EFFECTIVE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING & ASSESSMENT

1.      What went well in your micro teaching?

Last week, I did microteaching with my partner, Suwandi. We taught news items for 10^th grader senior high school. We focused on reading comprehension. We created many activities to enhance students learning. That was so great. We were able to deliver students the material in a good way. The activity was not bored. We tried to take them in real life context of learning. As we know that news is an example of written text that they can find every day, so we want students realized what news and the purpose are. They will create simple news by the end of the lesson. It is more exciting than they should write another written text, like narrative or recount. Contextualized a lesson is not an easy thing. We have to bring them into real life situation and touch the problem directly. Sometimes, not all students have the same experience in facing a problem. That is a big challenge for us as a teacher. So, we have to make sure that all of our students have felt the same experiences in learning. I think we were almost do those. I think it is because our teaching was not in real situation. The students were not real. So, we did not whether the students really understand our topic or not.

Even we did not show all of our activities, but I am sure that our activity is effective for students. It is written in our lesson plan. We covered diversities in learning situation. We also considered about taxonomy bloom, means that we create creative activities to enhance students learning. We started in remembering and at the end we want the students creating simple news.

2.      What did not go so well in your micro teaching? What would you do in the future to make it better?

All of the bad things that I am not satisfied are my performance in instructing. As Bu Gum and Pak Iwan said that my instruction was not clear. I think it is because I was nervous. But I can deny that I did not rehearse better. I did not thing about my performance. I was busy to finish our lesson plan. I do not like the assessing situation ever. I have to do so much rehearsal before teaching. I realized that clear instructions are the most important part in learning. So, our students will not get lost in our teaching.

Beside the question, I felt disappointed because I got trouble in my team. We misunderstood each other. It was because we rarely met to discuss our lesson. We tried to make our own lesson plan and that was so different lesson plan. We lost our time to rehearse because of that. But I do not blame anyone, it was my fault. I also do not feel good because I guided my partner too much. I think sometimes I have to rehearse first how to work in a team, especially in accepting my friend’s behavior.

3.      What is your main takeaway from PETA course this semester?

The entire lesson in PETA will be useful in my teaching later. The most important thing is contextualized; bring students to real life situation.  As I said before, it is a big challenge for teacher. By contextualized learning, it can be more meaningful than only knowing the lesson. I really agree with this terminology. I used to feel in situation. Learning was only a part when I accepted every single lesson without knowing what the lesson for even the objective of my lesson. In PETA, I learned that students take part in learning. Sometimes direct method is good but not for a whole learning. As Pak Iwan poem, “Kami bukan makhluk bisu” , so students do not want to be perceived as inanimate object. They want to share and express what they feel. That is actually learning.

Assessment is not always scoring. It is also a big lesson for me. Actually, before I entered this class, I imagined that this class will teach me how to make assessment; means that making test, question or rubric. I do not know, that was what comes to my mind when I heard the word assessment. But the class is really different. Assessment is not always scoring or grading. I really like Pak Iwan’s capture when he told me about progress. Each student may start in different point. Progress is not about who is in the top point, but how much students jumps in higher level of understanding.

4.      What are your suggestions for PETA course in the future?

As I said before that this course differs from my thinking about assessment, I felt that it is not what I thought and that is why it looks like abstract. I cannot guess what I will learn in the next meeting but fortunately I have a handbook. Over all, this course is perfect. Pak Iwan delivers clear material for me. He knows that I did not have any knowledge about assessment and he captured it very clear. I do not have any suggestion.

1.      What went well in your micro teaching?

Last week, I did microteaching with my partner, Suwandi. We taught news items for 10^th grader senior high school. We focused on reading comprehension. We created many activities to enhance students learning. That was so great. We were able to deliver students the material in a good way. The activity was not bored. We tried to take them in real life context of learning. As we know that news is an example of written text that they can find every day, so we want students realized what news and the purpose are. They will create simple news by the end of the lesson. It is more exciting than they should write another written text, like narrative or recount. Contextualized a lesson is not an easy thing. We have to bring them into real life situation and touch the problem directly. Sometimes, not all students have the same experience in facing a problem. That is a big challenge for us as a teacher. So, we have to make sure that all of our students have felt the same experiences in learning. I think we were almost do those. I think it is because our teaching was not in real situation. The students were not real. So, we did not whether the students really understand our topic or not.

