Applying Mastery Learning Model In Developing E-Tuition Science For Primary School Students

Transcription

1 Malaysian Online Journal of Instructional Technology (MOJIT) Vol. 3, No.2, pp August 2006 ISSN 1823:1144 Applying Mastery Learning Model In Developing E-Tuition Science For Primary School Students Norjihan Abdul Ghani, Norhana Hamim, Noor Irmayanti Ishak Information Science Department University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Abstract Learning is one of the most important necessities of the life. In the traditional classroom, every individual, being a part of a group where the teachers will conduct the class session. The emerging of the world wide web, people are taking advantaged of using it as a medium of teaching and learning. In Malaysia, science is one of the core subjects for upper level in primary school. It has been taught and will be tested during the national Primary School Evaluation Examination (UPSR). There is no such easy way how to deliver the knowledge to students so they can understand the lesson taught. This paper describes a development of e-tuition Science for UPSR students by applying the mastery learning model. It has been developed in order to help teacher and students in the teaching and learning process. The main aim is to make sure that students get the knowledge transferred by the teachers. INTRODUCTION The traditional teaching and learning model of science curriculum are emphasised the transmission of factual data and skills from a teacher to a students. It is based on the concept of scientific knowledge as a stockable and transferable entity. It is also based on the construct of knowledge as being certain (Drane 2000). This is refers to traditional classroom. Traditional classroom is defined by face-to-face or traditional classroom describes the most common classroom-type environment. These terms describe students who regularly attend classes in the traditional classroom environment. Students may or may not also participate in other types of educational delivery. This environment can include lectures, discussions, laboratories and others. The emerging of the new technology called electronic learning, the traditional classroom were established with online classroom. Online classroom is an online learning that occurs through Webbased delivery. Online courses provide interaction between the student and the content, the student and other students, and the student and the instructor using various forms of computer mediated communication (CMC). Online classroom has been introduced in primary and secondary level of education system in Malaysia. Malaysian s educators are taking advantage of World Wide Web to deliver the information to their students. Today, most online learning courses are no more than sophisticated correspondence courses, in which lone students in front of computers take in a certain amount of information transmitted via the internet (Hamada & Scott, 2001). This paper will discuss in applying the mastery learning model in developing e-tuition Science for UPSR students.

2 SCIENCE FOR PRIMARY STUDENT Science plays an important role in our life. Science is a core subject in the curriculum for students in primary and secondary school. In Malaysia s school, it comprises science for primary, science for secondary, biology, physics, and chemistry. Science is a compulsory subject for all primary and secondary students. In primary school, Science has been taught to all students from standard four to six and it will be tested during Primary School Evaluation Test (UPSR). The main aim of science for the primary students it to introduce the foundation for building a society that is culturally scientific and technological, caring, dynamic and progressive. The content of Science for primary school is focus on basic areas of Science itself. The basic knowledge of the primary school science subject (standard four to six) is organized around five areas of study, as shown in Table 1. Emphasis is given on the mastery of scientific skills needed to study and understand the world. Scientific skills refer to process skills and manipulative skills (Syarifah, 2003). Previously, the medium of instruction for Science in Malaysia was Bahasa Malaysia. After recent years, it was changed to English starting from June Currently, a lot of students feel that Science is one of the most difficult subjects to learn and understand. Students hate learning Science. One of the major factors why students don t like Science is some of the teachers use a learning method which is out to date. Teachers are used a traditional method of teaching, giving an information and students received an information. It s one way communication. Besides that, using English as a medium of instruction make students feel more difficult to understand the lesson. They need to know English first before understand the lessons. Because of this reason, Datuk Ir Lee Yee Cheong, Chairman of International Conference Committee suggests that: teacher need to introduce a new techniques in order to attract students to love learning Science teaching method should be parallel with the emerging of science and technology. Teacher should use a teaching aid which is easy to understand. From Table 1, we can conclude that the process of learning for each topic is continued from standard four to five and from standard five to six. Because of the reason, there s a need to choose a suitable method of delivery the knowledge from teacher to students. The selected medium of knowledge transformation should be suitable to apply in the subject. Table 1: Content of the Primary Science Curriculum (Syarifah, 2003) Investigating.. Year 4 The living world Variety of life in nature Features and characteristics of animals and plants The basic needs of animals and plants Life processes in The physical world length area volume How time is measured Objects have weight The material world Natural and synthetic Variety of in nature Physical properties of and its uses Earth and the universe The earth-its shape, size and gravitational pull The earth s surface The sun-its shape and size Heat and light from the sun The world of technology Knowing technology Development in transportation, communication, agriculture and buildings Inventors and their contributors 44

