Teacher and Parents Communication

Based on my reflection when I was in senior high school there was no communication between teacher and parents well. My parents met with my teacher only two times in one year, when I got raport in add and even semester. The rest of it? Nothing!, even for parents meeting like we have done in SSE is nothing. So, when my parents met my teacher, my teacher only explained my score not the whole process what I got along in one semester. Sometimes, the teacher suggested my mom to control my schedule of learn.

Based on what happened to me at the time. It was not effective to control students and build good communication between teacher and parents if they only meet second time in one year. How do our parents know their child’s progress if the teacher only gives information when “pembagian rapot”?. Good news, I think nowadays is better about communication between teacher and parents. Because I teach my students (private) and my students have “buku penghubung”. “Buku Penghubung” is a media for teachers and parents about students’ progress in daily and a lot of information. So, all assignments of my students wrote by the teacher there, if my students did something wrong, like he forgot to bring his book, then the teacher wrote:

 “Dear Mama Adnil (name of my student), Ananda Adnil hari ini lupa membawa buku Bahasa Inggris. Tolong besok dipersiapkan untuk dibawa ya”.

So, when I read all written communication between the teacher and my student’ parents is really good. So there is no miscommunication between them. The benefit of the parents is they knowing exactly what their child did in the school and knows what their child’s progress. It is good to apply in school nowadays.

MMSEL’s Project Reflection

           My group (Desri, Andri, Icha, Ferina and Jajang) already did our project about “Know Yourself, Know Your Future” which focused on the strategies developing our self-concept in order that to be aware of their diversity of identity, know the importance of having positive self-concept and to develop their positive self-concept. Actually in the first our targets are SSE Cohort 2011 and 2012. We already sent our invitation to them through an email, but we only got 2 people who confirmed. Unfortunately, at the day we hold our project on Wed, 16 Jan 2013 at 3pm that SSE Cohort 2011 and 2012 had Humanistic Studies Class to watched movie together. So, because our all participants attended Humanistic Class, we changed our target became our friends in our group. So, we did our project to our self.

            We did some activities such as “Self Portraits & Sharing”, this activity is to introduce each of the participants to one another. They will be asked to draw any object that they think it represents themselves.  After they finish drawing, they should share it to another participant.  “Handprints”, it is about printing their hand in a carton. This activity is aimed to show the participant that everybody has their own identity which differs to one another. “Valuing Yourself”, this activity is aimed to help the participants in recognizing and knowing their strengths and weaknesses. “Accentuate the Positive”, this activity requires the participant to write another positive side of another participant. The last is “Write for Me”, this is an activity where the participants write a letter to themselves about self-praise. They write what they want to improve from themselves.

            Fortunately, even our project hold to our self but it was run well. It surprised for us, because some of us even did not realize their self-concept. So, after we did our project we know our self-concept and self-concept our friends in groups. It is really useful for us.

Aggression and Violence

Aggression and Violence

Desri Fitriana

Nowadays, aggression and violence are the common issue that often happening in students all over grades. Even for the previous months ago, we ever heard about students’ fighting each other from different school. It was part of aggression and violence. Actually this topic is very interesting especially for teenagers and young adult, because through that knowledge we know that bullying or violence that some of them think those things are cool, in fact it is not cool anymore. So, we can avoid it, because we aware towards it.

Honestly, I never become a victim of bullying, maybe because I have good enough authority and I brave to speak. When I was in senior high school, I have one community what we called as a gank who has a high authority in the school and I am part of it. So, my community has a big impact to others, I mean many students were interested to join with us. Actually my community was consisting of 8 people who have close intimacy to each other and we are close friends, even we were from different class but we are closer rather than our classmate self. But we never bullying others, but maybe it was caused social jealousy in our surrounding at the time.  But another community was ever involved in aggression, maybe we called as “Melabrak”. Melabrak is not only verbal abuse but also physical abuse like “jambak-jambakan”. Then, all of students who involved in aggression got punishment from the school.

So, actually in senior high school grade is the peak of aggression and violence. Teenagers get many influenced from their peers and surrounding. For instance if we involve in fighting we will get a label as a rebel student and we get our social status in our community. But if we decline to involve in fighting, we will get mock from our friends and they think we do not have good solidarity for each other. So that is why knowledge about aggression and violence is really important for them.

