Curriculum change and its impact on Senior High School students' learning outcomes and teaching and learning activities : teacher perceptions in Lombok Timur

Abstract

Education is one of the tools to shift civilization. The better the education, the higher the progress of the level of civilization of a nation. No civilization is truly progressive without education. Education is part of the civilization, those can influence each other, an advanced civilization naturally produce an advanced education system. Advanced education and civilization are influenced by several aspects of education, one of which is curriculum. Curriculum has become the heart of education as well as being the main support, constructive elements and pedagogic formulations to optimize the learning process in the classroom. The curriculum also become signs that would help to achieve educational goals easier and becomes a plan or scenario that provides the widest possible space for students to develop the potential that already exists within them. This study aimed describing the high school subject teachers' perceptions about the curriculum reform in Lombok Timur, describing the perceptions of high school subject teacher regarding the impact of curriculum reform on the student learning outcomes and describing the perceptions of high school subject teacher regarding the impact about curriculum reform on the teaching and learning activities. To gain the teacher perceptions, the study was conducted in Focus Group Discussions (FGD) which divided into two sessions. To triangulate the findings, the thematic analysis, document analysis and observation were applied. The result showed that the subject teachers have vary perceptions regarding the change. Some participants said that changes did not need to be made because the intensity of changes was frequent enough to make teachers confused, but there were several teachers who give their voices that the changes needed to be made due to the conditions of the times and demands had changed, these changes followed the changing times. Participants said that the curriculum change gave impact on the student learning performances and teaching and learning activity. Moreover, the subject teachers are optimistic with the simple administrative support of change and content designed by the ministry. However, the subject the number of professional development should be increased to improve the subject teacher capacities particularly offline in-service training, differentiated learning model and Pancasila Student Profile Strengthening Project.