Balai Guru Penggerak (the teacher training agency) in East Nusa Tenggara (BGP NTT) held the Workshop on Harvesting Mother Tongue-Based Differentiated Learning Outcomes in the Implementation of Kurikulum Merdeka (IKM) for Guru Penggerak (change agent teachers) in early childhood development and elementary schools on 15-16 December in Labuan Bajo. This workshop was a continuation of the Guru Penggerak Workshop on 7-11 November in Kupang which was attended by Guru Penggerak from Manggarai and West Manggarai districts as well as teachers from Sekolah Penggerak in East Manggarai. For one month after the workshop in November, BGP together with INOVASI and the Sulinama Foundation actively conducted mentoring sessions for Guru Penggerak to carry out concrete actions. The teachers carried out an assessment of students’ literacy skills and used the results to design differentiated learning strategies and implement them to improve students’ literacy skills. A number of Guru Penggerak also designed learning strategies with their mother tongue content as the language transition.
This activity was attended by 40 teachers and was opened by the Director of Principals, Supervisors and Education Personnel (KSPSTK), Directorate General of Teachers and Education Personnel, Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (MoECRT), Praptono. In the talk show session, Praptono invited all participants to continue to innovate, to present quality education for students. “Never stop taking real action. Be a teacher who can provide quality learning,” said Praptono. He also advised teachers to be more active in accessing PMM. Furthermore, Praptono appreciated BGP’s collaboration with INOVASI. “This is a very extraordinary program. I am very grateful to INOVASI, the education office and BGP who have become good partners to continue to innovate, to provide meaningful learning for our children,” he concluded at the talk show session.
Apart from the talk show session, the participants also took part in a group reflection session and showcased their work. During the reflection, the participants said that they had disseminated their knowledge about mother tongue-based differentiated learning to other teachers in their school. Yasinta Yosarimas, Principal of Longgo Catholic Elementary School, West Manggara district, stated that the use of mother tongue was a new strategy for schools in teaching reading and writing in the early grades. Children had a tendency to enjoy learning more because they could use everyday language in learning to read and write at school.
On this occasion, the Head of BGP NTT, Act. Head of the West Manggarai Education, Youth and Sports Office, Program Manager of the Sulinama Foundation, EPP and GEDSI Managers of INOVASI, and the INOVASI NTT Team were also present.