Classroom Management

          In my opinion, classroom management is an intellectual skill that is based on knowledge about action and situation relationships in the classrooms. Why? Because when the teacher teaches in the classroom, they should know how to manage the classroom well, how make their students achieve the goals from the learning, how to make a grouping, etc. So that is why, classroom management is one of a weapon that important for the teachers. In order to be an effective educator, the teacher should have quality classroom management skills. This classroom knowledge enables a teacher to recognize and interpret what is happening in an exceptionally complex environment. These knowledge structures developed through direct instruction in prepositional knowledge about classrooms.

When I conducted SEP in SMA Bellarminus Jakarta, in the first time I taught X2-Class, it was out of control. I mean because I was a newbie there, so they were noisy. Fortunately, it happened only 15 minutes in the first of teaching and learning process, so further they were calmer and obedient. Why they were calmer and obedient? Because I gave them a various activities that their teacher never has gave to them, so they felt so excited. So, these is one of example about how to manage my classroom in order that my students involved actively in all my activities.

               

Instructional Variables

Instructional Variables

Desri Fitriana

When I did observation at the first week of SEP, I observed my master teacher teach about If Clauses. He started the lesson with giving “Bingo” Worksheet for all students. . He did not explain more about those materials and did not give brainstorming activity to the students, because according to him the students have already known about those topics. He just explained and did that worksheet the whole of lesson, without giving any other materials, only “Bingo” worksheet about If Clauses and did it together with students until the lesson finished.

The teacher did not give any introductory focus, involvement and feedback to the students. He just implemented personalization which links to students’ life, because he asked about students’ daily life using If Clauses. In addition, to create a good climate classroom, we as teachers should use good instructional variables to our students. Instructional variables consist of some parts are introductory focus (to attract students’ attention at beginning of lesson), personalization (links to students’ lives; contextual), involvement (trying to make students involve in teaching and learning process) and feedback. Unfortunately based on my observation, the teacher did not implement all those things, even at beginning of lesson he did not give any open-ended question or hand-on activities to grab students ‘attention.

So, when I taught I always try to grab students’ attention first with open-ended questions to stimulus their mind and to introduce what is our topic for today. I asked to them “What did you do last night?” when I taught for Simple Past tense.  Then, I found many mistakes from students’ answer, because they did not understand enough yet. Through that activity, I knew how far their understanding about Simple Past Tense, so it makes me easier to teach them because I have already known their schemata. In addition, when I taught for Simple Present Tense at beginning of lesson, I asked “What activities that you do every day, please mention 3 different activities that you always do every day?” Again, I found many mistakes from them. So, actually their background about various of tenses really low, so I try to enhance their understanding and awareness towards tenses and how those tenses used in daily life (contextual).

Source pictures: Google Image.

Climate Variable

Climate Variable

Desri Fitriana

Actually Climate Variable last meeting what we have learnt last meeting is the way to build a positive climate in the classroom to our students. It has some parts are order and safety (classroom as secure places to learn), success (when students have a chance in teaching and learning process), challenge (increasing students’ competence) and task comprehension (increasing feeling of autonomy and values).

 In the first week of SEP I got chance to observe Mr. G (my master teacher) taught for XI IPS 1. He taught about If Clauses (Type I-III). In the first time he had started the lesson, he directly gave “Bingo” Worksheet for all students. He did not explain more about those materials and did not give brainstorm to the students to know students’ schemata, because according to him the students have already known about those topics. He just explained and did that worksheet the whole of lesson, without giving any other materials, only “Bingo” worksheet and did it together with students until the lesson finished.

I saw his effort was to build problem-solving skill and focused on writing skill (grammatical skill) to his students through Bingo worksheet. Unfortunately, his way did not run well. Some of students did not pay attention to him, especially students who sitting in the back line. Even, there were no success, challenge and task comprehension of climate variables to the students, because I am not sure the students really understand about that topic even though the teacher pretends already.

So, for next week when my first chance to teach come face to me, I tried to implement all those things of climate variables (order and safety, success, challenge and task-comprehension) to my students. Although, at the time when I taught I have no idea about what climate variable is? But I realized that I already implemented all those things in my class before. When I started the class, I made a small regulation for them to be cooperative, be active and raising your hand if you want to ask something. I explained about my objectives to them before started the class. Then, I always begin through brainstorming activities to grab students’ attention and know students’ schemata about the topic. My way to made them give their best effort is giving challenging task to them. I mean gave them drilling exercises about grammar (because four times I taught, I focused on grammar based on my master teacher requests), it works, it makes them try to solve the problems and some of students asked if they found some difficulties. It makes them more acquire the lesson and have more understanding. Fortunately, all my ways that I mentioned above were run well for my four times teaching. In conclusion, positive climate in the classroom is important to create between teacher and students as a community of learners.

