STUDENT-CENTRED ACTIVE LEARNING IN BASIC EDUCATION

BACKGROUND

Student-centred active learning has student responsibility and active learning at its heart. This is in contrast to an emphasis on teacher-control and on coverage of curriculum content found in much conventional classroom teaching.

In Indonesian basic education, PAKEM is the term usually applied to active learning in elementary schools. In junior secondary schools, the term CTL (Contextual Teaching and Learning) is commonly applied.

PAKEM is the acronym for Pembelajaran Aktif, Kreatif, Efektif dan Menyenangkan – learning that is Active, Creative, Effective and Joyful.

This document has been prepared as a guide for consultants and facilitators whose background is in management or community development, rather than teaching. It draws extensively on the experience of the USAID Managing Basic Education project (MBE) that operated in East and Central Java from 2003 – 2007).

Figure 1: Some distinctions between student-centred learning and conventional teaching

Student-centred, active learning (e.g., PAKEM / CTL)	Conventional didactic or teacher-centred teaching
Students have responsible role for interacting with teachers and other students, for finding information, for assessing their own work and for participating in planning their learning	Students are usually passive - they have very limited role in planning learning or working with other students. They usually sit in classes, ‘pay attention’ and respond to teacher direction
Emphasis on activity (problem solving, discussion, enquiry-type activities) and on higher-order thinking such as analysis, evaluation, application)	Emphasis on recording or copying information and on lower-order intellectual activities such as recall
Intrinsic motivation to learn (from the learning activities) through interest, curiosity, and responsibility	Extrinsic motivation to learn (from grades, teacher praise and threats or punishment)
Recognises the importance of emotion in learning (the affective domain) – therefore teachers actively promote joy and pleasure in learning	Generally ignores the positive impact of the affective domain and can rely on threats and fear to motivate learning
Focus on learning cooperatively with other students	Individual learning and competition between students
Attitude that learning can occur anywhere is encouraged; learning inside and outside school is stressed	Attitude that learning only occurs in school is developed; textbook learning is stressed
Greater flexibility in arranging learning and teaching facilities (rooms, desks, locations)	Relatively inflexible arrangements (fixed and formal seating in rows in classrooms)
Greater emphasis on a long-term perspective: emphasis on lifelong learning and learning how to learn to face future challenges and changes	Short-term perspective: emphasis on completing set work and passing tests
Assessment of learning (tests and examinations) used to provide students with feedback to help them learn	Little use of the results of the assessment of learning (tests and examinations) is made to support learning

DOES PAKEM & CTL WORK – WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

PAKEM appears to be a superior approach to school learning and teaching in Indonesia than traditional forms of teacher-centred, didactic classroom teaching. This conclusion supporting PAKEM is based on the following factors.

Test Scores

Baseline data on test performance in primary schools has been gathered for MBE and follow-up data has been collected in May 2005 to enable comparisons to be made.

The average scores of the students in the tests for 2004 and 2005 show that: average scores rose in each of the tests except the grade 4 writing test. There were substantial increases in the scores in the grade 4 Bahasa Indonesia reading comprehension test (18.3% increase), grade 5 science test (13.7%) and grade 4 mathematics test (7.3%). The scores in the grade 1 reading test 1 rose slightly (test 1: 4.6%, test 2: 1.6%). The average score in the grade 4 Bahasa Indonesia writing test fell 6.2%. Since children writing in their own words is one of the focuses of the MBE program, this fall is surprising. Investigation indicates that inconsistent marking of the test caused this fall.

In the mathematics test there were significant increases in children’s ability to answer questions which demanded creativity.

We also have access to data from the UNICEF/UNESCO Creating Learning Communities for Children Project (CLCC) which has a similar approach to implementing PAKEM. The following are key findings from CLCC data collected in 2003 and 2004 from the three CLCC schools where PAKEM is being implemented and one non-CLCC school in each of the 15 participating Kabupaten in Central and East Java and Nusa Tenggara. Tests were administered as follows:

Class 1 Reading and writing	Class 4 Bahasa Indonesia
Class 5 Science	Class 4 Mathematics

• Average scores for students in CLCC schools was higher in all classes/subjects than in non CLCC schools
• Average scores for students in CLCC schools improved in all classes/subjects from 2003 to 2004

Further testing data presented by MBE in 2006 demonstrates that there is firm evidence of improvements in student performance in specified classes and in the core subject areas as intended in the stated indicators and targets. Two other points need to be made about the available data.