Even we did not show all of our activities, but I am sure that our activity is effective for students. It is written in our lesson plan. We covered diversities in learning situation. We also considered about taxonomy bloom, means that we create creative activities to enhance students learning. We started in remembering and at the end we want the students creating simple news.

2.      What did not go so well in your micro teaching? What would you do in the future to make it better?

All of the bad things that I am not satisfied are my performance in instructing. As Bu Gum and Pak Iwan said that my instruction was not clear. I think it is because I was nervous. But I can deny that I did not rehearse better. I did not thing about my performance. I was busy to finish our lesson plan. I do not like the assessing situation ever. I have to do so much rehearsal before teaching. I realized that clear instructions are the most important part in learning. So, our students will not get lost in our teaching.

Beside the question, I felt disappointed because I got trouble in my team. We misunderstood each other. It was because we rarely met to discuss our lesson. We tried to make our own lesson plan and that was so different lesson plan. We lost our time to rehearse because of that. But I do not blame anyone, it was my fault. I also do not feel good because I guided my partner too much. I think sometimes I have to rehearse first how to work in a team, especially in accepting my friend’s behavior.

3.      What is your main takeaway from PETA course this semester?

The entire lesson in PETA will be useful in my teaching later. The most important thing is contextualized; bring students to real life situation.  As I said before, it is a big challenge for teacher. By contextualized learning, it can be more meaningful than only knowing the lesson. I really agree with this terminology. I used to feel in situation. Learning was only a part when I accepted every single lesson without knowing what the lesson for even the objective of my lesson. In PETA, I learned that students take part in learning. Sometimes direct method is good but not for a whole learning. As Pak Iwan poem, “Kami bukan makhluk bisu” , so students do not want to be perceived as inanimate object. They want to share and express what they feel. That is actually learning.

Assessment is not always scoring. It is also a big lesson for me. Actually, before I entered this class, I imagined that this class will teach me how to make assessment; means that making test, question or rubric. I do not know, that was what comes to my mind when I heard the word assessment. But the class is really different. Assessment is not always scoring or grading. I really like Pak Iwan’s capture when he told me about progress. Each student may start in different point. Progress is not about who is in the top point, but how much students jumps in higher level of understanding.

4.      What are your suggestions for PETA course in the future?

As I said before that this course differs from my thinking about assessment, I felt that it is not what I thought and that is why it looks like abstract. I cannot guess what I will learn in the next meeting but fortunately I have a handbook. Over all, this course is perfect. Pak Iwan delivers clear material for me. He knows that I did not have any knowledge about assessment and he captured it very clear. I do not have any suggestion.

Quote :
” Assessment as Learning requires that students take an active role in their own learning and assessment”.

I really like this quote because I see that students have a freedom to decide what they have to do. I imagine that I am student. I will feel free to share my idea. Assessment is not a “danger”. But, as I experienced it in high school, it was different. I always assume that assessment is a kind of test. There will be a grading from teacher to student. So, sometimes I was afraid if I heard “assessment”. When I was nervous, I could not do the test as best as I can.

As a teacher candidat, I want to change that condition. The students should change their assumption about assessment is a kind of test. But, I don’t know it well. So, how is the way to change their assumption? It is my big question.
I don’t think that it’s impossible, but I don’t find the answer yet.

One thing in assessment, Multiple choice is the most kind of test that we find in learning process. If I analyze, this kind of test is not effective. Because, the test itself is not represents all of students skills, such as listening, speaking or reading. But why, teacher still use this kind of test ?

–> Assessment as learning?

Actually I little bit confuse because I wasn’t in the class at that time…
But after read some of the other post I can be more understand…
But I’m curious, is assessment can we call as learning if each assessment is shows a progress, become well in every single assessment…

And the following question come up to my mind ..
How if the result is not always shows a good progress ??

But now I think, not only have a good result for each assessment but when we got the bad one, we can still learn something. We can call that assessment as learning if we can improve in next assessment..
And assessment also as learning because it is something like recall our knowledge, and of course there is a learning process indeed …

the others, would you like to give a comment , I afraid to be missunderstanding ..

