Journal of Education For Teaching Intern
Journal of Education For Teaching Intern
Journal of Education For Teaching Intern
Ignatius Harjanto, Anita Lie, Diah Wihardini, Laura Pryor & Mark Wilson
To cite this article: Ignatius Harjanto, Anita Lie, Diah Wihardini, Laura Pryor & Mark Wilson (2018)
Community-based teacher professional development in remote areas in Indonesia, Journal of
Education for Teaching, 44:2, 212-231, DOI: 10.1080/02607476.2017.1415515
Introduction
The Indonesian government realises that teacher quality is pivotal. For more than a decade,
the Indonesian government has paid serious attention to the quality of its teachers by insti-
tuting education policy reforms through Teacher and Lecturer Law No. 14 passed in 2005,
which was aimed at enhancing teacher quality and professionalism through teacher edu-
cation and professional development. All teachers must meet the minimum standards of a
four-year degree and should be formally certiied. All teachers take part in teacher profes-
sional development programmes and take a series of teacher assessment to earn teaching
certiicates. This paper focuses on the outcomes of professional development training for
teachers in remote areas of Indonesia.
Research on teacher professional development programmes has gained considerable
interest among researchers from many countries, including Indonesia. The point at issue is
what it is to be an efective teacher. Reviewing previous studies, Darling-Hammond (2000b)
found that student achievement is determined more by teacher efectiveness. Including in
This study focuses on how the Tanoto Foundation designed and implemented their
teacher quality improvement programmes for in-service teachers in remote schools in
Indonesia and discusses to what extent teachers beneited from these programmes (Tanoto
Foundation 2016). The study involves 193 in-service teachers in 350 schools in the Provinces
of North Sumatera, Riau and Jambi. This study investigates the extent to which the profes-
sional development trainings enable teachers to (1) enhance their knowledge of student
active learning, and (2) improve their teaching practices.
who found that school intervention for in-service teachers in high-risk and high-need schools
in South Africa motivated teachers to gain competency and optimism, demonstrate man-
agement skills, and make valuable contributions in a group. Similarly, Bai (2014) found that
a school-based professional development programme in Hong Kong enabled teachers to
be more conident in teaching. They beneited at a more practical level as they could imme-
diately translate the recommended principles into their practices.
However, not all teacher development programmes are efective. Chang et al. (2014)
argued that one-of seminars and in-service short courses in cascade fashion are not efective
modes for development programmes in Indonesia. Czerniawski (2013) reported that teachers
in England, Norway and Germany joining similar professional development programmes
were dissatisied with the quality and outcomes. Díaz-Maggioli (2004) identiied 11 inefec-
tive factors of professional development. These are: a top-down decision-making model, a
‘ix-it’ approach, lack of programme ownership among teachers, prescriptive ideas, one-size-
its-all techniques, ixed and untimely delivery methods, little or no follow–up, decontextu-
alized programmes, a lack of proper evaluation, and a lack of pedagogical (child-centred)
instruction.
Professional development programmes should take into consideration the practical
knowledge and skills to help students achieve their learning outcomes, and thus ideally
should contribute to and assist students’ learning. Walter and Briggs (2012) reported that
professional development was efective due to (a) concrete and classroom-based inclusion
of expertise from outside the school, (b) involvement of teachers in the choice of areas to
develop and to undertake activities, (c) programme collaboration of teachers with peers, (d)
provision of opportunities for mentoring and coaching, (e) sustaining efort over time, and
(f ) efective school leadership support.
One of the most important strategies to enhance education performance in a country
is to improve its teacher quality. Teacher quality is a pivotal policy issue in education
reform in any country. Three years learning with a high-performing teacher rather than
a low-performing teacher, can make a 53% difference between two students who started
at the same achievement level (Barber and Mourshed 2007; Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff
2011).Research in the USA (Darling-Hammond 2000a; Darling-Hammond and Berry 2006),
India (Kingdon 2006), Pakistan (Tayyaba 2012), and China (Wang and Lu 2012) suggests
that teacher quality can strongly affect student achievements. Furthermore, Archibald
et al. (2011) state that teacher quality matters because teachers have a more significant
influence on student achievement than any other school factor.