The first point is that there is no clear evidence that the implementation of PAKEM or CTL is having a negative impact on children's learning achievements, a point made but unsubstantiated by some critics of the approach. In fact, the evidence points in the other, positive direction.

The second point is that the data does not prove causation. This means that it is wrong to say that because of PAKEM or CTL being introduced into schools, academic achievement has improved. The underlying reasons for improvement may be as diverse as increased student effort, parental support, better health and abilities of each successive student cohort or more effective and efficient educational administration in schools as an outcome of the implementation of school-based management.

It must be stressed that test scores are only one indicator and not always the best indicator of the processes and outcomes of school learning. Other indicators are discussed below.

School and Classroom Environment

Both observation of MBE schools and the Annual Progress Monitoring for MBE Phase 1 and 2 Districts in 2004 and 2005 makes it possible to state the following conclusions about project outcomes so far:

• There are great changes in classroom behaviours over the MBE baseline surveys: teachers are providing creative situations that allow students to express themselves, to work in groups and to think of answers rather than repeating memorized information.
• Children are more enthusiastic and relaxed with teachers and visitors.
• Schools and classrooms are showing great improvements: they are generally neat, safe and clean places for children and more attractive due to displays of children’s work.
• Parents and members of the local community are now being invited into classrooms to act as resource persons for active learning.

Student and Teacher Satisfaction with PAKEM/CTL

There is no systematic data for this criterion yet, however, classroom questioning of both teachers and students in MBE schools about their preference for PAKEM or traditional teaching reveals a strong preference for PAKEM. Reasons given include improved learning (teachers), a preference for learning with friends (students), and a more enjoyable environment (both teachers and students). From another project implementing PAKEM in Flores, there was evidence that the introduction of PAKEM decreased drop out rates and increased return-to-school rates because students found the new environment less threatening.

Conclusions on the Effectiveness of PAKEM/CTL

There is not yet sufficient data available to prove conclusively the superiority of PAKEM/CTL over traditional forms of teaching and learning. Equally, there is no data that proves the inferiority of PAKEM/CTL. The safest conclusion that can be made at this time is that elementary schools implementing PAKEM are showing strong signs of improved academic performance at the grade levels tested. There are strong indications of improved school and classroom learning environments. There are higher levels of both teacher and student enthusiasm and satisfaction with being in PAKEM schools. These findings can lead us to conclude that there are clear signs of an improvement in the quality of the approaches used to learning and teaching – away from surface learning and towards deeper levels of understanding, towards improved academic outcomes, and towards a more enjoyable learning environment for both students and teachers.

WHAT IS DEEP AND SURFACE LEARNING - HOW DO STUDENTS LEARN?

Why is learning theory and research necessary in practical project work?

An understanding of the theory and research supporting PAKEM and CTL is essential. It is essential for three reasons. First, teachers must understand the foundations of what they are doing and why they are doing it, otherwise their professional work can be ‘directionless’. Second, it is essential so that problems encountered in the implementation of PAKEM/CTL can be solved independently and in a logical way by reference to this theory and research. Thirdly, all consultants and teachers must be able to explain to other stakeholders what they are doing and why. They can best do this if they have a good theoretical understanding.

The Theory and Research on Student Learning

Research is showing that students have distinctive approaches to learning. We know these approaches are influenced by factors which we can influence through the implementation of PAKEM. These factors include the school and its values, the characteristics of the curriculum, the assessment procedures, and the teacher’s approach to teaching (a characteristic discussed below). The total effect of these factors is to influence students’ awareness of their context and the learning approach that is expected of them. Students can be observed to use one of two main approaches to learning, called a surface approach or a deep approach.

Students adopting a surface approach are often anxious about what they have to learn and are often motivated by a fear of tests and of failure. Anxiety, fear of failure and low self-esteem are associated with surface approaches. Surface approach students focus on memorisation without understanding and on reproducing material on demand in the classroom or in a test. The learning outcome is short-term memorisation of information, rapid forgetting and a superficial level of understanding.

Students adopting a deep approach are motivated by an interest in the subject matter and a need to understand it. In PAKEM and CTL, students are encouraged to develop higher-level thinking skills such as analysis and application. They undertake active construction of learning through relevant practical activities, by using books and other materials, by actively questioning ‘the facts’, by expressing themselves in their own words and by learning in small groups.

