Buyung A. N Sudrajat - 3rd E-Reflection

Principles of Effective Teaching and Assessment

3rd E-Reflection – Models of Instruction

            After attending the third session of PETA course, it was a very good session. I have learned many things and most of them are new things for me. In the third session I have learned about the models of instruction. In this session I have learned about the four models of instruction. Some of them are familiar for me because I learned with those models in my high school, in SSE, and also in my teaching practice in School Experience Program such as direct instructions and lecture discussion. I just knew the term or the name of them in pedagogy. In addition, there are also some new models that I learned from this session such as guided discovery and group interactions. Those two models are new for me because I never heard about it before. However, after I knew the explanation, characteristics, and the phase or steps in conducting those models, I realized that I also have done those kinds of instruction in my learning. The new things that I have learned are the characteristics and the special features of each model that make them different from each other, for example one of the characteristics of guided discovery that differentiate from other models is the presence of the application of the mastered concepts in real life.

            In this session I have learned about those four models of instruction by reading the materials about it and discussing with my friends. We did the jig saw reading activity. At first, I got direct instruction model and I have understood clearly about this model. Here I have learned that direct instruction is the most widely model that is used in traditional classroom. The main activities in this model are teacher explanation and modeling, and later on will involve student practice and feedback to teach concepts or procedural skills. This model can be classified as teacher-centered learning because the teacher takes the full control of the class and the process of learning. The students just follow teacher’s instructions and directions. In the direct instruction model there are several steps that usually occur in the process of learning. The first step is the teacher explaining the specific objectives of learning. Next the teacher explains the concepts and gives the model skills for the students. After that the students practice the skills with the teacher’s scaffolding. If the students have mastered the skills, then they will practice it independently and the teacher gives the corrective feedback.

            The theoretical foundations that used in this model are the teacher effectiveness research, the theory of social cognitive by Albert Bandura that highlighted the modeling process, and the theory of influence of social interactions in learning from the social constructivism learning theory by Vygotsky. To implement this model successfully in the class I have learned that there are several skills should be possessed by the teacher. The skills are the good language skill, the clear instructions, the good quality feedback, and the ability to develop the lesson. Besides that there are several characteristics in direct instruction such as the teacher is reviewing the previous lesson, providing the new materials in clear and logical steps, providing guided practice, giving corrective feedback, providing independent practice, and reviewing to consolidate the learning.

            The second model that I have learned is guided discovery. I have learned that in the guided discovery the students discover the new knowledge by themselves with the guidance from the teacher. In this model I have understood clearly about the characteristics and the steps or phases in conducting this model. There are four characteristics in the guided discovery. The characteristics are guided discovery is a student-centered learning model, teacher is only a guide or facilitator, teacher less explaining, and teacher promotes social interactions between students. The steps in conducting this model are first the teacher reviews about the previous lesson and introduce the new lesson. Next, teacher makes the students to think by giving an open-ended question in open-ended phase. Here the teacher provides experiences and promotes interactions between students to stimulate their cognitive learning. After that, in convergent phase with teacher’s guidance the students begin to produce the schema about the concepts. Next step is closure in which the students with teacher’s guidance state the definition or description about the concept. And the last is application, teacher guides the students to use or apply the concepts in different situations. The thing that I am not really sure and have understood clearly from this model is the theoretical foundation. From what I have understood, I think the theoretical foundation that used is cognitive learning theory but I am not sure. I can say that the theoretical foundation of this model is cognitive learning theory because the students construct the knowledge by themselves.

            The next model of instruction that I have learned is group interaction. I have understood clearly that in group interaction there are several essential elements such as face to face interaction between students, the presence of group goal, individual accountability, collaborative skill, and group processing. Each of element makes this model become very good, for example the face to face interaction between student has several advantages such as can encourage students to learn more when there is a material that they do not understand (fuzzy words). Besides that it also can provide the students to share their perspectives each other and build the idea or knowledge. This method is very good to develop the students’ soft skill such as communication skill and collaborative skill. Meanwhile, it does not leave the monitoring to the students’ individual competence. The presence of individual accountability makes the teacher can do the individual assessment to their students besides assess their group work. I also have learned the theoretical foundation that is used in this model is the socio-cultural theory as part of social constructivism learning theory by Vygotsky. The theory emphasizes on the using of language and the presence of social interaction. For this model I do not have a difficulty or part that I do not understand.

            The last model of instruction that I have learned is lecture discussion. I have understood how to implement this model of instruction. This model of instruction gives an oral explanation from the teacher and there is a discussion between the teacher and the students. I think this model is the easiest model to be applied and mostly can be applied in all subjects. Some benefits from this model are easy to plan, flexible, and easy to implement. This model of instruction uses the information processing theory by David Ausubel as the theoretical foundation. I also have understood about the phase or steps in implementing this model. First, the teacher explains the objectives, and then teacher grabs the students’ attention and draw active background knowledge. After that the teacher gives the presentation or the lecturing. Here the students start to create their schema by connecting the previous information and background knowledge with the new information from the teacher. The last step is comprehension monitoring in which the teacher check the students’ understanding by giving questions, asking the students, doing the think, pair, and share, voting, and choral response.

            From all that I have explained above I think this session was really interesting and meaningful to me. It was really interesting because I could know the theoretical knowledge about the models of instruction since it also new things for me. Although, I have done those models in my learning and applied it in my teaching but I just have understood the theoretically concept of it. That is why this session was really meaningful to me as a teacher candidate because it is basic knowledge that I must know. By understanding the models of instruction it can help me in my teaching to give my students the best instruction that appropriate with them and also with the content materials.

            This session had met my expectations about knowing and understanding the models of instruction. By doing the jig-saw reading activity and the class discussion my expectation to I learn models of instruction is achieved. However, I think the time for doing the jig-saw reading little bit insufficient to understand all the things in the reading. Fortunately, by having class discussion it really helped me to cover the information that I have not understood from the reading. Since next meeting we plan to have a general lecturing about the assessment that is actually not the following material of models of instruction, it is okay for me. So, in the next meeting I want to know about assessment. I think it will be interesting since we have guest lecturer and I hope I can learn many things about assessment. It is important to me to understand because assessment is one of the most important parts in learning process. I think that is all that I want to say in this reflection. Thank you.