Issues of teacher quality can be responded to by developing compelling programmes of
teacher education and professional development for teachers in several countries. For exam-
ple, Shi and Englert (2010) argue that the development of Chinese teacher education should
be regarded as a key strategic measure in developing education. Further, they expect that,
between 2015 and 2020, teachers of primary and secondary schools in China should earn a
Master of Arts in Education in order to advance their profession. In Finland, the profession-
alism of teaching has been supported by an academic university education since 1970 (Tirri
2014). In Canada, teacher education bridges theory and practice involving key stakeholders
such as administrators and in-service teachers in schools and teacher educators in univer-
sities (Howe 2014).
216 I. HARJANTO ET AL.
Methods
This study represents an explanatory mixed-methods (Creswell 2003) evaluation inquiry.
The study collected, analysed, and mixed both quantitative and qualitative data to evaluate
the community-based teacher professional development programme of the Tanoto
Foundation. The data in this study were collected through a survey, interviews, and obser-
vations. The survey was irst completed and then interviews and observations were used as
a follow-up to enlighten the quantitative results. The quantitative data provided broad infor-
mation on teacher professional development (PD) from across all regions. On the other hand,
the qualitative data provided a rich description of the teacher PD but for a smaller sample.
Therefore, the study produced indings representative of the entire programme, enhanced
with details from the qualitative data.
Concerning internal validity, this study triangulated the data through diferent research
instruments. The participants’ knowledge of student active learning, including their knowl-
edge of what teachers and students should do assessed with questionnaires, and tests were
analysed along with pre-observations interview with the participating teachers and princi-
pals. Following the quantitative data, the researchers investigated what they knew about
active learning and classrooms practices through observation. Teachers were also asked
their opinions on their teaching practice during the post-observation interviews. To verify
what happened in the classroom, students were asked to answer questionnaires about the
practice of active learning in the classroom.
As Alcof (1991) warns about the danger of speaking for others and ‘the possibility of
misrepresentation, explaining one’s own authority and privilege’ (23), this study set out to
take into account the diferent perspectives of the stakeholders (teachers, principals, and
students) as described in Table 1.
Speciically, using the quantitative data, descriptive statistics were produced for each
indicator related to the implementation of the teacher PD programmes for one academic
year. The indicators are as follows: (1) the number of teachers trained in the AICEPL methods,
(2) the contents of AICEPL training, (3) whether or not teachers and students can list AICEPL
activities that occurred in their classroom, (4) teacher’s self-perceived level of mastery with
training materials, (5) number of PD activities, (6) frequency of teacher participation in PD
activities, and (7) the number of PD activities involving other schools. All surveys were devel-
oped by the researchers for the purposes of this study’s research questions. The teacher and
student self-report surveys consisted of 38 and 42 items respectively. The principal survey
contained 68 items. Included in the self-administered teacher survey were items querying
their perceived mastery of student active learning (AICEPL) and to assess their knowledge
of the topics covered in the PD sessions. For example, four questions asked them about
student active learning, two questions dealt with the use of teaching-learning media, and
two questions asked them to analyse two sample test items and choose which level of
thinking each item referred to according to the modiied Bloom’s Taxonomy (Anderson and
Krathwol 2001). The sample items were ‘make a list of ten four-legged animals, categorise
those ten animals into two, and state the reasons’ and ‘examine a picture of a polluted envi-
ronment and draw a cleaner and healthier environment with the same elements of the irst
environment’.
Qualitative data were obtained through observation and interviews to reveal what they
knew to improve their teaching practices. Therefore, teachers were observed by the research
team in their classroom and given pre- and post- observation interviews. The classroom
learning observation tool was comprised of 16 items. All observers were trained to use the
structured observation instrument. The pre-observation interview was conducted to inves-
tigate teachers’ knowledge of AICEPL and their teaching preparation while the post-obser-
vation interview aimed to verify whether they implemented their lesson planning and the
reason for any discrepancy. According to Johnson and Turner (2003), observation and inter-
views – the kinds of data triangulation – enable researchers to ind and collect relatively
objective irst-hand information. The interview data were then coded for key themes and
used to support quantitative indings. The codes were generated from empirical data found
during the school observations and from teachers’ self report. These codes were then
matched to major notions in the discourses of teaching-learning quality such as lesson-plan-
ning, students on task, group discussion, lecturing, and learner-centeredness to develop
the key themes. The method of levels of analysis (Ary et al. 2010) were used to derive the
key themes from the participants’ voices expressed in the interview and in the self-report
survey of which data were categorised through the RQDA software (Huang 2014).
