Before I will walk you through on my day to day experiences, I will give you an overview about what I found out in Indonesia in terms of their educational system in my one month stay. More details will be discussed and elaborated if you read my day to day experience.
The School
1.1 School Profile
SMA (Sekolah Menenga Atas) N (Negeri) 1 Baturraden is one of the many senior high schools in Baturraden district. It is located in Jl. Raya Rempoah Timur No.786, Dusun I, Rempoah, Kec. Baturraden, Kabupaten Banyumas, Jawa Tengah 53151, Indonesia. It is the first state owned school that opened in the district which welcomes students from nearby villages every year.
Inside the school is a Masjid (a place for worship for Muslims. Every 12 o'clock, students religiously go to the the prayer room to pray but before they enter the building, they have to wash their hands, feet and face.
Their school buildings is surrounding an open court where students can play sports and do other physical activities as well as their flag Ceremony. Small garden, ponds and huts can be found around the school vicinity that students can enjoy. The roof of the buildings are made of concrete that makes their classrooms cool and fruit bearing trees and flowers were planted around the campus as well.
1.2 Academic Support System
Every after class, students can choose a variety of extra curricular activities that can hone their skills. Such as English club for those students who wants to expand their knowledge and fluency in using the English language, Red Cross Youth Organization that teaches students about first aid and emergency transport, and they also have for sports and music.
1.3 Teaching System
Everyday prior the start of the first subject in the morning, students are required to read any literature book and they have to write a summary and lesson they learned from that book in a literature booklet. As soon as the teacher arrives, everyone of they are done writing and submit it for signature. The teacher starts with a prayer then check the attendance and start the lesson with a question to recall the previous lesson and connecting it to the new lesson. The teacher is using a lecture method which most of the time, she dominates the discussion. In order to know if the students understand the topic, she asks few questions and the students will answer.
1.4 Materials and other Teaching Materials
The school has a library full of books where students can access during school operating hours, a computer laboratory, Music laboratory, Wi-fi network, and many more in which students can use experience. Inside each classroom is a desk shared by 2 students, speaker, CCT camera, projector and a white board. Each student have their own book per subject.
1.5 Measurement and Evaluation
Most of the time students are required to take a traditional pen and paper assessment every preliminary exam, mid-term exam and final exams. Apart from the series of exams from school, students are also required to take the national standardized exam from the national government to know if the student is ready to be promoted to the next level. However, there are also some authentic assessment conducted by the teachers where the basis is a scoring rubric. One thing that I discovered is that for multiple choice, teacher must provide 5 options (a,b,c,d,e) for SMA and for SMP (Junior high school) is only 4 (a,b,c,d) only.
1.6 Curriculum
Unlike in the Philippines that we have 4 years for Junior high school and 2 years for senior high school, Indonesia have equal years for both junior and senior high school which is 3 years each. In Philippines we have different strands in Senior high school like STEM, GAS, HUMMS, ABM and TVL. In Indonesia they have two strands in SMA which is MIPA for math and sciences and IPS for social science. A different school for Technical-Vocational courses for senior high school which is called SMK and another school concentrated on Islamic studies called MA.
1.7 Teaching plan
Teachers in Indonesia normally finishes their lesson plan or teaching plan prior the start of the school year. They compile it like a book and review it prior they will run the lesson. One lesson plan can be equivalent to 3 sessions be cause it is based on how long a topic would take in teaching discussion. I was assigned to teach sociology and one thing that I immediately noticed was the thickness of the lesson plan. The formal of the lesson plan in Indonesia is so detailed and you have to attach the teaching and assessment materials in the appendix. Another thing I noticed are the objectives of the lesson. In social sciences, teachers are required to have 4 objectives where the focus is on K1 - Religion, K2 - Attitude, K3 - Cognitive and K4 - Psychomotor.
What you have read is just the overview of my experience and there are a lot more that I discovered which I will tell in details on my daily blog.In my daily blog you will find the pedagogical contents, teaching plan, teaching practice and my adventure.