Learning is
a process to acquire knowledge. It needs hard work and sometimes will
make students frustrated and get bored, so that they lose their
attention to a lesson. In this case, the use of media in teaching-
learning process is needed to attract students’ attention and to make
teaching- learning activities more interesting and also effective. The
use of media in teaching- learning process is not a new thing. Many
teachers know that media will be helpful. Media give students something
new, but not all of teachers know how to implement it correctly, so
sometimes media disturb learning process instead of helping students in
learning process. This situation causes a problem. The use of media is
questioning whether it really helps teaching- learning activities or
not. Based on that assumption, the writer wants to find out the fact of
the use of media in teaching- learning process, whether media can help
teaching- learning process or not. By reading this article, readers will
get a real experience of the use of media, which can help learning
process. Besides, they will also know some obstacles that may arise from
the use of media, how to overcome them, and detail example of how to
conduct teaching- learning process by using media, especially globe and
map. This article will provide an interview of a teacher’s experience in
implementing media for teaching social studies.
Media are
the means for transferring or delivering messages. Li-Ling Kuo states
that a medium is called the educational medium when the medium transfers
message for teaching (Li-Ling. 1996). He adds that the use of media is
important and it is impossible to coordinate teaching with learning
without using media (Li- Ling.1996). Media are flexible because they can
be used for all level of students and in all subjects. Teaching media
also can encourage students to take more responsibility for and control
over their own learning, engage in joint planning of the syllabus, and
take longer-term perspectives on their own learning (Masterman. 1999). Since media give many advantages, a teacher should consider a medium to be used in teaching- learning process.
Two weeks
ago, I interviewed Ida Yudiarini, S. Pd. who is a teacher in Springfield
International Curriculum School, Semarang. The students of Springfield
International Curriculum always use English as their language to
communicate in school. Ida has been working here for two years as a
class teacher of primary 2. In this class, there are six students and
most of them are seven years old. Ida, who also teaches social studies,
said that she is happy to teach primary 2 class because the students are
very active and smart. They are always interested on every lesson,
including social study, and always give good response. The students have
good motivation to learn. It can be seen from their presence. They
rarely do not come or come late to class. However, Ida said that
teaching children needs more patience. “Sometimes, the students make me
angry, but sometimes they also can make me laugh,” Ida said. Like any
other children who like to play, the students of primary 2 class also do
the same thing, especially when they get bored with the lesson. “When
they are fatigue, in their mind only play and play, while the lesson has
not finished yet,” Ida added. Besides, Ida admitted that getting
students’ motivation would be hard if they are fatigue. In this case,
she usually uses media to attract her students’ motivation back.
“Basically, media are needed in teaching- learning process,” Ida said.
According to her, teachers need to use media in teaching in order to
make teaching- learning process more interesting.
Ida, who
was preparing materials for teaching when I interviewed, defines media
as teachers’ helper tool in conducting the teaching- learning process.
In her opinion, media can be teachers’ best friend in teaching
because they will help teachers to control students’ attention. However,
the teacher has to choose the right media, Ida said. A medium itself
must be meaningful. Similar to Li-Ling, what is meant by meaningful here
is that medium should deliver the purpose of teaching.
Discussing
about media, Ida shared her experience in teaching her students using
media. Ida told me that she usually use media to teach social studies.
“I use pictures from encyclopedia or else, a globe, a map, and internet
to teach social studies,” Ida said. She also explained how the lesson
conducted. First, she gave her students a brief explanation about Asia
in general, such as location, boundaries, regions, weather, crops, etc.
using the map, globe, and pictures of crops. Then, she asked her
students one by one to come in front to point on the location of Asia on
the globe and on the map. “In the third meeting, I
asked the students to make a project,” she explained. She divided the
class into groups of two students. Next, each group will choose a
country in Asia by picking a lottery. Then they had to search the
information about the country from internet, encyclopedia, or newspaper
and then printed it. “I have prepared the internet and the students only
type the name of the country and then all information will be on their
monitor.” Ida added that the students had to find all-important
information including the map, flag, landmark, famous buildings,
mountains, traditions, etc. After all done, the students stick their
findings on the cardboard and decorate. The last, they started the
presentation. They have to tell others about the country and how did
they make the project (what are the sources, etc.) and the problem in
doing the project. “In this part of learning, the use of media is really
helpful. They help me to give clear information to the students.
Besides, they also attract students’ attention,” Ida answered a question
about her reason of using media in teaching social studies.
When
Ida was asked about her students’ responses of the use of media, she
said that the students were very excited to learn about Asia. “I came in
to the class and put the media on my desk. Then you know what did my
students do? They came to my desk because they wanted to know what I
brought. They were so excited! I told them to go back to their seats and
I will explain later,” Ida described how excited her students were.
According to Ida, since a globe and map tell exactly where a place
located, it helps students to have clear description of the real thing.
It makes teaching- learning process became more effective.
By
using media in teaching, students’ improvement can be seen clearly. Ida
said that the learning result is different when she uses media to teach
or not. The use of media leads students to learn by doing. In other
word we can say that in learning by doing process, students improve
themselves from know nothing to know something, from know something to
understand the concept. When students use media in learning then they
will have the experience of learning and directly involve in the
learning process. It makes what they have acquired will be saved in
their long- term memory. As a result, students get good mark on certain
subject and enhance their thinking skill. It is different from the
result of non- media learning that leads students to get good mark and
rarely enhance their thinking skill.
Similar
to other learning processes, learning using media also has obstacles.
Ida as a teacher also experienced it. She said that there were some
obstacles when she taught students using media. The first obstacle was
the letters on the globe, which are too small to be read by the
students. When the students were asked to point on the location on the
globe, they got confused because it was hard for them to read the small
letters on the globe. The next obstacle was students became too interest
to the media. “Once I came to class with a globe, my students were too
excited to the media I brought. In break time, all of them wanted to
touch the globe and then one of my students broke it, so that I could
not use the globe to explain the materials for a week,” Ida explained.
Even though there are a lot of obstacles, Ida said that she could
overcome those obstacle. She overcame those obstacles by changing the
media. She replaced the globe with a map.
The
use of media in teaching- learning process has also several advantages.
Ida mentioned some advantages. She said that media could raise the
students’ interest of the lesson and media is important to lead
students’ attention. The last advantage, which is similar to Masterman’s
opinion, is that media increase students’ responsibility to control
their own learning. In brief, we can say that the use of media in
teaching- learning activity is good.
From the
interview, we can conclude that the use of media really helpful, but it
depends on how teachers implement them. Ida, a teacher of Springfield
International Curriculum School shared her experience of how to
implement the media, especially a globe and map in the proper way. Media
can help teachers to get students’ attention back and to make learning
process more effective. Therefore, the use of media really helps both
teachers and students in teaching- learning process.
References:
Li- Ling KUO, Christine. 1991. The Importance of Educational Media in Teaching. Buletin of Social Education, Volume 20, pp.61-88.
http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/en/bse/9120/9120061.htm