All survey, observation, and interview instruments were piloted with principals, teachers,
and students in similar schools in Indonesia. Instruments were then revised based on the
pilot data (for further description see Tanoto Foundation 2016). The researchers had been
involved in this study since the formulation of the research design, the development of the
instruments, the piloting of the instruments, the trainings of the surveyors and classroom
observers, the supervision of the data collection, and the data analysis. The data collection
took a period of approximately four months from August through the irst week of November
2015 (Figure 1).
The area of this study were eight districts in three programme provinces: Tanjung Jabung
Barat and Tebo (Jambi Province); Asahan – Batubara, Labuan Batu, and Labuan Batu Selatan
(North Sumatera); and Indragiri Hulu, Kuantan Sengingi and Pelalawan (Riau Province). The
eight districts were selected based on consultation with the Tanoto Foundation considering
the programme coverage and the variety of programme inputs. Within each district, eight
elementary schools were selected based on a random procedure. In each school, three
teachers who were teaching in the upper grade level classrooms (i.e. 4th to 6th grade) at
the time of survey were selected, as these teachers were the target population of the training
218 I. HARJANTO ET AL.
programmes. The research team then interviewed the selected teachers prior to, and after,
their teaching, observed their teaching and learning process in a one-hour lesson, and
requested them to ill in the self-administered teacher survey. Between 15 and 20 students
per observed classroom were randomly selected to participate in a student self-report survey.
The total sample comprised 64 schools, 193 teachers, and 3457 students (see Table 2). Due
to a forest ire during the data collection period, some sampled schools did not conduct any
teaching activity and so several teachers’ classroom teaching and learning could not be
observed. Hence, there were only 177 teachers participating in the classroom
observation.
The youngest age of the sampled teachers was 22, the oldest 57 and the median age was
38 (SD = 9.3). Around 76% of these teachers have met the 2005 Teacher and Lecturer Law
(that is they have graduated from at least a four-year college of education) while 24% of the
sampled teachers have only a diploma from a three-year college and one did not answer
the question. This percentage of teachers who have met the required qualiication is lower
than that at the national level, i.e. 81% at the primary school level, 87% at the junior second-
ary school level, and 94% at the senior secondary school level (Badan Pusat Statistik 2016).
This shortage of qualiied teachers is one of the common shortcomings in remote areas as
young qualiied teachers are more attracted to teach in more developed regions. Most of
those without the full degrees are those above 50, waiting for their retirement as those
entering the teaching force after 2005 are required to have at least a four-year college degree
in education. Since the areas of study are near plantations that have attracted workers from
diferent regions, the teachers and students come from diferent ethnic and mother tongue
backgrounds. Without support from non-governmental agencies, in-service education for
teachers was rare because the local education authorities did not seem to place teacher
professional development as a priority.
Findings
Enhancement of knowledge of student active learning
With regard to the irst research question – to what extent the professional development
sessions have enabled teachers to enhance their knowledge of student active learning, the
results are presented in terms of two aspects that are required in student active learning: (a)
sound preparation and planning, and (b) the teachers’ knowledge of pedagogical content.
Writing a lesson plan is one of the main responsibilities of teachers. Correspondingly, 85%
of the sampled teachers answered ‘Yes’ when asked whether they wrote lessons plans and
implemented them efectively. Sixty seven (34%) of those teachers reported having no issues
in writing a lesson plan. These teachers were able to explain briely about the topic, sub topic
and learning outcomes. Fifty nine (30%) teachers were able to write lesson plans and partially
describe the topic, sub topic, and learning outcomes. Fifteen teachers (7.7%) said that they
were able to write lesson plans with only a few descriptions about the topic, sub topic or
learning outcomes.
