Developing Innovative Teaching Learning Mathematics

One of the problems found in students learning of mathematics is not given the opportunity to develop and apply these concepts in a matter of mathematics to solve problems of their lives. The learning process more focused on the ability to memorize information and the ability to calculate. This may be related to the history of mathematics learning in Indonesia. We know that the learning of mathematics in ancient era, one way of learning activities so that teachers always give the material to the students without giving students the opportunity to explore and understand the material or concept are given. Teachers also teach students about the only method of memorizing a formula or a material so that students are not able to understand the meaning of material or concept.

Today many teachers who have the wrong notion of mathematical learning activities. they think that learning math so that students can solve the problems properly. So they are content with giving the formula and give students lots of practice to work on the problems. The government is implementing the national exams (UAN) as a tool to measure student success in learning, become a true reason for the teacher. The most important thing that students can work on the national exam questions correctly so that it can pass with good grades, then the teacher will give a lot of practice exam questions that the students will have plenty of experience in work on the problems. The teacher only gives the solution to a problem, but the teacher not give the meaning of a concept and concept relationship with the matter. As a result of this learning method is a graduate school student have the ability in the theory of conceptual and arithmetic skills are good. But students do not have the ability to understand the contextual meaning of a concept.

Development of mathematics teaching should be carried out because not enough students have the ability to calculate and memorized the math materials only. Remain students need to know the meaning of the material and mathematical concepts. So that students can apply math concepts to everyday life and develop the mathematical sciences. But if the teacher is still a passive learning activities and students are not given the opportunity to understand the meaning of a concept the students will be stuck in the learning activities that make students bored. The result of this is that students become increasingly dislike of mathematics, or maybe the students would hate to mathematics. If the students interest and motivation is low then the results of studying mathematics achievement also be low. In order for the interest and motivation in learning mathematics is high, teachers need to innovate in learning activities. Learning activities that make boring and monotonous as it contains only a matter of memorizing the material and training needs to be left alone. Teachers can add some innovative activities in the learning activities so that students do not feel bored and feel happy and self-motivated students to learn mathematics.

Meaning of the word can mean innovative is a new, more useful, and better. So that learning is an innovative learning designed by the teacher, has a new nature, not as is commonly done, and aims to provide facilities for students to construct their own knowledge, as the process of behavior change toward a better fit with the potential and the difference that the students . In the context of teaching and learning program, an innovative learning program created as an effort to find a solution to a problem. This is because the learning program has not been done or the kind of learning program is being run but needs improvement. According to Putu Sudiarta (2010:14-15) emphasizes that a learning parameter to be regarded as an innovative learning should have one or more principles:

1.      student-centered: emphasis on active student learning than just students notes and memorize.

2.      Multiple Intellegence: accommodate all the potential and aspects of learning, because students have multiple intelligences and variation.

3.      holistic education: students view learning as a whole creature.

4.      experiencial learning: prioritizing learning experience meaningful.

5.      problem based learning: open space for solving the problem.

6.      cooperative learning: an opportunity to learn through collaboration.

7.      contextual teaching and learning: open space to learn from real life.

8.      constructivist teaching and learning: open learning significant responsibility as an autonomous teacher.

9.      metacognitif: open space for meaningful learning through the whole process of thinking, systemic and systematic.

10.  learning with understanding: meaningful learning emphasis with a deeper understanding.

Teachers in making innovative learning activities should pay attention to these principles. So that teachers will not be caught in traditional learning, but teachers trying to implement and develop innovative learning. Before teachers begin learning activities, teachers can provide inspiration for students to love math. Some of the children or students do not like math because they do not know the point. Do not like reading or drawing, mathematical symbols and numbers as meaningless. Indicate how important mathematics in everyday life or in the real world. The teacher gave the story making a pyramid in Egypt, astronauts traveling to Mars, nothing can be achieved without mathematics and mathematicians.

http://ochimath.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/inovasi-pembelajaran-matematika/

http://blog.tp.ac.id/wp-content/uploads/6723/download-makalah-model-inovatif_prof-sudiarta.pdf

Characteristics of Traditional Teaching Mathematics in Indonesia

History of mathematics learning in Indonesia begins after Indonesia take independence from the Dutch. So that the task of rebuilding the nation's character after the colonial period, the government made changes in all fields, including education. Government include mathematics as a compulsory subject to be taught at all levels of education

