Academic Support System

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            After interviewing the Vice Head Master of the school, I was able to know how the SMK Tamansiswa generates the school function. The Indonesia’s Educational System was one of the updated as well as curriculum-based academic centered schools.

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            The SMK Tamansiswa Kudus is a private school institution because the school receives support from the government. The school and the government have a connection because the students receive a full year grant, and the students give their contribution to the school every after 3 months during their examination and complete the 1-million-rupiah tuition fee per student. Through that collaboration the school is able to generate its function and provide quality education for students to prepare them for their future careers. The school being a vocational school offers various courses which maximizes the potentials, skills, talents and interests of the students which enable them to perform their tasks well and show their interest as well as their exhibit their skills at their high motivation. Because of that idea the students are settled in their comfort zones.

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            The students are also supported with the complete facilities because the classrooms are with big spaces for a maximum of 50 students with a good ventilation as well as sanitary places such as comfort room and medicine kits. Every classroom is equipped with LCD projectors where students can access during their Multimedia presentation and audio visual activities.

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            With that, I was able to conclude the school provides quality education to students, catering them with the good services they need, advanced institution, good reference materials for students learning and great collaboration with the government and the school.

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Teaching System

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                       The SMK Tamansiswa has two quarters 1st semester and 2nd semester, each semester consists of 6 months each. The first semester starts at July and end at December while the 2nd semester starts at January and end in June with semester break and short season vacation so the students could also inhale some recreation activities during breaks and vacation and have some bonding with the family and do some other school related projects and activities.

           

            The Vocational High School Indonesia comprises 3 years starting from Grade 10-Grade 12, before they continue their senior high school, they have to complete and pass first the junior high school which also consists of 3 years from Grade 7-9. The SMK Tamansiswa offers 6 major courses for their senior high school students namely; Accounting, Office Administration, Marketing, Beauty and SPA, Multimedia and Banking. Each courses have different facilities that suit their laboratories, activities as well as lectures. The accounting has a separate classroom for their mathematics and business activities and lecture same as office administration, marketing, beauty and spa. The school has a mini-bank where the students can practice their field through having a duty per day to expose them in money matter and banking functions. The six majors also share some core subjects or general academic subjects and also differ in their major field of specialization subjects with different units. The students have to undergo a national achievement test and final test for them to get a certificate for their courses which would indicate that they have learned from their 3 years’ study and to know whether they are ready or not. Every year, it is done on March 25,26,27 and 28. Each majors shares competency test namely; Bahasa Indonesia, Mathematics, English, and Competence, they have to undergo a simulation activity prior to the examination for them to have preparedness on the examination, physically, mentally and emotionally for them to be able to pass their National test. On the day of the exam the students will be answering through digital type or online examination. So basically they very advance and they do not practice anymore the paper and pen type of test.

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            The students have a maximum of 8 hours in the school starting from 7:00-1:30. They have time for lecture, activities, quizzes, collaborative activities, physical health activity, and most especially, they give more time for religion because as I have observed the students are very faith-oriented and the country Indonesia is a country with high regards on Islam so it has been part of their system wherein prayer has to be part of their daily activities. The classroom’s medium of instruction is in Bahasa Indonesia in all aspects expect Bahasa Inggris. The teacher and the students speaks Bahasa Indonesia in communicating, speaking, discourse, speech and other school related activities. Even the worksheets, books, and other learning materials are all written in Bahasa so the students are very much comfortable in their discussion because they are able to express their thoughts and opinions through their most comfortable language. For the teacher in Bahasa Inggris each module or material has a Bahasa translation for the students to be able to understand deeply their lesson. The teacher, after speaking or discussing English, he or she has to discuss and translate to Bahasa Indonesia so the students will lend interest and pay attention. So, it has been a big challenge for the teachers to encourage and motivate the students with the necessary competence that they have to master especially in Bahasa Inggris in both written and oral communication. 

           

          The teaching system of the SMK Tamansiswa is very competitive because it has a well-structured plan, curriculum oriented instruction and most especially they are following syllabus in each subject area that is issued by the school.

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Materials and Other Learning Resources

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            The teachers in the SMK Tamansiswa follows a syllabus for every subject area that they are teaching, so each subject area has distinct and unique concept and content so they are able to fill in their subject matter with necessary information and knowledge from the books provided by the government as well the supplementary books from outsource such as; internet and private books.

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            Based on my observations the teachers are provided with flash disks that contains video clips, audio visual presentations and audios for the student’s pre-activities and tests. They also have a module like the one handed to me “Bahasa Inggris” that contains the introduction of the subject matter, several activities, drills and practices that taps the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domain of the students. The teacher prepares a teaching plan for the semester and consume all the contents in a given time per day so, the students can really focus and do not rush on their subject matter be able to master it. The students have a day for lecture, individual practice, collaborative activity or groupings and a day for assessment and simulation for test.

