Empowering contextual approach in Science Learning to Enhance Critical Thinking Skills: Some Cases of Learning at Secondary School Bibin Rubini, Dewi Kania, Didit Ardianto, Ira Fitriana, Indarini Dwi Pursitasari
Science Education Program,
School of Postgraduate Studies,
Universitas Pakuan
Abstract
Critical thinking are the main thinking skills to face the new normal era. Therefore, the skills must be developed and trained in every opportunity along the learning science in the classroom. Contextual approach was implemented to enhance the skills, on using some material teaching/media such as context-virtual laboratory, contextual based textbook, and contextual based article. The learnings were arranged for three contexts, how the heart pumps blood throughout the body (virtual lab based), How the nutrient fluid can get to the top of the tree (article based), and how to maintain our environment (textbook based). All topics were implemented in 8th grade students of three parallel classes each consisting of 30 students. The research shows that the implementation of contextual learnings has the potential to improve critical thinking skills for the three forms of media used. The improvement in all three classes occurred in the fair category. Some critical thinking skills that developed were providing simple explanations, building basic skills, managing strategies and tactics, providing further explanation, and formulating solutions.
Keywords: critical thinking skills, contextual approach, learning media
Topic: Learning / Teaching Methodologies and Assessment
