1. School: General Information and Academic Administration
Mitra Harapan is a three language national school it uses Indonesian, English and Chinese as their language of instruction. The purpose of this school is to educate and make children have good characteristics of a human being, and those who apply and master’s modern science and technology. They should be able to think independently and have the ability to solve problems, having a healthy soul and strong body. Sekolah Harapan always educates and directs students to serve their parents, study hard, guide students to have the spirit to unite, work together and serve the community. Harapan students come from different backgrounds; this school provides religious education in accordance to their students.
Mitra Harapan has various of academic support system they provide remedials to those students who are having a hard time to understand certain subjects. They do not only focus on the academic side of the students but also in the different sports that the children could excell in. They give recognition to students in both academic and extra-curricular activities.
In SD (Elementary) Mitra Harapan uses three languages, namely Indonesian, English and Chinese. They use powerpoints and videos in teaching the students, some of the teachers give activities to the students and they are using papers instead of powerpoints. They are more on the traditional one which is the pen and paper test.
Mitra Harapan uses the 2013 curriculum standard, the competency stands developed through professional competence, social competence, personal competence and pedagogic competence.
2. Pedagogical Contents
Some of the teachers uses the lecture style wherein it is teacher-centered and entails lengthy lecture sessions or one-way presentations. students are expected to take notes or absorb information. Some uses facilitator or activity style wherein they are facilitators that promotes self-learning to the students and they only guide them in getting the right answer instead of spoon feeding it. They use activities in catching the attention of the students and also to hear their answers regarding certain topics.
I was not able to see that much of innovation but they usually use powerpoint presentation and also videos that shows the lesson. Some teachers are quite innovative that they create brainy games so the students are enjoying but at the same time the teacher was able to see if the students understood the lesson. They use their books and they get videos from the internet.
The activities given by the teacher was evident as well as they promote active participation from the students by asking them to recite while having discussion, some teachers are also good in their art of questionning.
3. Teaching Plan
Mitra Harapan uses the 2013 curriculum standard, the competency stands developed through professional competence, social competence, personal competence and pedagogic competence. The lesson plan is a semi-detailed one, it’s almost the same in what we were taught in our university. The difference is in one lesson they could put 3 meetings in it. It is easy to understand which is good compared to complicated lesson plans.
4. Observation on Teacher(s)
She is good in planning for her lessons, well prepared. Even though usually she only makes a draft lesson plan yet she was able to implement it smoothly. The students really likes how she teaches sincce she makes a lot of activities that the students would surely enjoy and they would be able to integrate whatever they learned from the lesson.
She makes sure to make her class interesting and fun to learn that’s why it is easier to understand even though they are learning a foreign language which is English. The way she evaluates her students is the traditional way which is the pen and paper test. Performance/Assessment tasks are not evident if you compare it to what we have in our country which is full of performance tasks.
5. Teaching Practice
They gave me a schedule that includes the subjects that I have to teach so I was able to manage it even though the load is heavy. Yet they changed my schedule last minute and that was not the subjects that I was prepared to teach for monday. So I had a hard time and I was not able to sleep that much since I have to prepare the materials I need to use. The students were really nice since they follow what I usually say and they are respectful so it was easier for me to manage the class and my lesson went smoothly. At my first day of teaching I was not able to maximze the time which is 1 hr and 30 minutes but the next subjects I thought that they the time was enough.
6. Summary and Suggestions
The purpose of this practicum is for us to see the different ways of educational system and were not only restricted on what we know in our country. To be able to give us a view on how education is in a different context and for us to develop a lot of life skills that we could apply it when we are the one teaching. The experiences we learned from here and the things that we were able to see could make us improve things that are needed to refine to be able to give the best education to our future students. We were well informed in the things that are going to happen in this practicum we were able to equip ourselves with the things we need. The procedures of the practicum went smoothly and successful. I was able to learn a lot of things and I gain more confidence that I did not have before, confidence to speak in front of a lot people to be able to teach the students. One of the challenges I have encountered was we are really loaded of works and activities that we we’re only able to have a little rest. Some of the activities we were not well informed or they only said it last minute which made it difficult and we lost a lot of sleep because of that. I hope next time they would lessen the activities to give enough time to the participants to prepare for the things they have to do, they should also inform them briefly about it specially during the teaching assistant they made us teach right away without knowing the topic beforehand. Overall I was able to enjoy it and I learned a lot. I was not only able to gain a lot of experiences but I also gain a family in Indonesia which is one of the most memorable thing that happened to me their all the people were really nice and hospitable that you will feel attached easily. When I hear the word Indonesia it will have a different effect to me now. This is a good program to all the future teachers who wants to gain experience and want to challenge their capabilities.