Learning mathematics at this time is developed based on the theory of learning behaviouristik. This theory assumes that a person has learned something if he can show changes in behavior. According to this theory the most important learning is the stimulus and the response. Stimulus is a question about a problem from the teachers is given to the student in learning activities. While the response is a reaction or response from the stimulus provided by the teacher. The process of stimulus to response is not considered because the important thing is that students can work on or solve the problem given by the teacher. So that learning activities more focus on the activities of practice and repetition. Teachers give a problem and how to resolve the problem to the students. Then the students just do it and then repeat the exercise again. More and more students are doing these activities the students will be more understand.

If viewed from the historical development of mathematics teaching in Indonesia, traditional mathematics developed in Indonesia have different characteristics from that developed in mathematics today. Some of the characteristics found in the traditional mathematics:

1. The teacher's role is central in the learning activities. Teachers teach science, teachers directly prove the arguments, the teacher gives examples of questions. While students must sit neatly and listen, copy the patterns of a given teacher, follow the ways teachers completed the questions.

2. The students very passive. Students are not given the opportunity to develop their potential, students only do the activities undertaken by teachers. Students are given only think about how to do or solve problems, students are not given the opportunity to think why do such steps in solving the problem.

3. Students can only memorize. Students usually busy with memorization methode and practice the skills so students have less opportunity to understand the concept of the material provided. This problem causes students not only understand the concept completely, so that curiosity about the concept become lost. Students will become less interested in understanding the material in more detail.

4. The material is not sustainable. There is a material or topic at the top level that has never been taught in  previous learning. So that students will feel not familiar with the materials provided and cause difficulties for students to understand.

5. The material presented is generally less associated with daily life and many materials used in everyday life is not even taught to students. For example, in the arithmatical not learn statistics whereas statistics in  everyday life more often used. Similarly, in geometry lessons usually taught to calculate area of regular shapes as a cube, prisms, and etc. But rarely taught how to calculate area of irregular shape never though whereas we often meet it in everyday life.

The Factors Affecting Teachers Become Lazy to Make The Syllabi

One of the factors that affect the learning of mathematics is the syllabi. Teachers have a duty to educate, teach, and train students in the school. The duty can be done well if before learning math activities, teachers create a syllabi in advance.

Why should create a syllabi? Teachers need to create a syllabi because the syllabi is a guide that contains sequence the students activities are arranged in sequence so that students can achieve the basic competencies that have been determined. So teachers can make a plan how the methods to be used in teaching a mathematics concept to students. In addition, teachers can also prepare instructional media to be used in the learning activities such as student worksheets and teaching aids. Therefore, teachers should make their own syllabi. Because the design of activities in the syllabi will be implement by the teachers themselves, so that the syllabi should be made based on the circumstances and the diversity of students who will be taught where no one knows it better than the teachers themselves.

But what happens are different things, most teachers have a feeling lazy to make the syllabi. Some factors that make teachers feel lazy to make the syllabi are:

• First, teachers feel they have not ability to make the syllabi, the reason usually said most senior teacher. Perhaps because they usually get the design of the learning from government so they have a mind like that.

• Secondly, teachers feel they have no time to make the syllabi because they busy at home. This should not be made the reason for not making the syllabi, because someone who worked as a teacher should be prepared and responsible for the duty.

• Third, teachers think in the teaching learning not need the syllabi. Indeed there are some teachers who can teach well without having to create a syllabi in advance. But not all teachers like that, there are still many teachers who teach less well although they makes the design of learning in the syllabi. If teachers not create syllabi, so learning activities may will be chaotic.

Variety of reasons from the teacher, it is not an acceptable. Whereas by create the syllabi, teachers can do reflection about the methods used in teaching mathematics. So that teachers can find teaching methods that need to be improved for the next learning to be better. The solve the teachers want to create a syllabi, need to work together with the headmaster. So teachers have to make a presentation about the syllabi to the headmaster. And to check the originality of the syllabi, headmaster must do supervise in the class. This is done to adjust the plan contained in syllabi with the application in the class. If appropriate, it can be stated that the competence of teachers in create the syllabi is valid (not plagiarized or made someone else). If not fit then it can be said that the syllabus was made by someone else.