One open-ended question in the survey asked teachers to write activities they had put
in their lesson plans. These self-reported activities were later compared with the observed
teachers’ and students’ behaviours in class. The survey also investigated teachers’ knowledge
of pedagogical content. Three open-ended questions speciically refer to student active-learn-
ing; the irst of these three questions asked what is active learning, the second one what
they should do during active learning, and the last one what their students should do during
active learning. Asked to write what they know about active learning, almost all teacher
respondents (89%) listed the names of the ive modules covered in their professional devel-
opment sessions: Developing Contextual Teaching and Learning, Higher Order Thinking,
Problem Solving, Cooperative Learning, and Creating a Learning Environment that Motivates
Students to Learn. Four teachers included the other two modules–Teaching Preparation and
Practices and Action Planning whereas these two modules were the classroom practice and
the follow-up plan after the ive training sessions. Six teachers added Using Proper/Creative
Media which was actually covered in the ifth module–Creating a Learning Environment
that Motivates Students to Learn. Ten teachers gave varied answers ranging from ‘complying
with the curriculum’ to ‘relevant to students’ needs’. Two teachers did not answer the question
(see Table 3).
220
I. HARJANTO ET AL.
Table 3. teachers’ perspectives – what is active learning.
Responses Number % of teachers Description
five Modules 178 89 (1) developing contextual teaching and learning, (2) higher order thinking, (3) Problem Solving, (4) cooperative learning, and
(5) creating learning Environment
Seven Modules 4 2 five modules plus (6)teaching Preparation and Practices and (7) action Planning
five Modules plus Media use 6 3 five modules plus using Proper/creative Media
Varying answers 10 5 carrying out the curriculum, complying with the curriculum, relevant to students’ needs
no answer 2 1 no answer
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR TEACHING 221
For the last two questions, respondents could give more than one answer. Regarding
what teachers should do during active learning, teacher respondents gave various answers.
The three most frequent teacher activities as shown in Table 4 were guiding students (63%),
assigning students in groups (39%), and checking students’ work (28%). In regard to what
students should do, Table 5 shows that 139 of 192 teachers (or 72%) mentioned asking
questions, 91 of them (47%) chose helping each other, and 82 teachers (43%) thought work-
ing in their group as expected students’ activities in student-active learning.
Contrary to the teachers’ perceptions, the teachers’ knowledge of pedagogical content
was found to be incongruent. One indicator of success in any professional training is the
participants’ mastery of the training materials. Teachers’ mastery of both the subject they
are teaching and of the pedagogical content knowledge serves as a foundation to student
performance. The results of the higher order thinking assessment included in the survey
show that the sampled teachers selected a wide range of cognitive levels with high percent-
ages of them reporting that these items referred to the lowest level of Remembering. In fact,
only about 20% of the teachers indicated the correct cognitive levels of such items. The large
percentage of teachers who could not answer correctly might suggest that these teachers
had not yet fully absorbed the training content on higher order thinking. There still seems
to be a gap between the purpose-content of the training materials and the teachers’ peda-
gogical content knowledge. Thus, the self-perceived mastery of training materials was con-
tradicted by the tested level of mastery with training materials.
Teachers’ perspectives
As teachers were trained to conduct learning-teaching activities applying student
active-learning methods, they were expected to practice teaching with AICEPL. Indeed, the
lesson plans should be implemented through the learning-teaching activities in the class-
room. When asked whether they had planned for their lessons, what methods they were
planning to use in their classes, and what learning outcomes they expected out of their
teaching, our study found that teachers had started to apply only a few components of
AICEPL but still tended to use more traditional direct teaching methods.
The pre-class observation interviews of the teachers revealed that the planned teaching
techniques were mostly lecturing using questions and answers (44.91%, 75 teachers), com-
bination of questions and answers and other methods (43.11%, 72 teachers), and combina-
tion of three teaching methods; lecturing, questions and answers, and another teaching
method such as group discussion (12%, 20 teachers). One teacher in SDN Lubuk Lawas,
Jambi said,
Perlu memberikan penjelasan dan pengajaran dengan baik dan tuntas kepada para siswa sebe-
lum bisa menugaskan mereka untuk melakukan kerja kelompok atau kegiatan lain. (Interview,
12 August 2015)
(It’s necessary to give explanation and lecturing well and comprehensively to the students before
I can assign them to do group work or other activities.)
