Meet Miss Serni Hutagalung, my cooperating teacher in TK Kuncup Pertiwi. She has been teaching at the school for 10 good years and is a English major graduate back in her university in Surabaya. Notably, she have awe-amazing skills in terms of creating instructional materials and injecting creativity in numerous things.
For the teaching methods, Miss Serni makes use of circle time in the preliminary activities and even after the core. Since she is teaching kindergarten pupils it is important to have an established routine in class and so she makes sure that she accomplishes the preliminaries completely and in a child-friendly manner by means of injecting songs with simple actions and having yells to catch the attention of the pupils. She often uses the art of questioning by means of throwing a question in order to initiate communication with the pupils promoting participation. The way Miss Serni handles her class is the way expected of a kindergarten teacher and that is why I appreciate her work so much for she lives by example.
Asked about her learning materials and innovation, given that in TK Kuncup there is a use of actual materials, you can see her activities patterned on the theme of the month. She makes her learning materials based on two things: the theme and the competency that needs to be met. Say for example, there should be a discussion on the different parts of banana, she would make a material that will practice the spelling skills of pupils and at the same time practice their fine motor skills by picking and pasting. With that there is already innovation on a single material. Furthermore, she innovates by experimenting with songs like adapting a tune of a famous Indonesian nursery song and putting a contextualized lyrics about the theme.
Talking about the sources of learning and technology used by the teacher, Miss Serni uses her mere observations and also expounds her creativity by looking up on the internet to check on trends when it comes to making educational materials as well as getting ideas on how to make instructional materials. Like when she was preparing for the month of February, she looked up on the internet activities that can be patterned in corn but she innovated it by adding a personal touch in terms of design and functionality. I can highly relate with Miss Serni that when it comes to looking for sources, one must be resourceful all the while updated for what can possibly interesting for you may not be interesting for the pupils given that the age gap is huge.
Lastly, authentic assessment usage is very much evident in kindergarten education especially in TK Kuncup where authentic materials are used. She tries to look on the way pupils behave and socializes with classmates as well as checks whether or not they know actual scenarios by making makeshift scenarios such that of making an activity where there will be a store in class and students will act like the vendor. In such small acts, the pupils are learning the authentic scenarios of this world.
Observing Miss Serni is really fun for she is so full of energy and creativity. You can see the students at awe with the materials that are presented to them like a giant maze wherein they get to dress as farmers going to the garden. She specifically made an impact to me in terms of making scenarios actually possible- all for the learning of the kids.