Action Research on the Implementation of Active Learning at an Elementary School in Aceh

Abstract

Teachers in the state elementary schools and state Islamic elementary schools of the Indonesian province of Aceh have been trained repeatedly over the past several years on a variety of educational reform initiatives. One of the most important of these has been the effort to promote teaching for active learning in Acehnese schools. Research in other countries, and past experience with teacher training efforts in Aceh, suggest that such a transformation in classroom practice will not be easy. In order to investigate whether and how teachers were transferring their training in active learning into actual classroom practice, a team of lecturers from three universities in Banda Aceh conducted an action research project in one state elementary school. We found that teachers’, principals’, and school supervisors’ understanding of teaching for active learning remained extremely tentative months after receiving training in active learning, and their tentative understanding prevented their active experimentation with what they had learned. A brief retraining session focused on arriving at a common understanding of the concept, committed school leadership, and learning from peers appeared to have a significant impact on teachers’ willingness and ability to try to teach for active learning. Key Words: Active Learning, Action Research, Aceh, Elementary Schools