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Following requests for assistance in multigrade teaching from several districts in 2005, a Training of Trainers workshop was held in Banyuwangi, East Java from 6th - 9th March, 2006. 64 participants, including teachers, principals, supervisors and school committee representatives from 7 districts attended the three and a half day workshop.
Districts represented included Banyuwangi, Pacitan, Probolinggo, Banyumas, Kebumen, Batu and Blitar. All districts either currently have multigrade schools in operation, or have the potential to restructure existing schools more efficiently using a multigrade approach. Pacitan have taken the lead in this regard, having already restructured schools in their district.
Participants took part in activities involving structuring, planning and teaching in the multigrade school. After looking at statistics for two districts, participants were surprised to see that in many cases, there was an oversupply of teachers, not the shortage that most people perceive.
The problem is not a lack of teachers, but ineffective distribution of teachers. Some teachers had classes which were very small, others had too many students and both were ineffective and inefficient. Some teachers thought they were teaching multigrade by teaching in shifts, for example Grade 1 for the first part of the day, then Grade 2 for the remaining part of the school day.
Multigrade teaching is teaching more than one class at the same time, in the same room, using one program developed by the teacher. It is not teaching the two classes separately.
One size does not fit all
Participants felt uncomfortable when asked to swap shoes and walk around the room. Walking in shoes which are too big, or too small is difficult and uncomfortable. In the same way, all students are not the 'same size'. We ask them all to do the same work and sometimes it doesn't fit them very well.
They need activities designed to 'fit' them and teachers can do this by providing activities at different levels of difficulty according to the com-petencies to be achieved. This is important in the multigrade classroom and also in the normal classroom.
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"These shoes are too big".
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Participants learnt about planning for the multigrade classroom using common themes with different activities rather than developing separate programs for each grade level. They learnt about and developed examples for three teaching strategies particularly useful for the multigrade classroom, and chose one to try during practice teaching.
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"These shoes are too small".
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The strategies introduced included Do, Talk and Record, One Input, Many Outputs, and using Task Cards to make different levels of activities based around a common theme.
Class 3 / 4 Practice teaching at SD Ketapang 5
The participants practiced in small multigrade schools and town schools in Banyuwangi, where classes were mixed to create a multigrade situation.
Many teachers were worried about handling two classes at once, but after the practice, they felt relieved and enjoyed the experience, realizing it wasn't as difficult as they first thought.
Another idea which was introduced was the Learning Centre, which is useful in all classrooms, not just those which are multigrade.
Learning Centres: The Travel Centre
The Learning Centre provides activities based around a theme, or a subject and is a place students can go when they have finished their work, or it can be a place where groups of students work on a task.
The Learning Centre in the picture shows resources to stimulate the students for writing about a travel theme. The table contains various tickets, plane, bus and train tickets, outlines of different forms of transport such as cars, buses and trains which students can use to write on, blank paper, glue and scissors to encourage students to make their own tickets, design their own trip or write about their travel experiences.
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Issues for Discussion at District and School level
Most people believe there is a shortage of teachers, when in fact there is more than enough. The distribution of teachers is very ineffective.
Some teachers have very large classes, whilst other teachers in the same school have very small classes. This is very unfair on both the students and the teachers.
Some teachers are working 'shifts' to teach two classes when they could easily be teaching them at the same time.
Multigrade teaching can help to solve some of these problems. District education offices need to examine the data and plan to make more efficient use of their teaching staff through the creation of multigrade classes and schools.
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