User:Abidin.alizzah/Al-Izzah Islamic Boarding School

A. Institutional Background

Al-Izzah Islamic School is a growing private school situated in Indonesia. It was established in 2007 and is committed to provide an interactive education at a secondary level (12-14 years old students). The school seeks to provide a holistic education that is concerned not only with the instruction and the transmission of knowledge but also with the education of the whole being of men and women. It attempts to ensure that the practice and breath of education also covers the learners’ ethical and spiritual appeal through the integration of the religious sciences and the intellectual and philosophical sciences. The school advises the learners to live in the school’s dormitory during their studying. In so doing, the school assures that the students will have an ample time to focus on their study while at the same time improving their responsibility both as an individual and community member of the residence. In daily practice, the school applies moving class system in which the available classrooms are split into different learning centres including science, math, language, social and Islamic studies. In the afternoon, from 12.30 to 2.20 p.m., students are required to attend a tutorial class consisting of less than 10 students for each learning discussion group. In addition, the teachers work in a full day basis starting from 7 a.m. to 3.15 p.m. (Imron, 2007).

B. Current IT Application

To achieve the designated purposes, the employment of ICT to support teaching and learning practices is viewed essential by the school. Accordingly, ICT instalment among the units becomes a priority after the basic infrastructure is fulfilled. Presently, the school subscribes unlimited internet service and both teachers and students are equipped with a personal notebook. To support the teaching, LCD projectors are available on reserve and teacher willingness to use ICT is encouraged and highly appreciated. However, as an initial stage of ICT embracement, in this school the ICT application is restrictedly associated with powerpoint slides and videos (Copolla 2004). The lack of ICT trainings may become the viable reason for the teachers’ limited ability when using the available sources and technology. In addition, it appears that the school still does not have a specific policy on the exploitation of ICT in school (Infodev 2005).

C. Professional Development in the School and Its Theoretical Basis

Professional development can be defined as a comprehensive, continuos, and intensive approach to improving teachers’ effectiveness in raising students’ achievement (NSDC as cited in Wei, et al., 2010). Furthermore, it fosters collective responsibility for the improved students’ learning outcomes which can be achieved by evaluating the students’ learning needs, defining specific goals, achieving these goals through coherent and comprehensive learning strategies and assessing the results for effectiveness in improving students’ learning.

Since the teachers are viewed important in scaffolding students’ learning, Al-Izzah Islamic school is eager to provide PD programs for its teachers. The teachers’ learning programs designed by the school by and large can be described into two categories; lesson study and action research.

1. Lesson study At Al-Izzah Islamic School, the lesson study program is devoted to all teaching staff in the form of content-area study groups in which the teachers work in a group depending on the subject area they teach; maths, science, social studies, language and Islamic studies. The main objective of the program is to improve teacher’s understanding of teaching related problems both in regular and tutorial classes through discussion and peer-teaching and evaluation. In their subject-based group, the teachers meet in a regular basis once a week to work on four main spherical activities: Plan, Do, See and Improve, renowned as PDSI (Stigler and Hiebert, 1999).

a. Planning In this initial stage, the teachers embark on a discussion to set a lesson study goal then vigilantly plan a lesson for the research classroom teaching. The lesson study goal should be generated from factual teaching and learning problems in the classroom that teachers currently encounter in their classrooms. To do so, the teachers carefully review and analyse various issues that might focus on either the learning contents or materials and how to teach them or the gap between their teaching expectation and the results the students actually achieve. After the specific goal is identified, they collaboratively plan out a systematic lesson which aims to achieve the designated goal. The lesson plan should outlines the detailed goal to achieve, sequences of teaching session, media required and the assessment procedures to measure the what extent the instructional goal has been reached. In addition to a lesson plan, in this stage the group also decides who will present the lesson in the research classroom and determine the observation form will be used in the observation session.

b. Doing In this phase, the appointed presenter teacher puts the lesson plan into action. The teaching is conducted in the real class where other member teachers act as observers. The main aim of this teaching is to give an opportunity for the observers to see and analyse activities outlined in the lesson plan that works as expected and does not.

c. Seeing During the research teaching, the observers (other teachers of the group) carefully monitor and scrutinize the teaching and teacher’s behaviours, students’ reactions and interactions, and other aspects deemed relevant for a further discussion. Since the result of observation is critical for making discussion and improvement, the observers are highly advised to document and record their individual responses in the observation form determined in the previous stage.

d. Improving In this last cycle, all group members including the presenter teacher sit on discussion focusing on what happens in the research teaching. Each observer presents their findings during the teaching and let the presenter teacher explains his feelings and reasons for any teaching behaviours. During the discussion, it is important to note that all members are advised to provide constructive comments and feedback which are based on mutual respect and a shared understanding that the discussion is intended to improve pedagogical practices and understanding and not to evaluate the teacher.

