SELAYANG PANDANG PMRI DI UNESA

Unesa telah berpartisipasi aktif untuk melakukan gerakan pembaharuan pembelajaran Matematika sejak tahun 2001. Gerakan ini dilakukan secara bottom-up, artinya sekolah melaksanakan PMRI atas inisiatif/keinginan sekolah/guru (bukan karena diperintah oleh orang lain).

Di awal pengembangan PMRI di Unesa ada 3 sekolah yang menjadi mitra Unesa dan saat ini sudah berkembang menjadi lebih dari 30 sekolah. Di antara sekolah tersebut ada yang melaksanakan pembelajaran matematika dengan pendekatan PMRI secara utuh, tetapi ada pula yang melaksanakannya secara parsial.

Untuk mengetahui informasi lebih lanjut tentang PMRI di Unesa, silahkan klik salah satu menu utama.

The Fifth Instructional Design of PMRI (Indonesian Realistic Mathematics Education): “How many more cake boxes are needed to fulfill the cardboard box?”

by:

Ahmad Wachidul Kohar

A.  Introduction

One of the important topics that are taught in the learning of three dimensional space in elementary schools is volume. Activities related to the volume of  three dimensional space  has frequently been performed by students in daily life, such as filling the tub with water until full, observe the sand-laden truck, filling cardboard boxes with smaller cake boxes, up to more complex things like counting the lack of packaging the goods packages that needs to be added to the container so that the car is full. The experiences of students who are associated with these activities can be the starting point for them to learn the concept of volume of three dimensional space.

At primary level, the concept of understanding the volume needs to be implanted to students first before they do the investigation into the discovery of how to find the volume of three dimensional space. This concept can be embedded by providing the experience of how to compare two objects by asking which one is bigger. Learning can begin with a discussion as to the question: which one is usually need more water until full, bath tub or tub lavatory. Through interactive discussion, students will put forward the idea of an answer in accordance with the experience they have gained, such as by considering the shape and the size of each type of tubs or estimate how many times they move water from the well to those both types of tub. This kind of thing is in line with Panhuizen (2005: 54) revealing that  in learning of  volume, students need to be given the experience of comparing the content of objects that are useful for reaching an understanding of the concept of volume.

Learning Area of Planes through Playing Puzzle

Written by: Evangelista Lus Windyana Palupi

International Master Program on Mathematics Education (IMPoME 2011)

Evangelista.palupi@yahoo.com

 

A.    Introduction

Mathematics is often seen as a difficult and uninteresting subject to learn by students. Students often face difficulties in learning mathematics. For example, a teacher in Grade 6 in where this design will be implemented, ever said that her students have a difficulties to divide a n-side irregular plane into some another planes like triangle, square, rectangle, and so on.

To make a students understand and interested in mathematics then teacher should engage them into the teaching and learning process itself. This means that teacher should not only deliver the knowledge directly but also have to involved students in learning and teaching process. Not only that, teacher should transfer the knowledge in such meaningful way which connected the lesson with the students ‘real’ word which ever be experienced by students, so that students will be able to catch up and understand the subject/lesson. Those things can be done by help of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) approach.

Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) approach not only focuses on the formal or abstract knowledge, but it is started from the ‘real’ (something near and have been experienced by students) to the abstract/formal one). And to bridge that, there is a use of manipulative in RME. Furthermore, RME give a chance to contribute and involved in teaching and learning process.

Puzzle is an ordinary game which is gets used to be played by children. An irregular n-sides plane can be built by some pieces/ kinds of other planes. Due of that, in this occasion, my friend (Elika Kurniadi) and I designed an instructional plan using RME approach to teach the area of irregular n-sides planes through playing puzzle for preliminary students Grade 6. This instructional design is also implemented in the Grade 6 of Pusri elementary school, Palembang.

The aim of the designing instructional plan is to give a teacher a source of instructional design based on RME approach to teach area of irregular n-sides planes in Grade 6. While the aim of its implementation is to know whether this design can be implemented or not by teacher and to know students’ thinking/reasoning in solving problem and in doing activity which is given in the teaching and learning process using the designed instructional plan. Further, it will be described about designing process in ‘design research’ which includes preliminary design, teaching experiment and retrospective analysis.

(Read more: download through this link Learning Area of Planes through Playing Puzzle)

Mengurangkan Tiga Bilangan Berturut-turut dengn Bermain Tepuk Bergambar/Ambulan

                                         Oleh: Evangelista Lus Windyana Palupi

¹ International Master Program on Mathematics Education (IMPoME 2011)

e-mail : evangelista.palupi@yahoo.com

A.    Pendahuluan

Indonesia merupakan suatu bangsa yang kaya akan budaya lokal. Salah satu budaya lokal yang sering dimainkan anak usia sekolah dasar khususnya di Palembang adalah permainan tradisional ‘Ambulan’ (dalam bahasa indonesia biasa disebut tepuk bergambar).