There is a relationship between a teacher’s approach to teaching and the quality of student learning outcomes. There are teachers who believe their work is to cover the subject systematically by transmitting content to students. Failure to learn the subject is seen to be the fault of the student. Teachers who have this approach to their teaching are likely to encourage surface learning approaches among their students.

Then there are teachers who believe that what is most important is assisting student understanding. They focus on what the students do and what learning outcomes result from student activity. These teachers give helpful feedback on learning[i]. They encourage questioning and analysis. Student failure to learn is considered a possible result of a failure in the education system, maybe in the way in which the curriculum or assessment was implemented, not as a result some kind of problem or ‘deficit’ in students. Teachers who describe their teaching as a student-focused approach are less likely to encourage surface learning approaches among students. Finally, very recent research is showing that these teachers are also more likely to change and develop their own professional understanding of the subjects they teach.

Figure 2: Deep and Surface Learning Approaches: A Summary

Surface learning approaches are encouraged by:	Deep learning approaches are encouraged by:
Teaching and assessment methods that stress and reward recall.	Teaching and assessment methods that require active involvement in realistic learning tasks.
Assessment methods that create anxiety. Reliance on badly constructed multiple choice and true-false testing.	Emphasis on formative assessment; threat eliminated or reduced Wider range of valid testing methods used.
An excessive amount of material in the curriculum; a focus on “coverage of content” (but often with limited regard for understanding or application).	Teaching that demonstrates teachers’ commitment to good levels of student understanding and application of a reasonable amount of material.
Little or no feedback on progress.	Frequent, helpful and useable feedback.*
Extrinsic motivation – threats, examinations, and competition between students.	Intrinsic motivation based on curiosity, challenge, cooperative learning, recognition and low threat
Little opportunity to learn with others.	Opportunities to learn with other students and with resource persons (including parents) from the community.
Emphasis on repetition and recall.	Emphasis on thinking and problem-solving.
Teachers who believe their subject is straightforward.	Teachers who believe their subject is ‘problematic’ (not straightforward or can be challenged and questioned).

---

[i] In a report that draws on over 500,000 studies of the influences on student achievement, feedback stands out as the single most powerful influence. See: John Hattie, Teachers make a difference: what is the research evidence? Melbourne, Australian Council of Educational Research, October, 2003. Available: www.acer.edu.au/workshops/documents/Teachers_Make_a_Difference_Hattie.pdf

DISEASES OF EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

*Please send information about new diseases to cannon@indo.net.id

You probably think that educational development is a theoretical construct that exists “out there”, don’t you? Let me assure you that educational development has life; it lives and dies, and experiences bouts of robust good health and debilitating disease like other living organisms.

In human beings, "disease" is often used to refer to a condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, and possibly death to the person afflicted, or similar problems for those in contact with the person.

My first encounter with the disease concept as it affects education was from an illuminating paper by one of the doyens of medical education, Stephen Abrahamson. In this pioneering work, titled Diseases of the Curriculum, Professor Abrahamson identified 13 pathological disorders, many of which, despite recent advances in treatment, remain today. Not only that, they seem to have spread to the broader field of educational development and, in particular, to the field I now work in, which is education in developing countries. There are striking parallels between developing educational quality in a university and in large educational systems.

What follows is a light-hearted description of my observations of diseases in the field of educational development, but with a serious intent. The focus is largely on the systems meant to be supporting development – the donors, project implementing contractors, development centres, academics and consultants.

In development work, Blurred Vision is best summed up as not seeing the wood for the trees (or vice versa) or having a distorted perception of reality. Philip Jones makes the important point in an analysis of commitments to enrol all children in school by asking what is the value of getting kids into really poor quality schools that may actually damage children’s experience of learning (Jones, 2008). In other words, the apparently sensible ‘vision’ of enrolling all children in school is blurred by a failure to consider what is actually going on in so many of them.

Blurred Vision was common in the early years of higher education development. It manifested itself in many ways. In universities, often unsupportive of the idea of improving learning and teaching, some educational developers’ vision became blurred as they sought to build acceptance by a tendency to focus on either too many things at once or the wrong things exclusively, leading to weakened capacity, perceptions of irrelevance by others, and even to the death of at least one educational development centre.

