Development of Small Group Discussion Method and Collaborative

Learning Course Environment Policy and Disaster Management

Roni Ekha Putera, Kusdarini and Ria Ariany

Departement of Public Administration, Universitas Andalas, Padang, Indonesia

Keywords: Class Action Research, Student Center Learning, Environmental Policy and Disaster Management.

Abstract: This paper discusses the results of classroom action research for the subject of Environmental Policy and

Disaster Management in the Public Administration Department. Environmental Policy and Disaster

Management Course is the elective course for semester 6 students. The purpose of this course is to make

students understand the various policies that exist about the environment and disaster management so that it

is expected to provide new knowledge for students and can be an inspiration as one of the topics in completion

of their final project (thesis). In the implementation of lectures there are still some issues such as the

assessment process in tasks that tend to still focus on the results of the task and the gap value between students

who are still not balanced. Thus, the teaching team finds it necessary to develop methods and assessment

systems that take into account the value of outcomes and processes in learning. As for the development of

learning methods and assessment system is used in preparing the new RPS and for changes in existing learning

process, so that this course can achieve the goals and objectives of the expected competence maximally that

is learning for the study program in improving the relevance of teaching is done with conduct curriculum

development in accordance with the progress of science and technology, the needs of the labor market or the

user community. The result of this research is the new Semester Learning Plan (RPS) by inserting SCL method

that is small group discussion and collaborative learning method, then the assessment process of student task

is also done by considering the task outside the class in the form of survey of spaciousness and making the

article scientific.

1 INTRODUCTION

Course on Environmental Policy and Disaster

Management is one of the Elective Courses in the

Public Administration Department. The importance

of this course to be studied is that environmental

issues and disaster management are currently

obligatory matters in accordance with Law No. 23 of

2014 concerning local government. Therefore, this

lecture becomes a crucial thing to learn.

For a high level of learning, the current learning

process is not centered on lecturers or conventional

learning approaches where lecturers as experts

convey knowledge to students like this are commonly

called Teacher Centered Learning (Chrosby in O'Neil

and McMahon, 2005) but more directed to the

practice of learning that is student center learning.

The SCL (Student Centered Learning) education

approach appears as an alternative educational

approach to addressing the problem of

incompatibility with the Teacher Center Learning

approach.

SCL is a student-centered learning approach. In

the SCL learning approach, the lecturer must be able

to carry out his role well, not only as a teacher, but

also as a motivator, facilitator, and innovator.

Lecturers are not only required to teach in front of the

class but also play a role in helping students to solve

problems when students experience difficulties in the

learning process. Natawijaya in the Ministry of

National Education (2005: 31) states that active

learning is a teaching and learning system that

emphasizes the activeness of students physically,

mentally and emotionally in order to obtain learning

outcomes in the form of a combination of cognitive,

affective and psychomotor aspects. Student Centered

Learning based learning requires active students, as

well as conducting discussions with lecturers as

facilitators if they encounter difficulties. Active

Students are expected to be able to foster a sense of

creativity of students. Progress in Science and

148

Putera, R., Kusdarini, . and Ariany, R.

Development of Small Group Discussion Method and Collaborative Learning Course Environment Policy and Disaster Management.

DOI: 10.5220/0008681801480150

In Improving Educational Quality Toward International Standard (ICED-QA 2018), pages 148-150

ISBN: 978-989-758-392-6

Technology makes it easier for students to acquire

knowledge not only through formal learning, but can

be through various media and learning resources.

Learning resources can be from the internet, the

surrounding environment, society, institutions,

professions or even peers. The campus also invites

members, community leaders, or the public to go to

campus to talk about topics related to their work, for

example if at Universitas Andalas is known as an

entrepreneurial public lecture. Lecturers are no longer

the only source of learning but learning partners.

The learning process based on Student Centered

Learning utilizes various learning resources around

the campus. The libraries on campus have books that

support the learning process, besides that this library

also contains recreational books that can be read to

fill students' free time. The environment around the

campus other than the library can be used for the

learning process, for example the botanical garden of

the Faculty of Biology Universitas Andalas

2 METHOD

Research settings in this case are undergraduate

students in the Department of Public Administration,

FISIP, Universitas Andalas in semester 6. Class

actions are carried out for one semester, namely in the

even semester of 2017/2018 school year which is in

the range of February to June 2018. For research

locations is in the Department of Public

Administration, Universitas Andalas and in the

Environmental Policy and Disaster Management

lecture room, namely Tuesday at 10.10-13.00 WIB in

building C. Meeting Room of the 2nd Floor

Department. Research Objectives are the creation of

learning practices centered on students with active

learning. Data collection techniques were carried out

by looking at / treating student activities in the

classroom in group discussion activities, asking

questions during class discussion, using small group

discussion and collaborative learning methods with

the division of group and individual tasks prepared by

the lecturer, and evaluating student learning outcomes

by holding a quiz. While the data analysis is done by

collecting data that already exists and then coding,

verifying and analyzing according to the needs of this

study.