Permainan tepuk bergambar/ambulan biasa dimainkan oleh 2 atau lebih siswa. Aturan yang mengharuskan mereka (yang kalah) membayar/memberikan sejumlah kartu sesuai dengan kesepakatan awal kepada pemenang secara tidak langsung mengajarkan kepada siswa pengurangan dan penjumlahan bilangan secara informal.

Pendekatan pendidikan matematika realistik Indonesia (PMRI) menekankan untuk mengajarkan matematika dimulai dari hal yang dekat/’riil’ dengan atau bagi siswa. Sehingga pembelajaran menjadi lebih bermakna bagi siswa.

Antusiasme siswa, potensi permainan sebagai konteks untuk mengajarkan konsep pengurangan, serta terinspirasi dari penelitian serupa yang sedang dilakukan oleh Rully Charitas (mahasiswa BIMPoME 2010 Pascasarjana Unsri, Palembang) memotivasi tim peneliti (Elika kurniadi dan Evangelista L. W. Palupi) untuk membuat sebuah desain pembelajaran matematika berbasis PMRI materi pengurangan tiga bilangan berturut-turut (kelas 2 SD) dengan menggunakan permainan tepuk bergambar/ambulan sebagai konteksnya.

Rincian bagaimana guru dan tim peneliti mendesain pembelajaran, mengimplementasikan rancangan tersebut dan melakukan analisis retrospektif dijelaskan dalam bagian desain pembelajaran di bawah ini.

(Read more: download through Tepuk bergambar untuk mengajarkan pengurangan tiga bilangan berturut-turut)

Hatching the Eggs (Menetaskan Telur): Pengayaan Geometri

UNSRI-Palembang. Senin, 28 November 2011 perkuliahan Introduction to RME dibimbing oleh Prof. Dr. Zulkardi, yang merupakan salah satu tokoh P4MRI dari UNSRI-Palembang. Pada perkuliahan tersebut, Prof. Zulkardi memberikan tugas untuk menyusun puzzle secara berkelompok, yang berupa potongan dari sebuah telur. Kami yang terdiri dari 15 mahasiswa dibagi kedalam 5 kelompok, yang masing-masing beranggotakan 3-4 orang. Permainan sekaligus pembelajaran matematika ini diberi nama Hatching The Egg (menetaskan telur). Pada pembelajaran tersebut, tiap kelompok mencoba untuk menyusun dan kemudian menganalisis permainan ini. Tujuan dari permainan puzzle ini adalah untuk menyusun potongan telur sehingga membentuk unggas yang sesuai dengan gambar yang diberikan, kemudian mencari sebanyak mungkin bentuk unggas yang mungkin dibentuk oleh siswa.

Bad News: Gedung D1 Dekanat FMIPA Unesa Terbakar

Pada Sabtu 3 Desember 2011 dini hari, tepatnya pukul 02.00 WIB amukan si jago merah ludeskan gedung Dekanat D1 Fakultas Matematika dan Ilmu Pengetahuan Alam (FMIPA) Universitas Negeri Surabaya (Unesa). Hubungan arus pendek (konsleting) ditengarai menjadi pemicu kebakaran tersebut. Gedung Dekanat D1, selain digunakan sebagai kantor dekan dan administrasi fakultas, juga merupakan gedung pusat pengembangan matematika dan sains sekolah di mana tersimpan banyak arsip dan data penelitian serta buku-buku. Meskipun tidak ada korban jiwa, namun korban materi dan yang terpenting data serta arsip kemahasiswaan dan penelitian tidak ternilai. (baca berita terkait: http://regional.kompasiana.com/2011/12/03/fmipa-unesa-terbakar-gedung-sekretariat-fmipa-unesa-kebakaran/)

Review Part II : Jan Van Den Akker, Principle and Methods of Development Research

summarized by: Evangelista L.W. Palupi

This is a review of a chapter of a Akker’s book about design research. In this chapter “Principle and Methods of Development Research” Akker discusses the role of research in relation to educational design and development activities.

In the first part of Capter 1#, Akker focuses on describing the rationale and basic principle of development research by outlining motive for conducting development research, defenition and aim of developmental research and its key characteristic. Furthermore, methods of development research, its problem, and its major challenges will be described in the second part of this chapter which will be described in this section.

5.   Methods of Development Research

Methods of development research are not necessarily different from those in other research approaches. However, there are some specific features that are worth discussing here to further clarify the image of development research. The first one has to do with the central role of formative evaluation procedures in formative research. The second aspect refers to several typical methodological problems and dilemmas for development researchers.

5.1 Formative evaluation as key activity

formative evaluation holds a prominent place in development research, especially in formative research. The main reason for this central role is that formative evaluation provides the information that feeds the cyclic learning process of developers during the subsequent loops of a design and development trajectory. It is most useful when fully integrated in a cycle of analysis, design, evaluation, revision, et cetera, and when contributing to improvement of the intervention. However, a few typical characteristics of formative evaluation within the context of development research approaches deserve some elaboration.