The results of the interview were somewhat diferent from what teachers wrote in the
survey as summarised in Table 4. Asked about what teachers should do in the survey, their
responses (guiding students, assigning students in groups, and checking students’ work)
indicate their predisposition toward student active learning. Yet, when asked in the pre-ob-
servation interview what they planned to do, lecturing was still the most dominant teaching
style and the expected learning outcomes were mostly lower order thinking – remembering
and understanding. This could be due to the fact that the time of observation was still in the
irst few weeks of the new academic year after the one-month break. Therefore, teachers
might not aim to achieve high cognitive levels in their planning of lessons so early in the
year.
The post-classroom observation interviews found that the most teachers thought that
they carried out their lesson plans well. About 112 (58%) teachers stated that the learning
objectives were achieved and the students understood the lessons taught in class com-
pletely. A smaller group of teachers (n = 42, 22%) also claimed that the learning objectives
were achieved with some reinforcements to understand the lessons better. A ifth-grade
teacher in Labuhan Batu, North Sumatera mentioned that she ‘feels satisied with the teach-
ing and learning process. The learning objectives have been met well. Students understood
the lesson well’ (Interview, 24 September 2015).
Only a few teachers, speciically 6% (n = 12), felt that the teaching objectives were not
achieved. These teachers said that students had diiculties understanding the lessons and
needed more assistance to grasp the whole concept. Table 6 summarises teachers’ percep-
tions about the student attainment of the stated learning objectives after their class
sessions.
However, although they claimed that they were able to write the learning outcomes
according to Anderson and Krahtwohl’s Taxonomy (2001), 38 teachers (20%), formulated
learning outcomes in a broader way than the ones covered in Anderson and Krahtwohl’s
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR TEACHING 223
Taxonomy. Instead of formulating learning outcomes, they mentioned vague and dii-
cult-to-measure expectations for their students. For instance, these teachers mentioned that
they expected their students to be smarter than themselves, wanted to help develop their
students’ future, or expected the students to be able to master the lesson. Fortunately, teach-
ers still planned to allocate time for questions and answers and other teaching methods in
their lesson plan so that students’ participation – one of the aspects of AICEPL – was applied.
Notwithstanding these indings, teachers seemed to be very conident about themselves
and their mastery of active learning.
Principal’s perspectives
Principals regarded their teachers pretty highly. None of them rated their teacher qualiica-
tions and efectiveness as poor. A total of 38(60%) principals thought of their teacher efec-
tiveness as good and 26 (40%) as fair. Being responsible for teachers’ tasks, the principals in
this PD programme supervised their teachers in implementing the PD training materials
directly and indirectly. Mostly they observed the teaching of the teachers in the classroom.
Indirect observation was done through reports by the teachers themselves, the teachers’
colleagues, and the students. Other forms of supervision methods were also carried out, but
this was the least cited activity. As revealed in Table 7, most principals from the sampled
schools (80% in North Sumatra and 81% in Jambi and Riau) indicated that they observed
their own teachers through direct supervision for the implementation of the training
materials.
Table 7. Methods for monitoring teacher implementation of training materials – principal self-report.
North Sumatra
Jambi (n = 15) (n = 21) Riau (n = 21) Total (n = 57)
Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No
report from 40% 60% 19% 81% 19% 81% 25% 75%
teacher (n = 6) (n = 9) (n = 4) (n = 17) (n = 4) (n = 17) (n = 14) (n = 43)
report from 20% 80% 10% 90% 10% 90% 12% 88%
other teacher (n = 3) (n = 12) (n = 2) (n = 19) (n = 2) (n = 19) (n = 7) (n = 50)
report from 13% 87% 5% (n = 1) 95% 5% 95% 7% (n = 4) 93%
Students (n = 2) (n = 13) (n = 20) (n = 1) (n = 20) (n = 53)
direct 80% 20% 81% 11% 81% 19% 81% 19%
supervision or (n = 12) (n = 3) (n = 17) (n = 4) (n = 17) (n = 4) (n = 46) (n = 11)
observation
other Method 20% 80% 5% (n = 1) 95% 5% 95% 9% (n = 5) 91%
(n = 3) (n = 12) (n = 20) (n = 1) (n = 18) (n = 48)
no time to 0% (n = 0) 100% 0% (n = 0) 100% 0% 100% 0% (n = 0) 100%
Monitor (n = 15) (n = 21) (n = 0) (n = 24) (n = 57)
notes: Missing data for the item (Jambi n = 1, north Sumatra n = 0, riau n = 3) were not included in the listed percentages.