Friends, we have learn a lot about principles of effective teaching and assessment. We have known about what effective teaching is, planning of instruction, instructional models, lesson planning, and ect. Last week we talk more about the role of assessment where there are three kind of role of assessment: assessment of learning, assessment for learning and assessment as learning.

Assessment of learning is more like summative  assessment, it happen at the end of instruction. given example is “the meal will be tasted by costumer”. In the other side, the chief, who is cooking the meal, will examine it first before the meal being served. this is the illustration for assessment for learning. Thus, we also have known that assessment also could be a good tool or media for learning. it is called assessment as learning. “Falling in love” is an excellent example given by our lecture to describe it.

My question is simple, how we make assessment as learning happen and work? I remember an Arabic proverb-if I am not mistaken, which state that who ever is loving something, they will follow it very often. So, I think, assessment as learning will happen and work when we-as students have clear vision to do what we are going to do. Therefore, we have to raise our “inner desire” first. Why?  Because we are the determiner of our learning result. In the other word, intrinsic motivation is the key to be successful. Knowing the purpose, or economically I call it ‘benefits’ from our task/assignment, is very helpful. Our target to do a piece of work such as home work, presentation, project or any others is not only stop to a mark. More over, we realize that this part of assessment is an experience which have to be enjoyed. And there is no great experience as sweet as fall into “the mud of learning challenges”.

This is a question I want to know. I tried to find the answer using reference through internet but I didn’t find any. I assume it is because “Assessment as Learning” is a new term introduced in education. Finally, I have to respond the question I have with my own opinion.

To me, assessment as learning doesn’t really seem new. I think it is what my friend and I are accustomed to do in campus. In campus, this term is applied very well our teaching and learning process. It is something we actually deal with.

Well, assessment as learning I consider as self assessment. In self assessment, learners have to be actively participated in their own learning. Assessment as learning includes some aspects. Learners have to know the purpose and goal of their learning, have their own strategies and also can assess the strategies they use to reach the goal, whether it works or not. It is just like what Paul Black (2003) said that it will be easier for learners to achieve the goal if they really understand and can assess their strategies to reach it. Aside that, learners also need to do reflection. It is the most important aspect of assessment as learning. It makes them become better learners.

Happily, those all aspects of assessment as learning are applied well in my campus. I am accustomed to always deal with them. In my last teaching experience, I also brought them into my teaching. Badly, I still can’t find any other schools that apply this to the learning process. It makes an assumption that education in Indonesia is still static. The condition is still the same with the one that I faced when I was in formal school. Realizing that Indonesian education needs progress, it is our job as teacher candidates to begin the new educational method which is more effective and efficient. Remember, the future is in our hands!

After joining PETA course which discussed about assessment, I have concept that assessment is a tool to gauge the development of students in learning and to know whether or not the instruction is effective.  The word “assessment” comes from Latin language “assidere” means “to sit beside”. It is an indicator that in assessing students, the teacher has to guide them in various ways to make students understand. That is the process of learning and it is because learning itself is a process. Then, I agree about the concept of assessment as learning because the assessment here really helps students to learn. With other words, the assessment is not being something frighten for students. In assessment as learning, the teacher helps students in learning with assessment along the process of learning. I remember something then. I often hear the sentences “The process is more important than the result”. In learning, many people think so.  Many people protest to government like the final examination that only done with paper and pencil test is not good because it does not consider the process. So, it is not fear to judge students fail or not just based on the final examination without considering the process of them in learning. But, my question is “Is process more important than result?”

The assessment as learning allows students to improve understanding with teacher guidance. I think it is appropriate because the main purpose of learning is being successes to understand. When student is good in process of learning, then is not good in production of result, isn’t it fair thing to judge that student is fail? I think the process, including assessment during it, have to make students be able to be successes in the result. So, there is no which one is more important between process and result.

I strongly remembered that in the last meeting, Pak Iwan taught us that as a teacher, we have to have a high expectation of students. When teachers have a high expectation of students, students can perform much better than people think. My question is, where is the connection between a teacher’s high expectation with a better student’s performance? What is the connection of it?

Answering this question is not as easy as I think before. I tried to search, but it is so hard. I remembered that Pak Iwan has told us that assessment as learning is a philosophy quite new in education. I guess this is the reason why I have some difficulties to find the sources to answer my question.

