Toto
Galuh University Ciamis – West Java
e-mail: totounigal_cms@yahoo.com
Abstract
The aim of this research is to improve the mastery of motion’s concept for teacher candidates on biology students through the use of Blog as subject matter in the lecture of Basic Physics. The respondents are teacher candidates on biology students of a private teacher college in West Java, consisting of 24 students (n=24) at the first semester of the 2010/2011 Academic Years. The data were collected by using quasi – experiment method. The use of Blog as subject matter in the lecture of Basic Physics can improve the prospective biology teachers the mastery of motion concepts by an N-gain 0,57 (medium).
Key Words : the use of Blog as subject matter; the mastery of motion concept
Background
The development of Internet media in accordance with the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The ICT grows rapidly, thus allowing its use in education to develop a new learning media. One of media that can be developed in instructional that uses Internet media is a blog. What's a blog? A blog or web blog is a personal web that contains links to other websites, and always updated continuously (Mulyanto, 2009). Furthermore Mulyanto (2009) suggested that the web blog is basically a journal that is available on the web.
At first the blog is used to load the personal writings. Therefore, blogs are highly personal. Now the use of blogs has grown, not only contains the writings of a personal nature, but the blogs in the world of education can be used in many ways, such as teaching materials, lecture syllabi, articles, research results and so on. A blog can contain instructional materials. Teaching materials are prepared, implemented, and utilized by using the media of blog.
For teachers and lecturers can use blog to help an instructional. Teaching materials and lecture materials can be loaded in a personal blog (teachers or lecturers). Teaching materials are prepared teachers or lecturers can be accessed and studied by the learner any time. Thus, teachers or lecturers can develop an innovative learning model by using the media of blog. Regarding the use of blogs, suggested Budi (2007) that the blog as a medium of information.
One of the problems that appear in the Basic Physics lecture on Biology Education lecture is teacher candidates on Biology students have some difficulties in understanding concepts in physics. Presented Toto (2009) that teacher candidates on Biology students have difficulty in college Physics. To help students overcome difficulties in understanding the concepts of physics, the interesting teaching material is needed; one of them is by using media of blogs.
The concept of motion is a concept that has been learned by the student when they were in high school. This concept is also very close to the phenomena in the everyday life of learners. But based on my experience, students have difficulty in understanding the graph of a motion. Through the blog media is expected that learners can understand and can interpret the graph of a moving object.
The purpose of this research is to improve the mastery of teacher candidates on Biology students in the concept of the motion matter through the use of blogs as a teaching material in the Basic Physics lecture.
Method
This research uses quasi- experimental method. The research design that used is a one group pretest-posttest design. The respondents in this research are the teacher candidates on Biology students at a private college in West Java. The respondents were first semester students, Academic Year 2010/2011 they consists of 24 (twenty four) students. The increase of concepts mastery is analyzed using N-gain as follows:
Spost - Spre
N- gain = ------------- (Hake, 1999; Coletta, 2007)
Smaks - Spe
N-gain = Normalized gain; Spre = initial test scores; Spost = final test scores; Smaks = maximum score. The level of gained score then classified into three categories:
Height = g 0.7; medium = 0.3 ≤ g ≤ 0.7; low = g 0.3
Result
Research on the use of blogs as a teaching material in the Basic Physics lecture is a model of learning. This research was conducted on teacher candidates on Biology students, which is begun with a pretest. This test is to know the students’ ability on the concept of motion. In the lecture, it’s used a teaching material about motion that contained in a blog (of researchers). The teaching material in the blog is as the main teaching materials, beside the explanation which refers to a lecturer's teaching materials. Teaching materials are very important in a learning process, as told Belawati (2006) that teaching materials are very important for teachers and students in learning. In accordance with that statement, Alwasilah (2005) argued that teaching materials have an important role in the education system. While Hayati (2001) argues that essentially, the teaching materials are knowledge, values and skills as the content of a subject that is directed to achieve the learning objectives.
Animation about motion is also shown in the blog. Actually, not only animation that can be loaded in the blog, because a teaching material involves all forms of content either text, audio, photos, video, animation, and others that can be used to learn (Koesnandar, 2008). At the end of lectures, it is conducted a posttest to determine the increase of students’ mastery of the motion concept that compared with the pretest results. Hopefully, through this learning model, students can improve their mastery in concept of motion.
The analysis of results shows that the Basic Physics lecture by using blogs as teaching materials to improve the mastery of teacher candidates on Biology students on the matter of motion. The improvement in mastery of the concept of motion is 0.57 (57%) (medium category). Among groups of students of high, medium, and low, there is also seen a difference in the improvement mastery of the motion concept. High student groups gain the highest improvement in mastery of motion concept.
There is a significant difference in the mastery of motion concept between groups of high, medium and low. This is indicated by an increase in the mastery of the motion concept in each group is balanced. As we know that in the implementation of learning, not only a slow learner, who should get attention, but also smart learners and medium ability’s learner. The ability of each learners group should get proportional attention, so that all learners can develop in accordance with each velocity and ability. Thus, in learning process, each student should get proportional attention.
To find out whether there are significant differences between initial and final mastery of students after the lecture, then performed a statistical tests on the data from pretest and posttest. Tests conducted with the difference mean by using t test at significance level (alpha) = 0.05. The results obtained indicate that there are significant differences between the pretest and posttest. This shows that the use of blogs as a teaching material in the Basic Physics lecture to improve the concept mastery of teacher candidates on Biology students in the matter of motion.
With the help of the use of blogs in classes, lectures can be helpful in explaining the lecture material. Meanwhile, according to students' recognition, the use of blogs can help them to learn, especially for them who like to sit in front of the computer in long time, so it can improve their learning spirit.
To determine the response of teacher candidates on Biology students about the learning model that use blogs as teaching materials in the Basic Physics lecture conducted by distributing a questionnaire containing some items of statement about learning model that has been made. Based on student feedback that obtained through the questionnaire can be concluded that the teacher candidates on Biology students give a positive response toward the use of blogs as a teaching material in the Basic Physics lecture on the matter of motion.
Students expressed a positive response from teacher candidates on Biology students, because the use of blogs can provide insight into the visualization of graphics when the object is moving. Presented Wiyono (2009) that visualization allows students to navigate, interact, create and communicate by linking their five senses enthusiastically so that information coming into their memory bank more durably and easy to be called when the information is used.
Conclusion
Based on the analysis and discussion above, it can be concluded that the use of blog as teaching materials in Physics lectures to improve concept mastery of teacher candidates on Biology students on the matter of motion with the medium category.
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