 Source picture: http://www.google.co.id/imgres?.

The Influence of Needs

Human’s live needed many efforts to do what they expected and what will they achieve in their lives. According to Schunk et al., 2008, to survival everyone has the most basic that they should fulfill it. It is we called as a “need”, to determine several of needs we have three main points, which explain about need, there are:

1.      Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

2.      The need for self-determination.

3.      The need to preserve self-worth.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

         Hierarchy of needs Maslow has already made it to reflecting needs of the whole person. It consists of two big parts are Deficiency needs (the basic needs) and Growth need. For make you easier to know part of those things, let’s see hierarchy below. 

Survival ---> Safety --> Belonging ---> Self-esteem ---> Self-actualization.

          So, for deficiency needs consist of four parts, there are Physiological, Safety, Belonging and Self-esteem. While, for growth need is only Self-actualization. Physiological, it means we need shelter, food, warmth, water, etc. what we need every day and could not be skip. If you cannot fulfill the first stage (physiological), it means you cannot go forward to further stages. Second is safety, it means you feel free from physical or emotional threat. Let’s say if you live in restricted area which war happening at the time, you will not feel safety because your area is dangerous. So, it is what we called as a safety needs. Belonging means acceptance from others and self-esteem refers to recognition and approval from you towards what are you thinking about yourself.  While, the highest stage is self-actualization, it belongs to growth need not deficiency needs. Self-actualization is the way to reach person’s potential through intellectual achievement and appreciation. In this stage, sometimes people never satisfied about what they have got before.

        Actually Maslow’s theory got critics from other researchers, because the hierarchy’s inconsistency and lack of predictive ability. Actually I agree with that, because in some cases that hierarchy it does not run well orderly. Sometimes, one of those hierarchies loses because we cannot fulfill it or we skip from first stage to the third stage. It can be happen depends on the situation or condition, like people who have disable condition. But in my real experiences, I crossed all Maslow’s hierarchy and it was run orderly based on the stages. I did not skip one stage to another stage, but I followed orderly. Now, I have already felt in the highest stage, there is self-actualization. It is true, when we in growth need we never satisfied, although we have already got our first goal, but we still have other goals, so on and so on. I have felt it right now, I never stop in one direction but I always try to try new things that I have never felt before.

The Need for Self-determination

     Self-determination is the ability to act and control environment to promote motivation. Actually, it has three points to measure level of self-determination people, there are:

1    Competence

Competence is the ability to act effectively in the environment. What I have got based on my comprehension, in here we always try to “show off” about how good I am in order that other to impress others. If we could not “show off” our ability or knowledge, we cannot survive in our surrounding. So that is why it will increase our competence when we face challenges in our life and we can solve it well. The teachers have the main role to influence students’ perception of competence, through some ways are:

a.       Attributional statement. It is comment from our teachers and caused students’ performance. I have remembered that my teacher ever gave me comment about our presentation, and he said that: “Wow! You were so great. You looked a professional speaker. Keep it and make it comes true”. Wow I was shocked and it made me to make it real, so that is why his comment affected me towards my performance.

b.      Praise and criticism

c.       Emotional recation

d.      Offers of help

2      Autonomy

The effective way to increase students of autonomy is to give them choices. When they try to choose their choices, they feel have a responsibility on their works.

3       Relatedness

Is the feeling of being connected to others and feeling worthy of love and respect.

Relatedness has the essential role in the school, because it relates towards others, like friendship. After it comes, need for approval, it is desire to be accepted by others. If we do not feel accepted by other, sometimes it will decrease our self-esteem.

The Need to Preserve Self-worth

            Self-worth is a reaction to evaluate our self.  The most interesting of this part for me is about “Self-handicapping”. It is really interesting for me, because I often found that case since when I was in senior high school until now, but I just knew about it last week in Motivation Class. Actually, self-handicapping is the strategies to protect their self-worth. Sometimes, it was annoying, when my friend said that she/he had not study before exam but in the end I found she/he got the best score in the class.