I do not know whether my question is correct or not but I think always looking at to the product is not recommended as I know while learning PETA. Is that right? Let’s look back to our experience in our journey of learning. I am studying at a very high quality campus, SSE. Here, I am learning a lot. This school also has high expectation of students who are studying there. This school is creating a new generation of teachers. We are expected to be able to be creative, make differences and etc to be a high quality of teacher. With this high expectation, students who are studying there are pushed to always give the best to reach the standard. Students are expected to this, that and etc. Then, students tried as best as they could to be what teacher’s expect. That’s why students at SSE are so special because we are expected to be a high quality of students. So, when teachers have a high expectation of students, students can perform much better than people think. What’s your opinion of my answer, fellas? Do you have any ideas to answer my question?

How far assessment has an influence for the students?

It is very difficult for students to achieve a learning goal unless they understand that goal and can assess what they need to do to reach it. So self-assessment is essential to learning. (Paul Black et al. 2003, p. 49)

I agree if somebody said that assessment is essential for learning. For many people who don’t realize what assessment truly, maybe when they heard word of assessment, it relates about score, point and etc.But if we dig deeper, assessment is not only talk about score, point etc. A teacher needs assessment to assess their students. Yes, in assessment teacher needs score and etc but not always about it.

By assessment, teacher can know how well the student’s understanding in their learning process. Reflection is one kind of assessment.Reflect for what we did, got and learned is so good for students. They reflect what they learned before. By reflection, they will find something that they never realized. When i was in school, i often reflect for what i did and got. Reflection that i did when i was in school helped me to aware that ever things that I’ve learned in school will be useful for me in the next time. Yes, when i got a lowest score, i would feel sad but it would not stand longer because from that i learn something..

So,assessment is not only about score, we can do it by reflection.

How about you??

Writing a reflection paper is one of assessments. With students’ reflection teacher will know the students’ responds about the teaching and learning process. On the other hand, for students reflection can build their motivation in learning. Reflection paper seems very useful for both teacher and students. However, can reflection be applied for all students especial for those who don’t like to write?

Not all of the students like writing. That is what happens to me. Every time the lecturer asks me to write, I’ll say “Uh!”. It is not because I don’t want to do that but I just don’t like that activity. However, consider that I will be a teacher someday; I accustom myself to like writing. Yet, how about other students, who are don’t like to write but don’t have any strong reason to write.

This kind of students will feel lazy to write the reflection paper, even though the teacher has mentioned that there will be scored for the reflection paper. I think there should be a way for teacher to assess students by reflection but not written reflection.

When I heard about assessment, I mean it as as something that related to score.  It can be paper and pencil test, assignments or projects that will measure our skill whether we are competence or not. Then, I have question that comes up into my mind , ” is there any other kind of assessment?”

I tried to find my answer by googling.  Finally, I got my answer.  There is other kind of assessment that does not influence our score in the class.  What is that? It is self assessment.

Self-assessment is a process by which we learn more about ourself, what we like, what we do not like and how we tend to react to certain conditions.  As a student, we have to know about ourself especially about our learning styles or our multiple intelligences.  Why those are important?  By knowing those we will know how to set our condition to study.  When our friends like to study with listening music, maybe it will not happen to us ecause we have different types of learning.  That’s why, we can create strategies that are appropriate to respond ourself.  Besides that, assessing ourself also will make us to know our strength and weakness.  i think, when we know our strength or weakness, we will study from that and we will improve ourself to be better.

Finally, assessment is not only about assessing how good we are in certain lessons.  But, assessment also can assess ourself.  Self-Assessment is not related to score in the class, but it is as a way for us to know more about ourself so we can create strategies for our betterment.

Source:

http://www.rileyguide.com/assess.html

As an English prospective teacher that study in a university which is based on core values, I still have some concerns about assessment as learning. The major concern is about honesty. How can assessment as learning applied effectively in our education while honesty is still a major issue in our education? As we know, in our education system, most of schools and teachers are still indoctrinate “Good mark is everything, and then I’ll do everything to get a good mark” since we’re in the primary school. If we see those saying and we reflect it to assessment as learning which most of the activities are reflection, self-assessment and other activities that involve honesty as a major concern, it obviously indicate that we need more effort to apply assessment as learning in our education. If we talk about teenage or adult it seem that there’s still any chance to be effective (really?). However, how if we talk about children?