3 Year 5 Year 6 animals and plants How animals and plants survive The food chain The food web Competition-a form of interaction between living things Man s role towards living things How man differs from other life forms Properties of magnets Electric current in a complete circuit Sources of electrical energy Electrical energy transformations Heat energy and its effects temperature Properties of lights Light can travel through some Sound The effects of forces Moving objects Solid, liquid, and gas How behave when heated and cooled Clouds and rain Chemical properties of Rust Preventing rust The need to prevent rust Preserving food Waste disposal and its effects on the environment Recycling waste Why recycle? The moon-its shape, size and surface The earthmoon distance Natural phenomenon on Earth Night and day Moon phases The beauty of the night Solar and Lunar eclipse The Solar System Constellations The grandness of the universe Strength and stability of structures Designing a structure Simple machines and their functions Designing tools and devices Appreciating technology MASTERY LEARNING The mastery learning model states that most children can achieve a high degree of learning if two conditions are met (Dale, et. al, 1982). First, each learner must be given sufficient time to master every learning steps in instructional sequence. Second, children must be given remedial help whenever a step is not mastered. The mastery learning model, it is aimed at providing appropriate learning environments by considering the individual differences of the students so that they do not hinder the target learning activity. During the 1960's Bloom's (1968), learning for mastery focused new attention on the philosophy of mastery learning. Bloom (1968) is now generally recognized as the classic theoretical formulation on the mastery model. According to Bloom, the mastery learning theory is based on the idea that Cognitive Introduction Behaviors (i.e. pre-learning which is assumed to be necessary for learning a unit) which are the students characteristics, Emotional Introduction Features (the level of motivation to learn the unit) and the quality of teaching activity are the basic indicators of learning output. The variables clue, reinforcement, student s participation, feedback and correction, which Bloom described as the quality of teaching activity, explain the activities which are prepared by the teacher to enable mastery learning. The variables of mastery learning are shown in Figure 1. 45

4 Cognitive Entry Behaviour Affective Entry Characteristics Student Learning Learning Outcomes (Level and Type of Achievement, rate of Learning, Affective Outcomes Quality of Instruction Figure 1: The Variables of Mastery Learning (Wong, 2002) Mastery learning is an instructional strategy based on the principle that all students can learn a set of reasonable objectives with appropriate instruction and sufficient time to learn. Mastery Learning puts the techniques of tutoring and individualized instruction into a group learning situation and brings the learning strategies of successful students to nearly all the students of a given group. In its full form it includes a philosophy, curriculum structure, instructional model, the alignment of student assessment, and a teaching approach. There are three aspects how mastery learning can affect education (Cohen, et. al., 2002: Curriculum : mastery learning doesn t focus on content, but on the process of mastering it. This type of learning works best with the traditional content-focused curriculum, one based on well-defined learning objectives organized into smaller, sequentially organized units. Instruction : this strategy captures many of the elements of successful tutoring and the independent functionality seen in high-end students. In a mastery learning environment, the teacher also provides direct a variety of group-based instructional techniques. The teacher also provides frequent and specific feedback by using diagnostic, formative tests, as well as regularly correcting mistakes students make along their learning path. Assessment : teachers evaluate students with criterion-referenced tests rather than normreferenced tests. Mastery learning ensures numerous feedback loops, based on small units of well-defined, appropriately sequenced outcomes. E-TUITION SCIENCE FOR UPSR WEBSITE This website is designed for standard four to six students at the primary school. It was developed with a combination of two parts: covers all the contents of Science for Standard four to six as explained in Table 1 apply the mastery learning model in the content development. The main focus of this development is to provide students with a helpful website in order to replace a traditional tuition available today. Specifically, the website contains four main elements which are Notes, Exercises and Quizzes, and Glossary. See Table 2. 46