Formative evaluation within development research should not only concentrate on locating shortcomings of the intervention in its current (draft) version, but especially generate suggestions in how to improve those weak points. Richness of information, notably salience and meaningfulness of suggestions in how to make an intervention stronger, is therefore more productive than standardization of methods to collect and analyze data. Also, efficiency of procedures is crucial. The lower the costs in time and energy for data collection, processing, analysis and communication, the bigger the chances on actual use and impact on the development process.

The basic contribution of formative evaluation is to quality improvement of the intervention under development. During development processes, the emphasis in criteria for quality usually shifts from validity, to practicality, to effectiveness (cf. Nieveen’s chapter 10 in this book). Validity refers to the extent that the design of the intervention is based on state-of-the-art knowledge (‘content validity’) and that the various components of the intervention are consistently linked to each other (‘construct validity’). Practicality refers to the extent that users (and other experts) consider the intervention as appealing and usable in ‘normal’ conditions. Effectiveness refers to the extent that the experiences and outcomes with the intervention are consistent with the intended aims.

5.2 Problems and Dilemmas in development research

In this section, Van Den Akker briefly describing some typical problems and dilemmas faced by researchers when doing development research. Some of that problems are:

• Tension in role division between development and research. A tension can easily arise between designer who are eager to pursue their ideals in creating innovative interventions and researchers who tend to critically seek for correctness of decisions and empirical proof of outcomes.
• Isolating ‘critical’ variables versus comprehensive and complex design. A typical difference between formative research and many other sorts of research is that one can hardly isolate, manipulate and measure separate variables in the same study. On the contrary, it is the very nature of formative research to investigate comprehensive interventions that deal with many interrelated elements at the same time which makes it very hard to apply.
• Generalization of findings. Since data collection in formative research is usually limited to small (and purposive) samples, efforts to generalize findings cannot be based on statistical techniques, focusing on generalizations from sample to population. Instead one has to invest in ‘analytical’ forms of generalization: readers need to be supported to make their own attempts to explore the potential transfer of the research findings to theoretical propositions in relation to their own context.

6.   Major Challenges for Development Research

Review Part I: Jan Van Den Akker, Principle and Methods of Development Research

Reviewed by: Evangelista L.W. Palupi

This is a review of a chapter of a Akker’s book about design research. In this chapter “Principle and Methods of Development Research” Akker discusses the role of research in relation to educational design and development activities.

In the first part of Chapter 1#, Akker focuses on describing the rationale and basic principle of development research by outlining motive for conducting development research, definition and aim of developmental research and its key characteristic. Furthermore, methods of development research, its problem, and its major challenges will be described in the second part of this chapter. In this section I will try to review the first part only.

1. Motives for Development Research

Akker stated that there are various motives for initiating and conducting development research. The basic motive come from the experience that ‘traditional’ research approaches like experiment, surveys, correlation analyses and so on which focus on descriptive knowledge, cannot provide prescriptions with useful solution for variety of design and development problems in education. Another motives stem from the highly ambitious and complex nature of many policies in education worldwide; rather dubious reputation of educational research in general; and a distinct scientific interest at stake.

2. Definition and Aim

There are a lot of labels of development research such as design studies, design experiment design research, developmental/development research, Formative research, formative inquiry, formative experiment, formative evaluation, action research, and engineering research. Thus various labels are rather confusing.

‘Development research’ was ever used by Walker in discussing methodological issues in curriculum research (Walker & Bresler, 1993). Its goal is to inform the decision making process during the development of a product/program in order to improve the product/program being developed and the developers’ capabilities to create things of this kind in future situations. While Akker and Plomp (1993) defined ‘development research’ by its twofold purpose: (i) supporting the development of prototypical products (including providing empirical evidence for their effectiveness), and (ii) generating methodological directions for the design and evaluation of such products. In this approach, the scientific contribution (knowledge growth) is seen as equally important as the practical contribution (product improvement).

Besides having a prominent role/place in curriculum research, development research also has a prominent place in area of educational media and technology. Richey and Nelson (1996) mention as its aim: “improving the processes of instructional design, development, and evaluation … based on either situation-specific problem solving or generalized inquiry procedures” (o.c., p. 1213).

In the board of learning and instruction invest more in’design experiment’, Greeno, Collin and Resnick (1996) highlight the “kind of research that includes developmental work in designing learning environments, formulating curricula, and assessing achievements of cognition and learning and, simultaneously, on efforts to contribute to fundamental scientific understanding” (o.c., p. 41).

In the teacher education area the concept of ‘action research’ is rather popular. It refers to practical inquiries where teachers (often in collaboration with others) investigate and reflect on their own teaching and students’ learning. The primary goal is usually to contribute to the teachers’ professional learning and/or bringing about change in a specific educational setting (Elliott, 1991; Hollingsworth, 1997).

In the area of didactics the emphasis tends to be on ‘developmental research’ as an interactive, cyclic process of development and research in which theoretical ideas of the designer feed the development of products that are tested in classroom settings, eventually leading to theoretically and empirically founded products, learning processes of the developers, and (local) instructional theories.

3. Key Characteristics of Development Research