Our education system is planning to applied “Moral Value Education” starting this year for every grades. This system will create an education which is not only focus on intelligence but more focus on personality that is more important in a real life. Moreover, it also changes the orientation of current education which is focus on result into an education which is focus on progress. I think this system will help us in applying assessment as learning as early as possible, since honesty is one of the elements in the moral value education system.

I believe it’s not as easy as eating a cake. Everything needs process, big motivation to keep the consistency. Let’s support the moral value education system and assessment as learning to be applied in our education system start from early education!

CAUTION: our support will determine the future of our nation. 

One kind of assessment that I hate the most is performance test, especially role play or something that use our expression. In this test, I will get difficulties to prepare everything in my mind; prepare idea, prepare scenario, prepare logistic, and prepare how I act. That might be because I am getting difficulty in imagining something. It is also possible for me to have low score because of getting nervous and not confident of myself during performance. Understand the matter well or not, it will result the same that I could not express what’s in my mind through action.

I compare this experience with when I did written test –by open-ended and close ended question especially the questions that used HOTS approach. I don’t know why I have better score on written test even when I don’t really master the matter. I feel like I do the test not only by understanding but also by feeling. I do have nervous and stress before I do the test, but it is not more than before performance test. Beside that, mistakes from written test are last longer in my mind to be improved rather than mistakes from performance test.

What happened to me, correspond to what is warmly discussed in assessment as, for, and in learning. Many of class’ opinion said that paper and pencil test is not necessarily used in all subject of learning. Mostly said also that performance test shows students’ ability and mastering in a better way than paper and pencil test does. I somehow agree that performance test is good for students. However, I absolutely sure that paper and pencil also plays important thing in measuring students’ progress. I relate this issue to multiple intelligences concept.

I think, not all students are good in performance. They may good in paper and pencil test, may good in analyzing and presenting something, or good in moving their body to create a structured exercises of body. It doesn’t mean that students who are less in performance haven’t mastered the lesson. They might have problems in expressing something in front of audience, which is nervous and unconfident, but they can write structurally and logically what has been learnt.

In line with that, there are possibilities that students who are good in performance cannot show a better understanding of lesson. They might be able to perform something naturally. They might perform better because their friend assigned so and they have practices the performance repeatedly. They might also have miss-concept of lesson but performance covers their miss-conception.

Due to many reasons I have mentioned, paper and pencil test is not necessary to be deleted but it should use more HOTS questions. Beside that, totally use of performance test on assessment will damage teachers themselves to get a valid and reliable score that prove in which level of ability one student is. That is answering my question on why paper and pencil test should still be used in assessment for, as, and in learning.

I just share my educational experience since in primary school until now. Most of assessment that I’ve done is paper pencil test. So that, the word come to my mind when I heard about assessment is I am going to sit alone in my chair with my pencil case and answered all of questions.

Why do paper pencil test is very famous during my educational journey? It is because of paper pencil test truly assess students understanding?

I don’t think so, because when I face a paper exam I feel the atmosphere that I am being assess for 120 minutes. Sometimes I was nervous and could not do the best. So that, even though I studied hard but I didn’t get high score in every subjects. Personally, I don’t like paper pencil test because I think that the questions is very textbook and I am not memorizing people, when I read a book I just take the main idea and I explain it in my own words, but for some questions it was not enough because my teacher expectation was to be truly the same with what text book say. That’s the other reason why I couldn’t get the highest score.

Since I study in SSE, I face various assessments and I really enjoy with it. By this various assessment I think that it is a good way to assess students not only understanding but more than that. Various assessment also can touch multiple intelligences concepts and I think it is equal for students because one assessment can touch many learning styles and multiple intelligences. Various assessment that I am talking about is every assessment except paper pencil test for instants; presentation, exhibition, campaign, writing paper or essay, or anything else that could be apply and relate with the topic which already discussed in the classroom.

