Amin Suyitno

Building innovative and creative character through mathematics

21st century is predicted as the century with rapid development in all aspects of life. People require creative and innovative character to exist. Specifically, mathematics has been given to students from the kindergarten until the middle school. Thus, building character through mathematics should begin since the early age. The problem is how to build creative and innovative character through mathematics education? The goal expected from this question is to build innovative and creative characters to face the challenges of the 21st century. This article discusses the values of mathematics, the values in mathematics education, innovative and creative character, and the integration of these values in teaching mathematics that support the innovative and creative character building, and applying the values in structurely programmed, measurable, and applicable learning activities.

The Effectiveness of Malcolm’s Modeling Based On KWL Thinking Strategy towards The Problem Solving Skills

The learning model that can be implemented to improve problem solving skills is Malcolm’s Modeling. The objectives of this research were (1) to measure problem solving skill of the students who was taught by Malcom’s modeling based on KWL thinking strategy towards the minimum criteria scores; (2) to compare the students on problem solving skill who received Malcom’s Modeling based on KWL Thinking Strategy and expository learning model in the chapter of Scientific Notation. The population of this research were the students of seventh grade in Tainan Municipal Jincheng Junior High School in the academic year of 2016/2017. By simple random sampling technique, class 705 was selected as the experiment class and class 711 was selected as the control class. The data were collected by using some instruments, they were test and documentation. Data analysis used SPSS software and excel for t-test and proportion test. The results of the research showed that : (1) Malcom’s modeling based on KWL thinking strategy gained good result to the scores of the students; (2) the problem solving skill of the students who received Malcom’s Modeling using KWL Thinking Strategy was better than that skill of the students who received expository learning model.