communicate with other people.

It is not the answers to these questions (questions in the Thinkers with Attitude) that matter, but the very fact that we ask them of ourselves, the willingness no to 'take things for granted' or to be satisfied with the 'obvious answer' . Indeed, it is one of the great failures of our school system that, by and large, we are educated as children to believe that someone has the answer and all we have to do is develop a clever way of finding that answer. In fact, the key skill thay you need to be an effective and thoughtful adult, who is able to engage with and understand the world, is not an ability to find the answers: it is the ability to ask the right questions. If you can ask the right questions, then most of the answers will come very easily. Moreover, you will also understand why others do not seem to understand your answers but have their own views.

Thinkers with Attitude

Matthew Allen in his book Smart Thinking wrote: remember, smart thinking always has a social dimension: we humans are doing the reasoning. As a result, one of the key ingredients of succesfull thinking and analysis, and of the effective use of reasoning, is our own attitude. For most (if not all) of us, our knowledge will usually consist of both the basic information or 'facts' we know, as well as a framework or structure of broader ideas with which we interpret these facts. Many of us are quite capable of assimilating and 'knowing' the facts, but smart thinkers constantly asses their structures and frameworks. In the process, they develop a much deeper and more effective appreciation of situations and events. Smart thinkers can be confident in their reasoning, precisely because they do not rely on too many unexamined or unquestioned assumptions.

First of all, we should always be willing to reflect on our own views and positions - to scrutinise the way we think about the world. We might ask ourselves, from time to time:

• are my views consistent with one another


• what assumptions underpin them


• am I open to new ideas and alternative conclusions


• can I look at this issue from another perspective

We should also be constantly asking ourselves, in relation to the issues that matter to us:

• why did this happen


• what should we do next


• what does it mean

The Competent Teacher

Janet Fine wrote: Teachers are often viewed as competent if they are living up to the standards the school has established. Keeping up with the competition by publishing the required papers or lecturing on different panels does make a teacher better known but does not make a better teacher. Arthur Combs wrote in an essay “The Personal Approach to Good Teaching” that “If we know what the expert teachers do, or are alike, then we can teach the beginners to be like that.”

According to Combs many investigations on the competency of a good teacher have been made, but basic results show that good teaching can not simply be defined in terms of any particular trait. One study demonstrated that a number of general classes of behaviour seemed to be characteristic of good teachers.

“The creation of long lists of competencies is likely to be deeply discouraging and disillusioning to the young teacher,” says Combs. “Evaluations of ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ become attached to method, and students there after are expected to judge their own adequacies in these terms. The net effect is to set such impossible goals of excellence that no one can ever hope to reach them.”

Teacher: Mental Health

Teacher: Important of Mental Health
By: Janet Fine


All teachers must be emotionally well-balanced. Bad temper and impatience are quickly sensed by students and can destroy the delicate child-teacher relationship. Of course, there are worries and anxieties which affect all of us, and teachers have their share of them. Yet, an emotionally healthy teacher will take the daily frustrations for what they are. A good teacher will not magnify their importance.

It certainly is unfair for teachers to unburden themselves in the classroom. The fear and terror created by the moody, prejudiced, over-strict, or otherwise emotionally unstable teacher endangers the psychological health of the pupils, just as a teacher suffering from tuberculosis endangers their physical health. School principals and superintendents are working hard to devise procedures for screening out unstable personalities from among teacher candidates.

Teacher Qualifications

The Well-Adjusted Teacher
By: Angelo Patri


A well-adjusted teacher is one who can laugh, easily and often. There is no tension anywhere in his body, he swings along easily, with a light step, a shinning happy look in his eyes. He takes the mistakes, the annoyances that are daily occurrences in the life of any teacher, with a smile and shrug and says, Well, well, tomorrow is another day. We’ll begin again tomorrow.

The healthy-minded teacher never bears a grudge. When there is something going wrong he goes directly to the source and says, How Come? What’s to do here? Tell me about it, and if necessary speaks clearly, even sharply, what is in his mind, a free, clear mind. Once having done so the matter is settled as far as he is concerned. He does not brood over wrong, either real or fancied. Nor does the healthy-minded teacher lose self-control in times of stress.

Teaching: The Personality of the Teacher

Teaching: The Personality of the Teacher


The teacher’s personality is what makes school a vital experience. When a radio program conducted a poll in which thousands of children were asked to write about the teacher who had been most helpful to them, letter after letter indicated that it was the qualities of the teacher’s character which meant more to the student than the subject matter which was taught.

The “best teachers” were given high ratings in: cooperation, democratic spirit, kindness, consideration for the individual pupil, patience, wide interests, personal appearance, fairness, sense of humour, interest in students’ problems, and disposition. An interesting note: at the very end of the list was “skill in presenting the subject matter!”

A teacher possessing all these traits will have no trouble providing a healthy, secure atmosphere for his or her class, an atmosphere suited to learning.

