Secondary School Science Teacher Response to Minimum Competency Assessment: Challenges and Opportunities

Teachers have an essential role in preparing students for Minimum Competency Assessment (MCA) or Asesmen Kompetensi Minimum (AKM). It takes preparation, readiness, and a good teacher's perception of the AKM so that the implementation of this program goes well. This study aims to analyze teachers' perceptions in secondary schools related to the opportunities and challenges of implementing AKM. A total of 66 secondary school science teachers participated as respondents in this study. Respondents in this study were randomly selected based on their willingness to fill out a given survey. The data collection instruments were six open-ended questions. This instrument is distributed online using Google Forms. The data obtained were then analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The results of this study reveal that the majority of science teachers have the perception that AKM policy is appropriate and suitable for implementation. However, the availability of supporting facilities and ICT literacy of students and teachers is considered a challenge that must be met. On the other hand, AKM and National Assessment (NA) are considered opportunities to improve the quality of education both nationally and locally in schools. This research is expected to reference the perception of science teachers about the challenges and opportunities for implementing AKM policies in junior high schools

Design My Music Instrument: A Project-Based Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics Program on The Development of Creativity

Creativity is an essential factor in ensuring the sustainable development of a society. Improving students’ creativity has gained much attention in education, especially in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) education. In a quasi-experimental design, this study examines the effectiveness of a project-based STEAM program on the development of creativity in Chinese elementary school science education. We selected two fourth-graders classes. One received a project-based STEAM program (the experimental group, n = 33), and the other received a conventional science teaching (the control group, n = 33) over 6 weeks. Students’ creativity was assessed before and after the intervention using a multi-method approach, including a test of divergent thinking, a story completion through the Consensus Assessment Technique (CAT), a creative self-efficacy (CSE) measure, and a group-based creative project. Moreover, all students received a test of their science knowledge after the intervention. The results showed that compared with the control group, the creativity of the experimental group students improved significantly for 6 weeks at both individual and group level, even though their knowledge in science were comparable. This result confirmed the effectiveness of a project-based STEAM educational program improving elementary school students’ creativity. Implications are discussed.

Clemson University's Teacher Learning Progression Program

This chapter provides an overview of Clemson University's Teacher Learning Progression program, which offers participating middle school science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics (STEM) teachers with personalized advanced credentials. In contrast to typical professional development (PD) approaches, this program identifies individualized pathways for PD based on teachers' unique interests and needs and offers PD options through the use of a “recommender system”—a system providing context-specific recommendations to guide teachers toward the identification of preferred PD pathways and content. In this chapter, the authors introduce the program and highlight (1) the data collection and instrumentation needed to make personalized PD recommendations, (2) the recommender system, and (3) the personalized advanced credential options. The authors also discuss lessons learned through initial stages of project implementation and consider future directions for the use of recommender systems to support teacher PD, considering both research and applied implications and settings.

Investigation of Infographic Design and Summarizing Processes from the Biology Texts of Primary School Students in Terms of Different Variables

Technological developments have increased the importance of presenting and the processing of information as effective and memorable in the field of education. The aim of the study is to examine the effect of performing biology subjects in the elementary school science lessons with infographic design tasks in terms of the effects on students’ cognitive structures and knowledge levels in the learning - teaching process. As the research method was used the pretest-posttest control group design from the experimental research models. The sample of the research consists of 4th grade students of a primary school. The total of 48 students were studied from two different classes, each of 24 students including in the study. Word Association Test (WAT) and achievement Test were used as data collection tools. Mann Whitney U test and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test from non-parametric tests were used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the analyzes, it was seen that the students who carried out the infographic design activities were positively affected in terms of their cognitive structures.

Instructional Leadership Capacity of Secondary School Science Heads of Department in Gauteng, South Africa

Natural sciences (NS) is an amalgam of five science disciplines, but the teachers of this subject are usually generalists, or have specialised in a maximum of two of the disciplines. This poses a major challenge to heads of department (HoDs), who are expected to lead instruction in these disciplines. We investigate science HoDs’ capacity to provide instructional leadership in South African secondary schools. The study was quantitative in nature and adopted the survey design. The investigation involved 77 secondary schools out of the 243 schools in the Gauteng province of South Africa. A data set from 142 participants (HoDs = 30; teachers = 112) was used to explore the capacity of science HoDs to provide instructional leadership in secondary schools, using questionnaires. The findings suggest that the capacity of science HoDs to lead instruction is limited by their inability to differentiate between curriculum management and instructional leadership and the relatively insufficient time allocated to provide instructional leadership. Unless schools and local district offices review the grouping of subjects in science departments and in the allocation of natural science teachers and HoDs, much stronger subject-based instructional leadership may potentially continue to remain a mirage. We recommend more focused subject-specific training in natural sciences for both teachers and HoDs, and that leadership should be distributed along science disciplines.

Indonesian High School Learners’ Fear of Negative Evaluation and Ought-to L2 Self

The study aimed to investigate the Indonesian high school science learners’ Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE), which is a second language (L2) anxiety construct, Ought to L2 Self (OL2S), an L2 motivation construct, and the relationship between FNE and OL2S. The study employed a survey method with 190 learners from a private high school participating in it. Based on the descriptive statistics, the learners generally had a moderate level of FNE and OL2S. The FNE analysis showed that they had self-perception of low English competence and were afraid to speak without preparation. In OL2S, the analysis suggested that the learners believed that people around them did not consider their English mastery a priority. Through correlation formula, the study found a positive yet weak correlation between learners’ FNE and their OL2S. It suggested that the higher learners’ FNE, the higher they perceived responsibility to avoid negative outcomes. Besides, the finding also suggested that English instruction could be designed in such a way to attract the interest of learners from non-English language streams to give their best and promote active collaboration to lessen self-comparison among them. The limitations and contributions of the study were also discussed to provide possible directions for future studies.