I don’t say paper pencil test is not good. Sometime if we (teacher) design the question more on analysis it could be different but again in my opinion paper pencil test is not always appropriate in all subjects or lessons. So if you are a teacher think creatively when you design an assessment. Make an assessment is interesting and fun for your students 🙂

Pic. source: http://www.livingston.org

PETA
By: Yani
Jakarta, 16th January 2011

Help someone who broken heart
=
Help students who broken assessment

Talk about assessment as learning like when we are falling in love. Hhhmmm what do you feel? “happy, suddenly smile with yourself in particular time. Every single time we think about him or we are made nervous when we meet him. We have a big target when we falling in love, such as, we want to build a special relationship with him. To make it comes true, oh course we do some strategies as hard as we can. Like an assessment as learning. In learning, we also have targets and we assess strategies to reach our targets.

However, how if we cannot reach our target. We have done all strategies that we have. We have said our love to him. But he refuses our love. What do you feel? Many people think that yes it is too painful but a view time later they can forget it easily. However how about someone who do not think like that. They cannot survive without him and need a long time to forget their painful. Have you heard about someone killed him/herself because broken heart or loss his/her motivation? It same like when students fail to reach their target, such as their target is they can understand about all the topics and get a good mark. However they cannot reach them. Do you realize that there are some students down extremely when they cannot reach their targets? They lost their intrinsic motivation; they have give up and never want to effort anymore.

As a teacher, how can we help them to return back their motivation? As we know that intrinsic motivation is the most important thing to do something. Actually, this is a big question in my heart for some months ago. When I was an assistant teacher, my master teacher and I discussed about this problem. However, I did not find the click answer. So far, to respond this question, I think as a teacher, no matter how we should give motivation, we have to make sure them that they can, failed is learning and broken assessment is one of parts of our learning. We have to help them to understand about the topic and show them that we have high expectation to them. So, lambat laun they will try to proud of themselves again and build their motivation and never give up to try the other strategies to reach their targets.

Reference:
image–> http://www.google.com

Assessment has many forms and two of them are formative vs. summative assessment. And then, I still do not know why almost students’ performances which are taken into account/ score come from summative assessment. As I know that there is no certain portion rule between formative and summative assessment as the way to assess the students. For me, it seems like not fair because, like Arlin said in her reflection, sometimes student feel under pressured when thinking about score so that they do not do the best because their anxieties. And also, students’ performances are sometimes influenced by their condition at the time they perform.

On the other hand, I ever think that .. yeah.. we can give assessment to the students during the lesson happens, it can be in the first, middle and the end of the lesson. However, thinking about unfairness I said above about summative test, it will be impossible to give score for the students from their different tasks and performances. As my dilemma, assessment is ongoing while, as teacher, we should have a standard, right? So how can we be wise for them?  Ehhh.. that’s my complicated thought I am thinking about. 😛

I consider that assessment is really important in education, so I’m curious to know who found the term of assessment, its type and its method? What were the reason and background? Hehe. Those questions actually came up from my mind in a glace when I was thinking about assessment. Until now, I have ever found the exact answer yet. Perhaps, you can give me the understanding about that??  🙂

Another question I wrote was is there any assessment beside in education field? So, I did googling to find the answer.  And yeah, in fact, there are a number of kinds of assessment. Beside education assessment, we can also find assessment in the field of health, nursing risk and etc., but after I glimpsed that I thought that the assessment in each field rather has distinct meaning.

I’m still confuse about the correlation between assessment as learning and expressing love to girl that Pak Iwan gave to me yesterday he..he.. I don’t know what’s the relationship of it. It’s so different that assessing someone with express feeling to girl.

But, I’ve got some important point and similarities between expressing love and assessment as learning. Both of them are needs more strategies to reach our target. As teacher candidates, we need strategies how to assess our student. We should know the our students background, their intelligences and what their interest of. without knowing all of that and just assess our students by following our “ego” and don’t think about our students, it doesn’t work. It’s similar when we want to say “love” to a girl that we drill. we should know the background, interest, hobby and etc. to “shoot” her/him.

Based on (Paul Black et al. 2003, p. 49) state that “It is very difficult for students to achieve a learning goal unless they understand that goal and can assess what they need to do to reach it. So self-assessment is essential to learning.” so when we want make assessment to our students, we should think the strategy. =)

Here is the list about what I want to know about Assessment..

1. How to create an assessment which doesn’t make the students think about score?

The first thing that comes up to my mind is: don’t bring any assessment book or sheet, so the students accustom to do an assignment or answering question without feel like underpressure.

But the other question appears, what if the students think that; they were not assessted, so they did not do their best??

