
 
the students. Therefore, in the assembling process of 
RPS there are several parts that need careful attention, 
those are: 
  Formulating the objectives of the lesson  
  Designing the learning process  
  Designing evaluation activities; and  
  Developing lesson materials. 
The  first  thing  that  needs  more  attention  in 
designing  classroom  activities  is  formulating  the 
objective of IRES course. Related to the study, this 
course  is  directed  to  shape  students’  attitude  of 
tolerance  toward  diversity.  ‘The  diversity’  here  is 
limited  by  khilafiyah  issue  in Islam  in  the  field  of 
Fiqih. 
As  we  know,  Indonesia  is  a  country  with  the 
largest Muslim population in the world thus having 
various understanding of Fiqih. The diversity of those 
understandings represented by at least three massive 
religious  mass  organizations,  namely  Nahdhatul 
Ulama (NU), Muhammadiyah, and Persatuan Islam 
(Persis). For that reason, the IRES course as a part of 
religious education plays a role in learning toleration. 
At  least,  through  IRES  course  the  students  are 
introduced to the diversity of understanding in Islam 
and taught to handle the matter wisely. 
In the next step, the researcher designed a lecture 
design which focused on students’ need in accordance 
with  the  objectives  of  the  course  that  have  been 
formulated before. The lecture design is developed by 
combining  Problem-Based  Learning  Model 
(Barrows, 1986; Severy and Duffy, 1995), Discovery 
Learning (Bruner, 1997), and Social Learning Theory 
(Bandura, 1977) by integrating those three learning 
models the IRES course is designed to be able to teach 
students  both  independently  and  collectively  in  a 
group.  Moreover,  the  students  are  trained  to  think 
critically  by doing research about  various  religion-
based problems that occurs in the society and set the 
massive mass organizations mentioned before as the 
primary  courtesy  related  to  the  religion-based 
problems  which  became  the  main  topic  of  the 
research.  The  combination  of  the  three  learning 
models is called by me as a Research Based Learning 
(RBL).  From  three  types  of  religious  education 
enforcement introduced by   Grimmit (1981; 1987; 
The International Association for Religious Freedom, 
2002),  this  model  is  developed  by  using  ‘learning 
from  religion’  approach.  This  approach  put  the 
students  as  learners  (Anwar,  2015)  and  religion 
function as a tool to develop students’ attitude toward 
diversity (Walshe and Teeceb, 2013). 
After  designing the  course,  the other thing that 
needs to be noticed is the learning evaluation design. 
In  IRES  course  the  learning  evaluation  embraces 
overall aspect of the study and enforces as long as the 
learning  activity  is  in  session.  Each  activity  is 
appreciated  and  becomes  the  object  of  evaluation 
process.  The  students’  involvement  form  in  the 
evaluation  process  is  designed  in  a  form  of  self-
assessment and sociometrist. 
The  fourth  thing  that  needs  attention  while 
designing SSP is the lesson materials. In this phase, 
the lesson materials are arranged in the form of multi-
theme studies related to the religion issues in society, 
the themes are: education, culture, da’wah, politics, 
law, technology, and science. As example the theme 
can  be  about:  Islam  and  Education,  Islam  and 
Technology, etc. Those themes in the next phase will 
be changed into many different research topics. The 
process to convert the theme into  specific topics is 
conducted by involving the students. 
3.2  Process and Lecture Steps 
As  a  normal  lecture,  in  a  semester  there  are  16 
meetings  maximum  including  mid-term  and  final-
term exam. In a RBL model of IRES course, all of 
those sixteen meetings are divided into three stages, 
namely:  research  planning  and  design,  research 
implementation, and seminar and research reporting. 
In table 2 we can see the process and steps in doing 
IRES course using RBL. 
3.2.1  First Phase: Planning and Designing 
Research  
The first stage of IRES course using RBL is research 
planning and design. This stage was implemented in 
the first four meetings at the beginning of the course. 
However, before starting this stage, the lecturer must 
have  created  the  course  timeline  which  has  been 
adjusted to the current calendar year. In addition, the 
possibility of interrupted session by national holiday 
or graduation ceremony, etc., should be considered 
while composing the course timeline. 
The first session of the course filled with the IRES 
lecture orientation (see figure 1). All things related to 
the  course,  especially  the  course  design  planning, 
need to be informed to the students. The objective of 
the orientation is to synchronize the perception about 
IRES  course  among  the  lecturer  and  the  students 
which will be held in that semester. After completing 
the course orientation, the lecturer randomly divided 
the students into eight research groups. The session is 
ended by giving the first group assessment in the form 
of group discussion, the groups must discuss about at 
least three research topics based on the course themes 
available which will be discussed in the next meeting 
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