Counselor-Perceived Teacher Actions Needed to Carry out Educational and Vocational Guidance in Secondary Schools in Spain

After analyzing the scientific literature referring to guiding actions developed in secondary education, there is an appreciable lack of research on process efficiency performed by teachers. This study explores the practice of tutoring, which in Spain is coordinated by counselors but the responsibility of teachers. An ad hoc semistructured questionnaire was designed, validated and applied within the framework of a collaboration agreement between professional institutions of counselors and researchers. The questionnaire was answered by 102 counselors who are heads of guidance departments because the insight of counseling experts was desired. The quantitative and qualitative data analyses indicated correlations between the profile of the counselors and the performance of tutoring, described the content and predominant intervention models and identified needs for improvement. A much more intensive and direct intervention by counselors is necessary in a system in which teachers are not trained enough and time dedicated to tutorial action is deficient. Notably, counselors coordinate and supervise tutoring, but they feel overwhelmed by the lack of concrete norms and their workload.

Strategies to Cope With Students’ Discipline Problems in Senior High School

The article deals with the strategies implemented by teachers in facilitating the students to comply with the rules. The study aims at identifying the discipline problems faced by teachers and describing the strategies they employ to cope with the discipline problems. The study employed qualitative approach in which the researchers used questionnaire and interview to collect the data. The participants were high school teachers and students of 10 schools in Central Java, Indonesia from various backgrounds: public, private, Islam-based public, Islam-affiliated private, Islam-based dormitory. The interview script became the primary source for interpreting and analyzing data. The findings revealed that the most common discipline problems faced by the teachers were noisy classroom, wrong/incomplete attributes and unpunctuality. The strategies applied by the teachers to cope with the students were corrective, assertive, and preventive disciplines. The teachers should improve the quality in maintaining the classroom discipline by creating a conducive classroom and involving the students in setting the classroom rules, such as attendance, learning participation, students and teacher actions, and assessment.

EFFORTS TO IMPROVE STUDENT CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN IPS LEARNING THROUGH THINK PAIR SHARE TYPE DISCUSSION METHOD

This research is motivated by learning methods that still apply conventional methods so as to limit the development of students' abilities and skills. This study seeks to improve students' critical thinking skills through the learning method of think pair share. The research was carried out at SMPN 5 Singingi with class VII.2 subjects as many as 24 students. The study design uses classroom action research. The instrument used was a teacher and student action observation sheet and a test of critical thinking skills. The results showed an increase in teacher actions in the first cycle with a percentage of 72% with the category quite increased in the second cycle to 83% with a good category, increased student activity from cycle I by 75% with enough categories in the second cycle to 88% which is a good category, and the results of critical thinking skills test students in the first cycle 65% with a good category increased in the second cycle to 77% which is included in the good category. The conclusion of this research is the think pair share method can improve the critical thinking skills of students in class VII.2 of SMPN 5 Singingi.

UPAYA MENINGKATKAN AKTIVITAS BELAJAR SISWA MELALUI METODE DEMONSTRASI PADA SD NEGERI 42 MANDAU

This research is motivated by student activities that are still low so the purpose of this study is an effort to increase student activity in learning. One of the actions taken by the researcher is through the demonstration method. This research is a classroom action research conducted on grade I students of SDN 42 Mandau with a total of 23 students. Data were collected using an observation sheet to observe teacher actions and student activities. The results showed that the demonstration method can increase the learning activities of 42 Mandau elementary school students with a percentage of teacher action by 56% and 59% of student activities included in the sufficient category in the first cycle. Then an increase in the second cycle with the percentage of teacher action by 79% and 80% of student activities belonging to either category.