2. One of the alternative assessment that we learn in LTM class is about how to make a variation of question in paper and pencil test which could cover all of the students’ level, but I think it still not fair enough because I cannot imagine how to make my students on the same level.

I still don’t know the answer.. 😦

There is a lot of reason come in my mind why I want to be a teacher. But I can’t to write all of them here, because sometime I do not know why I want to be a teacher. When I follow the lesson PETA class I always think, that I would be a good teacher for my students. In PETA course my lecturer help me to get understand more how to be a good teacher, and I got the strong reason one by one about my reason for why I want to be a good teacher. I learn about how to assess the student, make a good atmosphere in the class, understand about the feeling our students, and try to know what students need and how to make them know about the goal why they learn something.

As my lecturer said a good teacher is someone who can make an effective teaching. The teacher can provide materials base on his or her students multiple intelligences and also base on what students need. I was read an article about an effective teacher I found that Effective teachers are those who reach the goals set or to be set by others. An effective teacher must possess the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve the objectives and should be able to use this knowledge and skills these properly if the objectives to be achieved. (Anderson, 1991).

So it make me believe that as a teacher we should have a kind of something that was mention in article.

I found interesting part in that article also about who is the teacher?????????
Shepard (1993) told that the teacher is a prophet, a teacher is an artist, a teacher is a friend, a teacher is a citizen, the teacher is a performer, teacher is a builder and teacher is believer. In the minds of students,

1. Teachers should be the right person.
2. Maestro is an epitome of reality.
3. He is a co-worker of God in the perfection of man.
4. Priest is the spiritual heritage of man.
5. It per factor of mind.
6. He is the creator of democracies.
7. He is the apostle of peace and progress.
8. It is the philosopher, friend and guide.
9. Is a compilation of all virtues.
10. He is the spiritual symbol of good conduct.
11. It has the best spiritual qualities of humanity (Safiullah, 2001).
According to me, after I know the student minds about teacher. I want to make the eleven parts in above for guidance me, that I should realize that students have imagination about teacher in their mind. So I will never lose it in my mind.
So what do you think about teacher?
Do you get some ideas about teacher after you read my writing here?

Source: http://www.glorychildrenacademy.com

Video, a short word but contains of more than a meaning. That’s what I think after the movie project for PETA class is done. It is because I learned many things from this challenging assessment.

What kind of video assessment here?

Based on the experiences in the teaching assistance and school observation program, we have to make a 6-10 minutes video for PETA class. Specifically, the theme is “Effective Teaching”. This is a group work and the result is submitted in the special day (I do not know why), on December 3^rd, 2010.

What did I learn?

In the process of making the video, I realize about how important the timeline to focus what should we do in the particular day. My group made it and be consistent obeying it. In other that, we also have to manage the personal activities which is sometime suddenly broke the timeline. In other that, making a video is learning about being script writer, invite people to come to our shooting moment, and even being actors.

After watching the videos that created by all groups in my class, I can see how expert we are in acting (at least as the beginners :)). It is important to us, as language teacher who should be creative and expressive in conveying the lesson. All students show the creativity through the videos. Although we have the same theme, “effective teaching”, but we have totally different movie in content and design style.

The videos should be able to inform everyone from all sides about how the effective teaching is. Of course, we have to know what we will inform to others. In this case, we have to learn the theory and context about effective teaching. By watching the videos from my friends, I think I can strengthen my previous understanding about it. So, actually through video, we are trying to explain something to others with purpose to make them understand it, by displaying voices and images.

However, the images or acting that show about how effective teaching, I think, all is reflected from how the activity we usually do in the class in Sampoerna School of Education (SSE). It means that we adopt the teaching method of our lecturer. So, the image of “effective teaching” is what usually we see, get and feel in the class from the lecturer. It is identify the important of the teacher existence. Although the function of the teacher is already as facilitator, but what the teacher do in class actually is seen by students, and even imitated.

I learned many things after making and watching the videos. I also think something, will those method in videos still called “effective” to teach our students in the future?

Last week our class had a spectacular movies festival. The theme is about our experience in school observation. Students are divided into 6 groups and each group consists of 3-4 members. Then, each group will present one movie and another group will give comments and suggestions.

