Lecturer educates future teachers with MIKiR method

As a lecturer at Riau University’s Teaching and Education Faculty, Mahmud’s responsibility is to teach students who are intending to become high quality teachers. Although he is qualified, Mahmud actively participates in training sessions organised by the university in collaboration with Tanoto Foundation, in a bid to further upskill himself and improve his teaching methods. Mahmud is especially grateful that he took part in a PINTAR training session held by the Foundation in Jambi, Indonesia, in 2018.

PINTAR, which means ‘smart’ in Indonesian, is a Tanoto Foundation program which aims to enhance basic education in Indonesia by improving the quality of teaching and learning, as well as school leadership. For Mahmud, the MIKiR (Experiencing, Interaction, Communication and Reflection) method he learned from PINTAR has proven to be especially useful in his job. MIKiR has had an enormous influence in making his lectures more enjoyable, and is a stimulus for students to interact more actively in his classes, he said.

“Students are more comfortable with attending my lectures since my teaching patterns have changed. There is a lot more interaction and engagement in the classroom now,” Mahmud said.

The MIKiR method places emphasis on observation and examination skills, and also encourages teamwork by getting students to work in groups. It significantly improves student learning outcomes, Mahmud said.

“Good learning models are proven through good learning outcomes. And this is evident with MIKiR, as students show improved scores in every assignment and exam,” he said.

Mahmud hopes that the practices he uses in his classes will also be used by his students when they graduate later and become teachers themselves. As a PINTAR participant, Mahmud is also committed to facilitate trainings in turn for other educators to disseminate what he has learned from Tanoto Foundation.

“I think the partnership between Tanoto Foundation and schools which are committed to improving education quality like ours has made it very easy for us as facilitators, because partner schools – from their principals to the teachers – are very supportive of any training relevant to the PINTAR program,”

Mahmud

Mahmud continues to advocate PINTAR and the MIKiR method, citing that active learning methods are the key to improving the quality of education in Indonesia.

“When students take an active approach to studying a subject, they can better retain the material – the knowledge is absorbed and will not be in vain,” he said.