In Indonesia, professional development of the teachers is being discussed intensively. In order to be current mathematics teacher, for example, someone has to master new teaching approaches. He(she) needs to improve their qualification by taking more degree or by joining in service training program or such kind of professional development on mathematics teacher.
This article discusses about professional development on mathematics teachers by using realistic mathematics based framework to improve their competences in mathematics teaching, to explore the challenge and its barriers in the implementation stages.
About 156 mathematics teachers involved in a survey regarding their perception toward mathematics teaching innovation, whether they are used to in joining innovation of mathematics instruction, to what extent they involved in the innovation process, and have they ever implement the innovation in mathematics teaching continuously in the classroom?
Of the 156 participants, for their interest in joining professional development program in mathematics instruction based on the realistic mathematics framework, the researcher invited about 20 of them to come on four afternoon sessions. The program consisted of an introduction to the innovation of mathematics teaching instruction and the philosophy underpinning the program, exploring the current situation of mathematics classroom in Indonesia-especially mathematics teaching in a traditional way, giving the new teaching approach in mathematics teaching, and the reflection of their daily practice and comparing to the new teaching approach. The follow up session of the PD program has been designed for implementing the realistic teaching in mathematics. The results of the follow up session were analyzed to look for the effect of the PD program to improve students’ understanding, to improve their attitude toward mathematics as well as to mathematics teaching. Teachers’ attitudes toward the new teaching approach based on the realistic were also as focus for analysis.
The constraint and barriers in implementing the new teaching approach in their classroom have been identified and to be solved.
The results of this study indicate that the survey participants really eager to join the PD program, due to the limitation of time, space and funding, only 20 participants were invited for PD program and intervention.
According to the survey, the findings indicate that the participants were aware that they have a perspective of mathematics teaching innovation, but they did not have any experiences how to implement the new teaching approaches in mathematics.
There was an assumption that they have not implemented the innovation yet, because there was no example how to implement it in the classroom level. The current research data indicate that the participant of the PD program were enthusiasm in the implementation stages. Either the teachers or the students were interested to use mathematics instruction using the realistic teaching framework in the classroom. However, the national examination test driven was strongly influenced the teachers to implement this new teaching approach.