According to me, all groups had performed well. They had their own style in presenting the movie and they had already put extra effort to make those videos. All movies are very touching and meaningful. It was a great movies festival; I really proud become the part of this class.

About my group’s movie, we’re really put extra effort in making this movie. I as editor experienced that it’s not easy to create a meaningful movie; sometimes we change our concept to make it better. Fortunately, I could work in a good collaboration with my friends; they also had their own parts so we had a fair role in this project, the two of us being a model in this video, one as cameramen and another one as an editor. I really glad that we could finish it well. ^0^

What I’ve learn from this movies festival is as the next generation of teacher I realized that almost teacher in senior high school are conservative. They teach without a good preparation and don’t use technology in their class. That’s why in this movie we provided solutions for these problems.  Beside about the teacher in those high schools, I found many interesting points in another group’s movies; first, they have their own color in their movies. I mean, those movies represent their characteristics, example: Lina’s group is good at back sound and movie’s scenario, they make the movie with extraordinary back sound for each scene and the scenario is organized well. Then another example, Anais’s group is good at making the effects and the plot of the movie, Niko’s group is good in making a movie by using interview style, Kis’s group is good at visualize the concept of the movie and the last Seruni’s group is good at making fun movie. See, each group has their own strengthness.^0^

The last but not least, “Never designs your character like a garden where anyone can walk. Design your character like the sky where everyone desire to reach.” (HITLER). Everyone has their own characteristic, that’s why our life is colorful. As the next generation of teacher, I hope I can be a teacher who has strong character and can coloring my student’s life with the various color of education.

Presentation using our own video!!! I seldom find this task, however, it was really fascinating. I found a lot of great ideas and creativities from the video presentations which were created by all groups. Although Pak Iwan gave the same topic about effective teaching and learning, the group could present the video in the different perspectives and ideas based on the schools we observed. I liked to learn and really enjoyed all those videos not only from their contents but also how the videos were presented. They were so attractive and amazing (for instance, the audio use, effect, the story design even the acting):-). I am fully sure actually there were some big stories behind those great videos, especially in the process of video making itself during seven days toward the due date :D. However, all of us included my group absolutely tried to do the best. We tried our best to make a simple, interactive and meaningful video.

I assumed the process of video making was our learning process. To create effective learning, of course, we tried to make our work effective. Therefore, we made a time line first to arrange our agenda along the days in that week. In addition, I think making video really engage us to learn much. It was not only about making video using electronic tools (it’s a part that I’m not capable enough :P) but how we can work in a group. In my group, I could really discuss about what and how effective teaching and effective learning are, we reflected our feelings and what we learned together from school experience. We worked as a team which each member had their specific job description, yet we still completed each other.

I really enjoyed and learned a lot from watching all videos through. What I like more was each of us brought or adopted different experiences about effective teaching and learning from the schools we observed so that we could shared and learned together. Each school certainly has different background, class situation, type of students and teacher etc. Because of those diversities, I learned that there were various strategies to create effective teaching and learning which were presented through those videos. The forum of discussion also (question session after watching video) actually gave me more understanding especially about what component of effective teaching and learning are and how to create them in the classroom.

Last meeting we had video presentation based on our experience in teaching assistant program. We often write a reflection or drawing what we’ve learn but now, we made a video to reflect as an our reflection.

Great!!!!! even though we did it just in a week but all of group presented well and their videos also awesome. I was so glad and enjoyed when watched the video, very reflective and entertaining. The performance of video also good because we already had experience to make a video.

Through this reflection we can see the real situation in other schools. It is very engaging and facilitate visual learner like me 🙂

The biggest part that I really remember is our lecturer’s comment. He said that to create the video we have to consider our audience, because everybody have different opinion when they watch a movie. Make a video is interesting and enjoying but in other side is challenging, because we have to predict what will come up in our audience’s mind. Challenging because everybody have different perspective and we have to prepare at least no more misunderstanding after watching the video.

When creating something and dedicate to public so our minds also not be specific but in a general way. For example if I want to make a video about teaching learning in the classroom. One example that I have to do is, I act as a person who don’t know about teaching learning in the classroom, so that our language and the way we present our art will have to facilitate those people and make them understand with our extraordinary reflection. .:)

Speechless because of I don’t have any words to express my feeling for all creator of movies.

Good job guys….