Effective Teaching in Thematic course and Effective Lesson Plan

Miss Ine, I feel this course really help me to be professional teacher to give effective teaching for my students. I really interested when you show the video about effective teaching in thematic course for elementary school. Actually, I have observed the school which use thematic in teaching but I still confuse about the lesson itself. I think it will make students to be confused because the teacher should mix another subject of course. It is really difficult to deliver all of that effectively but after I watched the video, I know how the way to teach thematic for our students.

The video tells us about thematic teaching and learning in “IPS” course and it should include knowledge of plants, member of family, colors, and number. In my opinion the teacher in video use good enough to encourage students to be active in learning. Even though, teacher does something boring like telling the story. After watched video we have discussion in group about the effectiveness the video, the activities, and what will we do when we teach with thematic. My group thinks the teaching and learning in video is good because teacher give the real example when explaining the course. I like when students observe the real Rambutan tree, they take the fruit of that tree and then they have presentation how many fruit they have, the color of that fruit. I think it is we call with learning by doing. The teacher also asses the students by direct question and students should answer it. I think it is good to know the understanding of our students, without make paper or pencil test even though we need it. We do not make our students afraid if we only ask the students about the materiel. Paper and pencil test or drawing maybe we can give in the end of lesson for post test or homework. For story telling my group also think to change it by sharing session about students’ unforgettable moment which still have connection with the subject, or we can use story book and involve the students as actor in story.

After discuss we should write down the result in flip chart and put it in the wall but we do not have gallery walk. In the sharing time actually I do not agree with April. I think the teacher use media when teaching her students like Rambutan tree and the picture in the wall which have different color. Media in teaching and learning process not only ICT but everything that can help teacher to deliver the subject easier. Once again, I think there is time when teacher should point her student to stand up and explain something. It can encourage passive students to more speak up. It doesn’t wrong if we use it seldom.

 The explanation about professional teacher’s knowledge is clear. I know the differences between pedagogical content and general pedagogical knowledge. After that we have explanation that lesson plan which we made it not only include active learning activities but the benefit of activities itself for help our students understand the subject. Miss Ine, told us it is what we call “Twin sins in Curriculum”. The first is teacher make activities without meaning and second teacher only come to the class, explain the subject and then do the assessment. In my opinion there are a lot of teachers in schools which do that. I ever feel that, my teacher only come to my class and then give assignment and go out. It is really annoying and I hate it. I hope when I and my friends be a teacher, our students can enjoy every second the subject that we teach and they can absorb the knowledge with the activities that we gave. For that we need to prepare our lesson plan well, so in the last session we learn to make short lesson plan.

We should make activities which have meaning for our students and it should represent our expectation. We also try to arrange the assignments to know the understanding of our students. Clear instruction is really needed when we teach to make teaching and learning more effective. The conclusion is to be teacher we not only should have professional knowledge but we also have to prepare our lesson well. Lesson plan is our module to conduct our students to understand the subject that we taught.