According to Stigler and Hiebert (1999) lesson study is a community-based learning development program where groups of teaching staff regularly meets over a long period of time in order to jointly design a lesson, put it into classroom teaching and then reflect on for improvement. They further added that effective lesson study might have the following important impacts on teachers leading to students’ learning improvement:


 * Strengthening the collegial relationship between teachers.
 * Clarifying the teaching problems.
 * Disseminating the good practice.
 * Sharing the practical idea for teaching.
 * Knowing more children’s thinking/reactions for the learning material.
 * Increasing the opportunity of reflective thinking.

Lesson study was firstly promoted by the Japanese teachers to deal with teaching and learning problems in their schools as well as improving their understanding of pedagogical knowledge and skills. Along with the fact that the lesson study has been adopted and applied by many teachers and schools worldwide, recent research has indicated that it does give positive effects on teachers as well as students as the subject of learning (Amaral & Guerrero, 2007).

2. Action research In the commencement of the new academic year, all teaching staff are advised to submit their action research proposals to the PD department of the school. The research proposal is then reviewed by the action research board which consists of the research practitioners and curriculum and PD coordinator for gaining feedback on its relevance, methodological aptness and allocated research grant.

With the help of the research practitioners, the teaching staff work on their action research over one year and are advised to document and report their research progress to the action research board at the agreed time (usually in the mid of academic year). At the end of the academic year, the teachers develop a brief report of their action research findings which are then documented by the school. In the following year, these research reports are then presented and discussed by the teaching staff in the monthly basis meeting. Once a month one of the teachers is expected to present and disseminate his/her action research results to all teaching staff of the school.

Action research can be viewed as “any systematic inquiry conducted by teacher researchers, principals, school counsellors, or other stakeholders in the teaching and learning environment, to gather information about they ways that their particular schools operate, how they teach, and how well their students learn” (Mills, 2000, p.6). For teachers, action research promises progress and improvement in their pedagogical knowledge and practices. The process involved in the research allows them to experience problem solving and to model it for their students learning practices. They carefully gather data to diagnose problems, look for for solutions, take action on promising possibilities, and monitor whether and how well the action works. The cycle used in action research can repeat itself many times, focusing on the same problem or on another.

This systematic process involved in action research can help develop a professional problem-solving ethos particularly for the teachers (Sagor, 2000). Action research can also invigorate the whole learning community, as well as helping teachers change or reflect on their classroom practices. It can sustain initiatives by individual teachers, schools, and districts. In addition, more than one type of action research can be used in a given setting at the same time. More specifically, Mills (2000) asserts that in relation to PD, action research can work for the following goals:


 * Gaining insights
 * Developing reflective practices
 * Affecting positive changes in the school environment, and
 * Improving students’ learning outcome

D. References

Amaral, O.M. & Guerrero, Y. (2007, September). Lesson study: a new frontier for the PD of teachers. Retrieved on October 7, 2010, from http://www.innovec.org.mx/IIIconferencia/ingles/lesson.htm.

Copolla, ME 2004, Powering up: Learning to teach well with technology, Teacher College Press, New York.

Hammond, D. L., et al. (2009). Professional learning in the learning profession: A status report on teacher development in the United States and Abroad. United Stated: National Staff Development Council.

Imron, A. (2007). Sekapur Sirih. Retrieved on October 6, 2010, from http://lpmi-alizzah.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63&Itemid=71.

Infodev 2005, Knowledge map: Teacher, teaching and ICT viewed 29 March 2010.

Mills, G .E (2000). Action research: a guide for teachers. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. pp 1-2.

OECD. (2009). Creating effective teaching and learning environments: First result from Teaching And Learning International Survey (TALIS). OECD.

Sagor, R. (2000). Guiding chool improvement with action research. VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

Stigler, J.W. & Hiebert, J. (1999). The teaching gap: best ideas form the world’s teachers for improving education in the classroom. NY: The Free Press.

Timperley, H., et al. (2007).Teacher professional learning and development (Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration). New Zealand: Ministry of Education.

The European Union. (2010). Teachers’ PD: Europe in international comparison. Belgium: European Union.

Wei, C. R., et al. (2010). PD in the United State: Trends and challenges. Dallas: National Staff Development Council.