5 Table 2 : Three elements in the e-tuition Science s Website Element Notes Exercises and Quizzes Glossary Description Covers all notes based on the content of the primary school science curriculum. It was organized based on year and topic. For each of the topic, there is also a video to show an experiment. Each topic begins with the explaining the objectives and learning outcomes for the topic. All the notes are strictly covers the Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Rendah (KBSR). At the end of the chapter, students are allowed to do an exercise. A number of questions are randomly picked from a database. After answering the questions, students will automatically know whether it s correct or wrong. There are 3 types of questions for each topic : multiple choice questions, short answer questions, and true-false questions. For the quizzes, students are given a set of questions and need to answer each of the questions in a given time. At the end of the quiz session, the marks will appear. So, the students can know and measure their knowledge. The questions provided range from various types based on Bloom taxonomy. The website provides a list of glossary. The purpose of the glossary is to help students to know all the terms available in the Science world. For the selected terms, there is also provides a picture or video to explain the terms. The learning session for each of the topic will start by the instructor will explain the objectives of the topic, then it will starts with the explaining the material using the online website. Once they finish exploring the lesson, they can go back to the previous one if they don t fully understand. The instructor will guide students in their way of learning. At the end of the session, after students understand with the lessons, then instructor will finish it up with the learning outcomes or summary for the topic. Overall, the mastery learning model has been applied in the website by the following steps: clearly state the objectives representing the purposes of the course. the curriculum is divided into relatively small learning units, each with their own objectives and assessment. learning and instructional strategies are identified; teaching, modeling, practice, formative evaluation, re-teaching, reinforcement, and summative evaluation are included. each unit is preceded by brief diagnostic tests, or formative assessments the results of formative tests are used to provide supplementary instruction, or corrective activities to help the learner overcome problems. The e-tuition Science for UPSR website covers the entire three main components in the mastery learning model which are : curriculum : when the learning session starts, teacher will explain the objectives should be gained by the students for the lesson. Then, after explaining the theory for the topic, 47

6 teacher will guide student in understanding the process of learning. The teacher will assist and help students until they fully understand. instruction : teacher will guide a students based on the instruction provided by the website. It will help student to understand more. Teacher can ask the questions directly to the students to make sure that they fully understand and they don t keep out their mind. Teacher also can perform formative assessment. Assessment : once completion the lesson, there is an exercises and quizzes available for students. For students, they can know their level of understanding for that lesson immediately after the lesson finished. CONCLUSIONS The development of e-tuition Science for UPSR is more on helping students in their learning and doing revision. Students can enhance their knowledge understanding anytime, anywhere and anyplace they want as long as there is an internet connection. The contents of the website also follow the syllabus for Science subject from standard four to six. Using online learning will make the teaching and learning session more attractive and effective. This e-tuition Science for UPSR website can be a new method of delivering lessons to students instead of using traditional method. It became a new aid for teaching and learning Science. By applying the mastery learning model, it may help students to understand and know more about what they are going to learn. From this research, we can conclude that the combination of online learning in Science and mastery learning will help those people involved the learning session. At the end, it may achieve the objective of introducing the Science for primary school s students. REFERENCES Drane, C Certain Knowledge and the Conventional University. Hamada, T. & Scott, K. (2001). Anthropology and Internet Education via the Internet : A Collaborative Learning Model, The Journal of Electronic Publishing 6(1) Syarifah, S. Z. (2003). Reforming the Science and Technology Curriculum : The Smart School Initiative in Malaysia, Prospects, vol. XXXIII(1). Dale, N. B., et. Al. (1982). Applying the Mastery Learning Model to Sight Word Instruction for Disabled Readers. Journal of Experimental Education, Vol. 50. Bloom, B. (1968). Learning for Mastery. Evaluation Comment,1(2), 1-5. Wong, K. (2002). A Basic Introduction to Mastery Learning. The Newsletter Learning and Teaching Support. 2(3). Cohen, et. al., (2002). Mastery Learning. mastery_learning.cfm 48