It is sometimes said that good teachers are those who have a natural ability for teaching. Yet often a teacher preparation institution screens teacher for their practical knowledge rather than their instinct for teaching. Demonstrated success in working with students is essential for a good teacher. Many students do not discover that they have no teaching ability until they begin practice teaching.

Janet Fine in
Opportunities in Teaching

Teaching: Questions for Teacher

Teaching: Questions for Teachers

Whether you decide to teach in the elementary grades, in high school, or in college, there are certain basic personal qualities you should have if you want to be successful in your job. Answer these questions:

1. Do you enjoy good physical and emotional health?
2. Do you enjoy working with other people – children, young adolescents, adults?
3. Do you like to study? In college teaching this is a must, since your chances for advancement will depend upon your capacity for independent research.
4. Do you become enthusiastic about new ideas, and do you like to discuss them with others?
5. How well do you express yourself and explain things to others?
6. Do you have a sense of humour?
7. Are you interested in what happens in your community, in your city, in your nation, and in the rest of the world?
8. Do you care about your personal appearance?

Every great teachers since Socrates knows that you learn through questioning. If you are a good teacher, you will get your students to respond to you. As a good teacher, you will need enthusiasm, a love of learning, and what former Harvard president James Bryant Conant called “the passion to learn and to understand.”

The good teacher treats each child as an individual ready to gain inspiration as well as knowledge. The good teacher is willing to explore the unknown, seeking to contribute new knowledge about the nature of the universe itself. By preserving the best values of the past, a good teacher can make the future a better place in which to live.


Janet Fine in
Opportunities in Teaching

Thinking about Thinking

Thinking about Thinking
By: Matthew Allen


Reasoning is something we already do: all of us have learnt, in one way or another, to think and to reason, to make connections and see relationships between various events and attitudes in our world. So, being a smart thinker is not about becoming a different sort of person, but about improving skills that you already have. The way to achieve this goal is to become explicitly aware of the analytical process involved in reasoning. If you do, then you will be able to analyze complex issues more deeply, understand and process information more effectively, and communicate your ideas convincingly.

Learn a way of talking and thinking about reasoning that allows us to understand and use reasoning better. Analytical structure of ideas, essentially, the clearest expression of reasoning. We usually encounter such structures ‘embedded’ in the words we read and hear, or in so-called ‘natural language’. We must learn to distinguish more effectively between the structures and the natural language through which it comes to us. We will also encounter the idea of ‘analytical questions’, which can guide the way we think about and develop the relationships that comprise our analytical structures.

Reasoning

Reasoning

By: Matthew Allen


Reasoning is the basis of much of our thinking. It is often described simply as the process of thinking through and communicating our reasons for holding certain views or conclusions. Reasoning is a process of understanding and exploring the relationships between the many events, objects, and ideas in our world. An item can only be understood in relation to other ones. Reasoning enables us to get beyond a world of innumerable separate events, objects, and ideas. Using reasoning, we see that all these separate items are interconnected, and what we know about any particular object depends on our knowledge of other objects. Reasoning does not come naturally but must be learnt and improved.

Reasoning as a form of communication, are:
1. arguing
2. explaining
3. making decisions
4. predicting the future
4. exploring issues
5. finding answers
6. justifying actions

Motivation to Learn Part 2

The ARCS Model of Motivational Design
By: Connie Frith

Keller’s model of motivational design views motivation as a sequence. First, gain the attention of the learner, and then provide relevance of what you are teaching to their personal goals and needs. The learner gains confidence as the learning process unfolds. The satisfaction of the new knowledge provides motivation to continue learning (Driscoll, 1994).

Attention
Often it is easy to gain attention at the beginning of a lesson. Provide variety in presentations through media, demonstrations, small group discussions, or whole class debates.

Relevance
Keller includes familiarity as a component of relevance. Instruction is relevant to the learner if it is related to concrete examples with the learner’s experience. Metaphors, analogies and stories relate information to something the student is familiar with, and helps students understand new concepts.

Once the student sees the relevance they are then in a position to set goals. Self imposed goals provide relevance for the student. Actively setting goals can be an important source of motivation. When individual set goals, they determine an external standard to which they will internally evaluate their present level of performance. Goals must be explicit and attainable to sustain motivation.

Confidence
Confidence and self-efficacy are closely aligned. Three strategies for developing confidence by Driscoll (1994):
1. Create a positive expectations for success by making it clear just what is expected of students. Break complex goals into small chunks.
2. Provide success opportunities for students. Learners gain confidence if they are given enough assistance to perform a task they are not quite capable of doing on their own.
3. Provides learners with a reasonable degree of control over their own learning. Help them to recognize that learning is a direct consequence of their own efforts.

Satisfaction
Satisfaction can be enhanced in a learner by celebrating successes. Publicly celebrating success provides reinforcement for the learner receiving the acknowledgement but also motivates other learners to strive for this acknowledgment.

In a classroom setting it is important to find something to celebrate with all students. At times in an educational environment a learner’s satisfaction can be influenced when he/she compares themselves to others who may have done as well or better. It is important to point out to students that their learning outcomes are individual and must be consistent with their own expectations.