Making active learning work
The use of active learning strategies has increased in recent years. One of the
reasons for this increase is that a number of initiatives have been introduced
to support teachers in changing the ways they teach (Soedijarto, 2010;
Suprijono, 2013). Various studies have examined the use of active learning
strategies in schools in Indonesia. Some of these are described briefly below.
- Febriyan Al-Hamidi (2012) studied the use of PAIKEM in Sekolah Menengah
Pertama Negeri (SMPN 7) Public Secondary School, Semarang, Jawa-Tengah.
He examined the effectiveness of conventional learning methods in
studying history and compared this with the effectiveness of using the
‘sucker-ball’ game for the subject. This game invites students to become
active participants in learning. The study found that when playing the game
students’ participation during the learning process was extremely high, and
found that this method was more effective in enabling students to learn the
required material than the lecture method. - Kokom Komariyah (2011) analysed the use of problem-solving approaches
among secondary school students in Bandung, West Java. She focused her
analysis on the use of the problem-solving approach known as the Polya
Model, in learning mathematics. After several stages of observation and
experimentation, she concluded that this problem-solving approach was
an effective way to teach students about mathematical concepts. She noted
that the major difficulty that most students experienced was the lack of
understanding of the relationship between one concept and another. This
was heightened by the fact that students also showed a lack of apperception
regarding the topic that they were going to learn, in terms of what they had
learned in the past. She found that the problem-solving approach enabled
students to have sufficient apperception to be able to relate one concept to
another within the given problem. - Hasanuddin (2010) wrote a thesis on the impact of the Quantum active-
learning method on students’ performances, and found that when teachers
use this method students can achieve significant improvement in acquiring
concepts and knowledge. He also found that the use of the Quantum method
was able to increase students’ motivation to learn and improve the outcomes
of their learning. - A teaching approach that is currently being promoted in almost all subjects
in Indonesian schools is PAIKEM. This approach aims to make learning both
more effective and fun (Suprijono, 2013, p. vi). Supriyono (2013) argues that