3 RESULT AND ANALYSIS

Environmental Policy and Disaster Management

courses are courses in the Public Administration

Department, which are intended for 6th semester

students. The learning process is carried out by

applying the Student Centered Learning based

learning process. In order for this learning process to

work properly, it requires an appropriate learning

strategy. In the Environmental Policy and Disaster

Management class two learning strategies were

applied in the practice of delivering Student Centered

Learning based learning processes, namely small

group discussion, and Collaborative learning. The

applied learning strategy prioritizes student activity,

and appreciates the uniqueness that exists in each

student. Contextual learning strategies associate

student knowledge with the real world so as to

facilitate students to understand and apply that

knowledge. Moreover, this subject is a fairly

applicative subject, this is because the material and

topic of the discussion are strongly related to

phenomena or problems that occur in the community,

such as environmental issues, the problem of natural

disasters that often hit the country and other

problems. The application of this method is done in

combination with the classical method by giving the

main role in the learning process to the lecturer as the

main speaker who will give an explanation of the

objectives and lecture material. Lecturers as

presenters only convey the objectives and subject

matter that must be achieved in each meeting with 10

minutes at the beginning of the lecture. This classical

method is used as an introduction and stimulant for

the next learning process which emphasizes the active

role of class participants in accordance with the

design. Class participants have been given

beforehand with reading material reading

assignments for the material at that week's meeting.

Reading material has been provided by the teaching

team and can be obtained by students by

photocopying.

In each course meeting, the lecturer as the main

speaker gives material based on the Semester

Learning Plan that has been set. The material was

delivered using power point slides and compiled

teaching materials to facilitate students to absorb the

material at the meeting. Researchers have compiled

teaching materials and reading material that can be

accessed by students to explore lecture material

outside face-to-face hours. Teaching materials and

reading material are very important for students to be

able to understand the material more deeply.

Evaluation of whether students read reading material

Development of Small Group Discussion Method and Collaborative Learning Course Environment Policy and Disaster Management

149

is done by quiz method whose questions come from

reading the material provided. In the first quiz that

was conducted in the 4th week, there was a significant

increase in understanding where most students were

able to answer all the questions asked in the quiz. The

second intervention was carried out by applying the

Student Center Learning (SCL) method which is an

advanced process of the Teaching and Learning

Process that emphasizes the development of student

knowledge to build soft skills. The soft skills of

students are expected to be built along with the ability

of hard skills at the end of the lecture. The use of the

method will be varied according to the material to be

taught and the expected competencies.

Small group discussion

Some methods are used such as small group

discussions, namely by dividing students into several

small groups consisting of 2-3 people. With the theme

of interest in the same research problem. The divided

groups discuss the group themes that have been

shared. From the themes that have been distributed,

each group has two weeks to make assignments to be

presented in front of the class the following week.

Collaborative learning

Another SCL method that is carried out is

collaborative learning which requires the ability of

students to analyze, consider the problem solving so

as to increase creativity and innovation. This method

puts students in the real world so that they not only

know but also develop consideration skills and

student sensitivity to policy and disaster symptoms in

their environment.

In this method the lecturer gives several themes

that are shared with each student for scientific

articles. There are 14 themes that have been

determined by the lecturers to be distributed to each

student. With the theme that students must make

scientific articles that are collected at the end of the

semester exam, but in each meeting one of the

students must present the individual paper or

scientific article to be discussed with other students in

the class with the hope of providing input, criticism

and suggestions for every student who makes

scientific articles, so that each suggestion and

meaning will be useful for improving scientific article

writing later.

4 CONCLUSION

The existence of a very significant change in learning

patterns in the Environmental Policy and Disaster

Management Lecture shows that the assessment

results are quite good. When compared with the

2016/2017 school year ago, there was an increase in

the value of assessments obtained by students. With

this class action research able to produce semester

learning design that is very comprehensive, then team

teaching also managed to compile reading material

and teaching materials in the form of power point

slides that are quite complete and planned lecture

material can be uploaded on the website http:

//ilearn.unand.ac.id. As for the learning method, the

combination of lecture lectures conducted by team

teaching with student center learning methods (small

group discussion and collaborative learning) greatly

affects students so that they are able to learn material

better. Thus the assessment conducted based on the

lecture process also provides fairer opportunities for

students to get better grades.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We would like to thank LP3M Universitas Andalas

for providing assistance in the form of Class Action

Research Grants, so that this research can be carried

out well.

REFERENCES

Depdiknas. (2003). Pendekatan Kontekstual (Contextual

Teaching and Learning), Jakarta: Ditjen Dikdasmen

O'Neil, G n McMahon, T. (2005). "Student Centered

Learning: What does it mean for students and lecture",

diambil 15 Agustus 2018, dari

http://www.aishe.org/readings/2005-1/oneill-

mcmahon Tues_19th_Oct_SCL.html

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