Reflection PETA:

Thematic

By Muhammad Ainul Muiz (2011120061)

            Thematic was a method that combined some subjects which has related topic to become one. In the second meeting of PETA course, my lecture showed us a short movie. That movie was contained of thematic method. That movie was from department of education in Indonesia. In that movie, there was a teacher that was using thematic to teach her class. She taught in elementary school. The topic was about environment. She tried to relate some subject that related with the topic. She tried to related Mathematic, Penjaskes, Pkn, IPA etc. The role was like this, the first she opened the class. Then, she began the lesson by explaining a tree. From The tree, she related the parts of tree with the members of family. After that, she guided the students to go to the garden. In the garden, she pointed a Rambutan tree. She made clear what the tree was and explained the parts of that tree. There, the students could touch and saw the real tree. That was a good method, the students did not only know the theory but they know the real shape of tree. She also told and asked them about colour. What colour of that leaf was. What colour of the fruit was. After that she guided them to come back to the school. Before coming back, she asked them to pick some Rambutan fruits. In the class they were sitting in a group arrangement. In the class, she pointed some of students to count their Rambutan fruits. After all, she told them about an educational story behind Rambutan fruit. A story was about how to consume Rambutan fruit. In that story, there were some boys who ate Rambutan fruits before had breakfast and they got stomachache after eating Rambutan. That was a good story to remind the student not to eat Rambutan fruits before eating.

            From that case, I got a lot new knowledge how to teach. We could use thematic method to teach the students. That method has many beneficial. First, we could combined some subjects become one. It would economize the time for teaching. It would increase teacher’s creativity to relate a topic with other topics. The students might be more interesting with the lesson because they could study some lesson in one topic through thematic method. From the case above, we could see that thematic was useful method. Through thematic method, students could learn colour, environment (Rambutan’s tree), mathematic (calculating the fruits), family, storytelling and Penjaskes (health).

            After we watched movie, my lecture grouped us become five groups. She asked us to analyze that movie. We had to list what were the effective things on that movie and what were the things should be improved. We also had to list the things that would we do if we were in that condition. We discussed around for 20 minutes. After that we shared the outcome from my group. We shared and giving response to each other. We thought that thematic was effective enough because using thematic in teaching had many benefits. I do hope, after I learned in second meeting of PETA course I can increase my capability and can be a creative teacher in using method to teach.