224 I. HARJANTO ET AL.
The role of a school principal is important in ensuring that teachers implement what they
have learned through the trainings. Principals of the sampled schools reported that they
performed their supervisory task by visiting the classrooms fairly regularly. With regards to
AICEPL, however, this inding is not consistent with the other indings on the teaching and
learning processes in the classrooms. This implies two possibilities. The school principals
may not have grasped the concepts of AICEPL; therefore, they were not able to identify what
needed to be improved in teaching practices in their schools. The other possibility is that
the school principals may not have used proper and efective methods of supervision.
According to Cramer (1999) some principals may not have time to plan and deal with the-
oretical problems (such as those of AICEPL); indeed, they may not have time to discuss even
practical topics such as classroom strategies with the teachers. Principals must plan pro-
grammes of supervision of instruction well to ensure that teachers deliver the lesson accord-
ing to the applied teaching approach.
Table 8. teachers’ three most dominant behaviours as observed by surveyor and reported by students.
Surveyors Students
talking and explaining the lesson 91% Writing on the board 68%
Standing in front of the classroom 86% talking and explaining the lesson 66%
Writing on the board 71% checking students’ work at his/her desks 35%
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR TEACHING 225
The next largest group, 53 teachers (30%), managed to engage their students actively in the
learning activities. In-between, 23 teachers (13%) were observed to have attempted to invoke
student active learning but have not managed to facilitate student-initiated active learning
and achieve their full engagement. Thus, although the teachers tend to think they are engag-
ing the students actively, the observers and students themselves disagree with the teachers
on this crucial outcome.
Despite the indings on the need for improvement in teachers’ knowledge and practices,
it is noteworthy that students showed very positive attitudes about their classroom experi-
ences and valued their teachers highly. Almost all students across the three provinces (99%
in North Sumatra and Jambi, and 98% in Riau) reported that they were happy, and that they
enjoyed their learning and were in high spirits when asked about their feelings in the class-
room on the day of the survey. When a group of students in SDN 156, Lubuk Lawas, Jambi,
were asked how they felt about their school and class, one student volunteered and said
‘Senang. Suka belajar di sini. Ibu guru baik’ (Happy. Love learning here. The teacher is good).
This student was then cheered by her schoolmates (SDN 156, Lubuk Lawas, Jambi, 12 August
2017).
When asked to rate their own teacher, less than 10% of the students found their teachers
less than great. These indings are consistent with those in the PISA (Gurría 2012) study which
revealed that 96% of students in Indonesia reported being happy in school. This phenom-
enon should be interpreted in light of the possibility that these high and positive ratings of
students’ attitudes may be culturally-bound.
Discussion
The results show that teachers’ knowledge of student active learning is in need of improve-
ment, particularly in the areas of encouraging higher-order thinking skills and student-cen-
tred learning. These indings are consistent with results of other studies on student teachers’
experiences. There is a gap between theoretical and practical knowledge as soon as student
teachers enter the real classroom setting (Cheng, Cheng, and Tang 2010). This is because of
their misinterpretation of the theory or its faulty implementation, or their own inconsisten-
cies. This may also occur if the pre-training experiences or teaching context inluences have
a stronger impact on the teachers than the current professional development
programme.
The seeming gap between the teachers’ theoretical and practical knowledge may also
be due to the possibility that teachers are still striving to make sense of the lessons gained
from their PD trainings and incorporate the new ideas into their practical knowledge. Another
possibility is also the researchers’ constraints of location as teacher educators who are yet
226 I. HARJANTO ET AL.
Implications
The Tanoto Foundation is engaged in teacher upgrading projects to improve the quality of
education in Indonesia. The areas of teacher development where private enterprises can
help support the government (as presented in Figure 2) include continuous professional
development for in-service teachers and teacher performance appraisal. These areas com-
plement the initial formation of pre-service teachers in teacher education programmes and
the certiication programme, which are the sole responsibility of the government. Public
participation in community-based professional development for teachers needs to be instru-
mental and complementary to the planned policy by the MoEC to conduct teacher
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR TEACHING 227
Figure 2. framework for the development of the quality of teachers. Source: impact of certiication on
teacher quality, World Bank (2013).
performance appraisal and link the scheme with salary increments towards a system of
remuneration and promotion based on merit.