An extraordinary faith in educational technology at that time was manifested in the vision that if only everyone would use the OHP[1] properly, the quality of lectures would improve and, ergo, the overall quality of university education would improve! That disease appeared to have been cured with the demise of the OHP only to reappear again with the spread of PowerPoint.

Pragmatic Language Impairment (PLI) is a disorder where people face special challenges with the semantic aspects and appropriate use of language. It can display as pathological talkativeness, deficient access to vocabulary, and atypical choice of terms.

Language is fundamental to communication. But academics are often not clear in what they are communicating in educational development. It is as if language has mutated into some kind of verbal ‘ritual dance’ among an increasing number of specialists. It is well to remember, as my English teacher was fond of saying, that the word ‘jargon’ derives from late-middle English where it meant a twittering or gibberish.

Now working in Indonesia, where English is not the first language, but nevertheless used extensively in education, encouraging the use of clear language is essential. It is a sad loss to development that so much written English these days does not communicate its meanings at all clearly to huge numbers of potential readers here. I really do not understand why professional educators write such convoluted material that clogs too many journals today, effectively rendering them completely inaccessible to non-native users of English. At a time when much attention is given to the idea of inclusion in education, far too much written English excludes potential audiences. This phenomenon is linked to Development Schizophrenia (see below).

PLI is a disease that afflicted me early in my academic career. A vigilant editor committed to the extraordinary goal of clear writing effectively treated me. Brief bouts of recurrent PLI emerged a little later but these were firmly dealt with by uncomprehending medical educators who, at the time, had an aversion to language that included such awful educational jargon such as ‘behavioural objectives’ and ‘cognitive’. PLI is like contracting malaria; you can recover but will sometimes experience a relapse.

My treatment regime for PLI was so effective that I set out on my own campaign to publicly denounce the inappropriate use of the term ‘pedagogy’ in higher education, insisting that writers desist from using it because of its etymology and sexist connotations (Cannon, 2001). I have to report that in this campaign I was a spectacular failure, as the increasingly frequent use of ‘pedagogy’ in today’s literature on teaching in higher education testifies.

PLI, sadly, often occurs concurrently with blurred vision. This results in individuals and organisations, not knowing where they are, where they are going, and completely incapable of asking for directions.

Often found to co-exist with PLI, Development Echolalia is the repetition of vocalizations made by another person or the repetition of nonsense syllables and acronyms. The development community finds practitioners doing the same in response to information overload. Having myself just grasped the idea of ‘knowledge sharing’, I now find this may be an outdated concept already supplanted by the new idea of ‘knowledge translation’ (Knowledge Translation, 2008)! It is, of course bad academic practice not to explain acronyms, but please excuse this brief list normally encountered on any working day in educational development in Indonesia: PAKEM, SBM, SPM, SISWA, SWAp, MGPBE, BEC-TF, MoNE, MoRA, BERMUTU, POM, PAM, PIM and a few rather ordinary ones you may know about such as ADB, UNICEF, UNESCO, JICA, GTZ, EU, EC, AusAID and USAID.

Sadly, Development Echolalia has been known to lead to paralysis. This point is illustrated by the wonderful Indonesian interpretation of the acronym that summarises all this nicely – NATO: ‘No Action Talk Only’.

A good medical dictionary will tell you that those afflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) are self-centred, exaggerate their talents, set unrealistic goals and may take advantage of others to achieve these goals. There is an inability to recognize or identify with the viewpoints of others - particularly those with specialist training and experience in the field.

Given high levels of school participation these days, almost everyone seems to know exactly how to manage education, construct curriculum and how to teach. Opinion pieces in The Australian newspaper often demonstrate evidence of NPD in the alarming confidence that journalists have in their own judgements about complex educational issues such as curriculum and performance ranking of schools.

Government Ministers of Education suffer from this disease acutely and, according to reports, so do some Vice Chancellors and their Deputies. Incredibly, NPD is transmitted instantaneously when a prime minster allocates ministerial portfolios following an election. It astonishes me that no one has ever thought to do research into this instant acquisition of expertise. Think of the time and money to be saved on education if we could exploit the transmission of this disease. Instead of the inconvenience of going to school and university, students would be inoculated with NPD to become instant experts. It adds a new dimension to the idea of the ‘inoculation theory of education’ attributable to Postman and Weingartner, in their book Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Penguin, 1971.

