MATHEMATICS
INNOVATIVE LEARNING BY ETHNOMATHEMATICS
By
Venti
Indiani
11313244010
Ethnomathematic consists
of two words. They are ethnic and mathematics. Ethnic means culture. So it
can be said that ethnomathematics is the study of the relationship
between mathematics and culture. From the meaning of the word ethnomathematics may be can not represent the
education, but we have to know that ethnomathematics developt by educators, not
only scientist in pure mathematics. The history of Mathematics grow in
society civilization. There is a society, there is a civilization. It means
that both of them can not be apart.
In education also can not be apart from science, then the question is, is
mathematics science? Well according the Emanuel Khan’s theory, that can be
called science if contains shyntetic and apriori. Shyntetic usually linked to
experience, then apriori linked to the logic. Based on that, mathematics
education include on science because mathematics education containt shyntetic
and apriori. While in pure mathematics only containt apriori. Pure mathematics
just concern in consistency of thruth.
That is proved that mathematics is a science, then how about ethnomathematics?
Science or not? Let see. Ethnomathematics are closely related to experience,
where experience are represent apriori. Then where is the synthetic part of
ethnomathematics? For learn ethnomathematics, of course we need logic
(shyntetic). So that we can called ethnomathematics as a science.
Ethnomathematics is
something innovative. It means that ethnomathematics teach us how to learn
mathematics in innovative way, where mathematics linked to ethnic or culture
around. So what we teach to the children more constextual. Unfortunately, in
Indonesia the teacher still become curriculum oriented. Teacher seem like
bounded by curriculum. They just teach the student to chase a perfect mark in
national examination.
Ethnomathematics
provides various source education, various learning activity, and various
experience context. Actually, ethnomathematics is on children world. Because we
will learn concrete mathematics by ethnomathematics. Then concrete is very
closely to children. That is why ethnomathematics teach us how to apply student
centered learning. Student centered learning is an approach to education focusing on the
needs of the students, rather than those of
others involved in the educational process, such
as teachers and
administrators. This approach has many implications for the design of the curriculum, course content and
interactivity of courses. Student-centred learning is focused on each student's
needs, abilities, interests, and learning styles, placing the teacher as a
facilitator of learning.
To support innovative
learning or student-centred learning, so what can the teacher do? The position
of teacher are as the participant, executive, and facilitator. Participants
means that teacher participate in learning process. Excecutive means that
teacher with students do the learning process. And facilitator means that
teachers have to facilitate what the students need. Teacher must know what
students need to develop the capability or potency of the students. In innovative
learning teacher should not only as the excecutive, but also as the developer
of curriculum.
Then the necessary part of innovative
learning is about the teaching method. There are some methods, for example
explaining, demonstrating, collaborating, and teaching by learning. Explaining is the process of teaching by giving
spoken explanations of the subject that is to be learned. Lecturing is often
accompanied by visual aids to help students visualize an object or problem.
Demonstrating is the process of teaching through examples or experiments. For
example, a science teacher may teach an idea by performing an experiment for
students. A demonstration may be used to prove a fact through a combination of
visual evidence and associated reasoning. Demonstrations help to raise student
interest and reinforce memory retention because they provide connections
between facts and real-world applications of those facts. Then, collaboration
allows students to actively participate in the learning process by talking with
each other and listening to other points of view. Collaboration establishes a
personal connection between students and the topic of study and it helps
students think in a less personally biased way. Group projects and discussions
are examples of this teaching method. Teachers may employ collaboration to
assess student's abilities to work as a team, leadership skills, or
presentation abilities. And the last is learning by teaching. In this teaching
method, students assume the role of teacher and teach their peers. Students who
teach others as a group or as individuals must study and understand a topic
well enough to teach it to their peers. By having students participate in the
teaching process, they gain self-confidence and strengthen their speaking and communication
skills. As the innovative teacher we should compile all the methods so that the
learning process will be better.