Nevertheless, educators in remote areas should attempt to reduce the schools’ depend-
ence on external resources. In line with Rass’ study (2012) reporting that ‘the mentor and
the inductee should teach at the same school’ (157), the PD programmes should eventually
be organised and facilitated internally within the school district. When local education
authorities have diiculties in providing PD programme, educators should generate local
facilitators to share their best classroom practices and serve as peer models for other teach-
ers. One of the merits of the Tanoto Foundation PD programme is that the training has
managed to empower teachers to be local facilitators through the professional development
sessions among schools. The availability of local facilitators was one of the requirements of
the formation of professional learning circles and is crucial to the sustainability of any strategy
or programme to improve the quality of schools, especially in remote areas. The programme
228 I. HARJANTO ET AL.
also selected potential local facilitators among the participating teachers and conducted
Training of Trainers for them.
Limitations
The limitations of this study include the lack of in-depth analysis of each teacher’s perspec-
tives, the deductive stance, and the triangulation issues. First, given the nature of the study
and the number of teacher participants, the research team had to make choices of presenting
the overall descriptive data of all the respondents or taking a speciic slice of the perspectives
and exploring the voices in a greater depth. As this present study aimed to investigate to
what extent the PD programme enable the participating teachers overall to enhance their
knowledge and improve their teaching practices, the latter leaves room for further research
on the narrative voices of participants.
Second, in formulating the questions in the survey and interview, the research team may
have been exercising the power with our access to the literature on teacher professional
development and student learning while lying on our ignorance of the reality of teachers’
lives and classroom practices, particularly in the context of remote areas. The list of teacher
and student behaviours used in the observation instrument particularly may have been
imposed on the teachers’ teaching practices based on the researchers’ knowledge and the
information from the PD modules. As there is a gap between theoretical and practical knowl-
edge within teachers, likewise there may also be a gap between the researchers’ knowledge
and the teachers’ reality and perspectives. To reduce the researchers’ biases and to safeguard
this ‘speaking about these teachers’ (Alcof 1991) as congruent as possible to the teachers’
classroom reality, the method of data collection has been varied to include all the diferent
perspectives of the diferent stakeholders through diferent ways–survey, interviews, and
observation as summarised in Table 1.
Finally, diferent triangulation data could usually be found in qualitative research. Teachers’
perspectives on active learning were diferent from what happened in the classroom as seen
by observers and students. Although observation data could substantiate the indings
(Merriam 1998), Nation (1997) asserts that observation data represents behaviour rather
than the behaviour itself. As argued by Johnson and Turner (2003), further study was sug-
gested to combine observation and further interviews to explore teachers’ explanation for
the diferences between their perspectives and the observers’ and students’ perceptions.
Conclusion
Improving teacher quality in Indonesia is one of the objectives of the Tanoto Foundation’s
SIP. The results of the study give insights to further improve teacher PD with special emphasis
on enhanced knowledge and improved teaching practices, especially in the areas of high-
er-order thinking skills and student-centred learning. Further PD programmes conducted
by the government or the Tanoto Foundation’s SIP should not be limited to sessions of
trainings but also to principals’ or mentors’ supervisions in the real classrooms. Indeed, further
PD should consider students’ positive attitude towards teachers and their teaching contex-
tually and critically.
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR TEACHING 229
Acknowledgements
This evaluation study was made possible through a grant from the Tanoto Foundation. The authors
wish to thank Sihol Aritonang, Ari Widowati, Rahmat Setiawan and the Tanoto Foundation support
team as well as the surveyors team led by Frieda Subrata and Risang Rimbatmaja.
Disclosure statement
No potential conlict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Tanoto Foundation.
ORCID
Ignatius Harjanto http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8914-6142
Anita Lie http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4818-2811
Diah Wihardini http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0680-0426
Laura Pryor http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0958-6584
Mark Wilson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0425-5305
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