E-Reflection of PETA (#1)

Are You an Effective Teacher?

“.........One of the most difficult tasks in education today is defining an effective teacher.” (Borich, 2004).

            Well, it is not easy to define what an effective teacher is. Even though, let’s try to identify at least the characteristic(s) that perhaps belong to an effective teacher. By doing that, hopefully we will always try to become an effective teacher. 

            The word effective itself actually means achieving result that you want (Cambridge Dictionary). So then, what result that a teacher should expect actually? If we are here talking about Indonesian context, I think better we refer to UU No. 20 Th. 2003 about National Education System (Indonesian: Sistem Pendidikan Nasional). We will conclude the purposes of national education. The purpose here means what result we want to achieve through education. There are three main fields: cognitive, affective and psychomotoric.

            A cognitive skill usually related with how students think, understand and learn (Cambridge Dictionary).  It means that the teacher needs to be able to share the knowledge about subject materials that student learn. By achieving the cognitive skills it means students have met the qualifications that will be useful for them.

            An affective skill refers to how students show their daily attitude or behavior to people around them. It usually related with good or bad characteristics of someone, such as diligent, discipline, honesty, care with everyone and so on.

            The third skill is psychomotoric. It usually related with applying or using our knowledge to solve the real case or problem in our daily live. It also refers to how the students do something based on their knowledge. In school context, this skill commonly find in some subject, such as Pendidikan Jasmani dan Olahraga, Electricity, Bahasa Indonesia, etc.

            In conclusion, I think an effective teacher is a teacher that always strives to teach the students in order to attain those three skills. It is like what many academicians said that teachers not only deal with teaching students, but also deal with understanding students’ characteristics. Wish I will get more manners how to become a truly effective teacher through learning Principles of Effective Teaching and Assessment (PETA). I think it is possible to get basic knowledge about what an effective teacher is and how to attain that “prestigious title” in this PETA class. Let’s strive to become the new generation of effective teachers…! ^_^