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            The school has a library where the students can access on the books in their respective subject and enjoy reading stories during their spare time. There is also a built in free Wi-Fi connection so the students can look in the internet the information that cannot be found in the library. When the teacher has an audio-visual presentation, they use the library for them to feel comfortable in watching videos and presentation with good sound and well ventilated area. The students are very much equipped with the books, supplementary materials, and multimedia classroom where they can find their needed information for their schooling. The students are also very much exposed on the use of gadgets such as smartphone, tablet, iPod and laptop which they use during the progress of the discussion that’s why the students become interactive and avoid boredom while the teacher is discussing.

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            All in all, materials for learning resources aren’t hard to find that’s why students have less problem in finding their assignments, projects as well as their subject matters because they have a school with good facilities, built-in projectors in each classroom, library, multimedia classroom and free access on the internet.

 

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Measurement and Evaluation System

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            In my first week of observation to my handled class with my cooperating teacher I have observed that the teachers are giving pre-assessment, post-assessment and formative assessment. The students are involved in several assessments like paper and pen test, collaborative activity, presentation and skill-based tests with a corresponding criterion on evaluating their performance.

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            Before the teacher starts her discussion she made sure that the students can recall what were there previous topic all about so there were some sort of graded recitation among the class. Through that, the teacher can assess how far does her students learned and in which does the teacher needs to continue, whether she will be giving more practices for the students’ mastery and development or they have to step up to new topic for them to engage themselves in more complex learning. The students can recall their previous discussion because the teacher provides activities and paper and pen test to see whether they learn or they still have rooms for improvement.

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            The teacher uses pre-assessment at the beginning of the discussion through randomly asking the students about their previous discussing and trying to connect its relevance on the present topic. There are days the students will have a sit-work activity and answer some worksheets and drills on their module. The students submit it to their teacher and the teacher checks their outputs and try to look on the strong and weak points of the students. The students are exposed in oral and written assessment because they are being asked with several questions in which they have to express their opinions and thoughts about that certain topic.

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            Formative assessment comes in the discussion through providing activities to students like; (after the students were taught of a story they have to following questions, say that; who are the characters, what happened to characters. How did the characters overcome their adversaries) in that way, the students can be able to see how much he or she can comprehend on the given story whether she can understand what the story is all about or the students still needs to apply more critical analyzation. Post assessment are given before the class ends, they must fulfill some worksheets as part of their assessment, most of it are all coming from what were taught to them and some are additional items that may develop more their critical analysis and judgement. After that, the teacher records their obtained scores on the test as proof of their achievement and assessment on that subject area.

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            With that I know that the process of the learning of the students are put on high value since the teacher are not just teaching their students with various concept but somehow assessing the students’ performance on the subject matter.         

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Teaching Plan

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            The SMK Tamansiswa has a semester school plan, they are preparing a plan for the entire semester following the module provided by the school. Every discussion is structured for a 1 semester plan so the teachers do a continuous teaching assessment without a particular number of topics per meeting. The discussion per day depends on the time given to them and the lesson and activities that the students accomplish.

           

             The parts of their teaching plan designed for the semester is in structure; a) Identity of the Program, b) Core competence and base competence, c) Achievement competence, d) purpose of the lesson, e) material of the lesson f) approach, strategy and method g) lesson and activity h) tools and lesson media, i) resources and j) evaluation. In that way the teachers plan for the whole semester so they will be able to prepare for what the students must learn and understand. The teacher has the entire control on how she will be able to handle the class most especially the students with low level instead of those advance learners. The was very focused on finding the weakness and strengths of the students especially in their English subjects. Most of the students are not comfortable to use the English language in discourse as well as in written communication. So as I have been seeing them, the teacher would really employ unlocking of difficulties and the use of context clues and most especially code switching technique enabling to understand more their discussion.

           

            The teacher’s preparation varies also on the level of the students’ performance because I have observed that there are students who belongs to higher level, average level, and low level so there will be some adjustments especially in giving assessment and instruction. The teachers, especially in my major field which is English or Bahasa Inggris in their curriculum was taught by the teacher with various techniques and methods depending on the topic. The course has a mixture of language and literature so the students are hitting two birds with one stone and somehow multitasking on the part of literature content and technicalities of grammar. The subject Bahasa Inggris is the subject that is taught only for 3 hours in a week so I have seen the effort of the teachers especially in presenting new ideas and updated instruction that would catch the students interests because the students are lacking motivation in English.

           

            The teachers were very particular in employing the activation of the most basic things that the students must know especially the rules, concept, context as well as the macro skills of the students such as reading, writing, speaking and listening. The teacher within 3 hours per week must be able to develop the receptive and productive skills and try to always incorporate problem solving and critical thinking skills. Basically, I think that was the challenges that teachers face all throughout the course for the students to develop this core competency despite the language barrier.

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