Atherosclerosis is a disease in which blood vessels that carry oxygenated blood from the heart to other parts of the body, become narrowed, and calcified. As the flow of blood to the affected organs is restricted, heart attack or stroke may result. Observation suggests a strong similarity between this medical condition with occurrences in various educational and development organisations. Administrative Atherosclerosis is a disorder in which the management processes of an organisation - the rules, regulations, processes, and accountability requirements - form a plaque of unread reports, submissions, budget documents and strategic plans. This plaque eventually blocks the whole administrative process, causing disease and possible death to the service-delivery organs of development implementation that the bureaucracy was actually meant to be sustaining in the first place. Ultimately, the whole organisation is weakened and dies. This disease is particularly prevalent in universities and countries like Indonesia. It is thought that the condition may be a clinical reaction to an over-dose of mistrust and otherwise well-intentioned administrative actions to improve governance, planning, budgeting, monitoring, accountability, occupational health and safety, knowledge sharing, performance management, good practices, professional development and equity. Whether the primary cause of it in Indonesia is heat or corruption is not clear. What is clear is that there is a very strong link to Blurred Vision (see above).

Development Hypochondriasis is described as a condition where an abnormal anxiety about the health of education is manifested in frequent trips to the ‘doctor’; this is also known as Development Dependency.

This disease has two forms. One is at the institutional level. In this form of the disease we can see signs in the number of reviews of higher education in Australia. An interesting research exercise would be to count the number of higher education reviews by government since the Murray Report in the 1950’s until the present Bradley Review. In Indonesia, we found in a recent review conducted for the World Bank (Cannon and Arlianti, 2008) that there had been 35 different projects to improve the quality of basic education since 1998. Another measure of Development Hypochondriasis is that just one donor among many, the Asian Development Bank, had funded 20 different projects between 1975 – 1992 to the tune of US$981 million. The Bank has also been very busy since then deepening the dependency.

There is evidence of Development Hypochondriasis occurring at the personal level as well. I am sure that anyone who has provided support services to academics will be familiar with the small number of people who make frequent visits to centres to check up on their teaching or this or that issue that has emerged and who also usually attend most workshops. Remedies for this disease are unknown. It is believed that research to investigate the condition is systematically blocked by interests wishing to ensure that things remain exactly as they are.

Then there is Development Schizophrenia, which is the breakdown between thought and behaviour and withdrawal from reality. A bad case of this disease was identified in a development project in Indonesia designed to demonstrate ‘demand-based funding’ in a bottom-up, decentralised context. But this project then actually gave money in a top-down, centralised manner for expenditure on items strictly specified from the top!

And finally, Development Diarrhoea is a disease worthy of mention. An incredible outpouring of publications, many of dubious quality, manifests this disease. Not content to treat Development Diarrhoea, educational institutions and development agencies seem to be actually encouraging it by demanding ever more ‘reports’, pouring larger amounts of money at it, and even promoting staff on the volume of their productive efforts.

I can conclude these light-hearted musings in no better way than to apply two serious points made by Stephen Abrahamson in his analysis of disease. The first point is that there is no systematic data collection of development efforts in Indonesian education and related pathologies. In the absence of data, the space is filled with internal reports, opinion, and rhetoric aimed at sustaining treasured points of view, and defending the status quo. With accurate data we begin a process of a more reasoned approach to giving kids the chance of a better education.

The second and final point, as Abrahamson notes, is that humankind survived millennia without understanding diseases and their causes. But in today’s knowledge society it is no longer acceptable to plough on without a sound, research-based understanding of the pathological processes of educational development, processes for which we all share some responsibility.

References

Abrahamson, S. (1996). Diseases of the Curriculum. Chapter IV, in: Essays on Medical Education. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, pp. 39-59.

Cannon, R.A. (2001). Pedagogy: A Point of View. Teaching in Higher Education, 6, (3), 415 - 419.

Cannon, R.A. and Arlianti, R. (2008). Review of Education Development Models. Report prepared for The World Bank, Jakarta, 30 November 2008. (Available from the author.)

Jones, P.W. (2008). The Impossible Dream: Education and the MDGs. Harvard Educational Review, Fall, 34 – 38.

Knowledge Translation; A Research Matters Toolkit. (2008). IDRC, Research Matters and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Ottawa. Available: ww.reseach-matters.net. Accessed 3 March 2009.

---

[1] For those too young and innocent, an OHP or Overhead Projector, is a device for projecting images onto a screen behind the teacher.