Contextual Learning : Relation and Readiness

Mathematics is about all people and for all people. Now, we will discuss about Mathematics for very young people, student in primary school, and student in secondary school.

First, Mathematics for very young people. The mathematics learning for very young people needs the intuition. For the example, the experiment about concept of time. It is about short and long time. The purpose of this experiment is try to understand whether they can appreciate about that concept or not. To learn about it there is a battery with three modes. With a click, the battery will illuminate continuously. With double click, the battery will blinking. But if we puss for long time about two minutes, the battery will off. In this experiment, the problem is how to turn off the battery.

We found that how to learn mathematics for very young people is by doing experience and following adult activity and then copy it. Experience for child  will be very important for the next level.

Second, Mathematics in primary school or elementary school. The basic mathematics that maybe need to be learned are the concept of number, many kind of geometrical shape, very basic operation like addition and subtraction, etc. For younger students, we can learn number by make a song, illustrate on picture, and play games.

“Students have to learn from what they have already know. It is impossible if you learn something that is not have any connection to the life.
It is good idea to search what the students already have and then make a connection with something that will be learned. Relative to what very young student could learn in that age, i think it will be good with games,” said Mr. Ilham.

Third, Mathematics in secondary school.Secondary school consist senior high school and junior high school. Mathematics in Secondary school introduce a higher level such as identity, equation, quadratic equation, geometry, and measurement.

The student can learn Mathematics from resources that coming from the surrounding of our life. It is important to dig up about the potential that coming from surrounding our life like our habit and our culture product. We have very popular and very important resources to learn mathematics from artefact like Prambanan and Borobudur temple.

At present time, we have many technological product to develop resources that capable to support mathematics teaching. It is important for Mathematics teacher. One side, we start to learn mathematics education, but in the other side, we also learn English for mathematics education simultaneously. It means that life is correlated..

So, the keyword is contextual learning. Contextual means every learning activity “related to” and “ready for”. Whatever we learn, everything always has an aspects of relation and readiness. Why should be related to? In order that we are ready. Readiness for everything is important and contribute on our success.

“High spirit, happy, motivation, and don’t forget to pray to God. English is yours!!” said Mr. Marsigit.