CHARACTERISTICS OF STUDENTS - PART 3
8. Motivation
Motivation has been defined by many experts, including by Wlodkowski (in Suciati, 1994:41) which is a condition that causes or gives rise to certain behaviors, and which gives direction and persistence to these behaviors. Motivation sometimes arises from within the individual himself (intrinsic motivation and sometimes that motivation arises due to factors from outside himself (extrinsic motivation). Besides that, the motivation of students in learning is sometimes high, moderate, or even low. High learning motivation from participants students will be seen from their perseverance in learning that is not easily broken to achieve success despite the many obstacles it faces.High motivation from students can activate their learning activities.
An educator in the 21st century needs to understand the learning motivation of their students and must even be able to always be a motivator for their students, because in this 21st century there are many temptations around students such as games on personal computers, and online games, and movies on television sets. or through mass media or other social media. Efforts that can be made by educators to motivate students include: informing the importance/benefits of studying a particular topic, informing the goals/competencies to be achieved from the learning process it does, providing humor, using learning media, and also giving rewards/gifts/praise. For example, Mr. Fikri as an elementary school educator, asks his students to study in groups to discuss a topic.
After discussing each group to report the results of their discussion, for example group 1 is asked to report/present the results of their discussion first. After the presentation was finished the teacher then gave praise by saying that your presentation was very good. Then it was the turn of the next group, after the presentation was over, Mr. Fikri again praised his students by saying great, your group was great.
9. Emotional development
Emotions have been defined by many experts, including Kartono in Sugihartono (2013: 20) who defines emotion as an awakening of feelings accompanied by changes in the body, such as muscle tension and heart palpitations. With emotions, students can feel happy / happy, safe, enthusiastic, even on the contrary students feel sad, afraid, and the like.
Emotions play a very important role in helping speed up or slow down the learning process. Emotions also play a role in helping the learning process be fun or meaningful. Goleman, (in Sugihartono, 2013: 21) states that without emotional involvement, the brain's neural activity is less able to "glue" lessons in memory. Emotional atmosphere that is positive or pleasant or unpleasant has an influence on the workings of the structure of the human brain and will also affect the process and learning outcomes. On the basis of this, educators in carrying out the learning process need to bring a happy / happy emotional atmosphere and not give fear to students.
Therefore This can be done with fun learning models (enjoy learning), learning through games (eg learning through playing monopoly learning, learning snakes and ladders, learning quartet cards) and similar media.
10. Social development
Social development according to Hurlock, (1998: 250) is the ability of children to interact with their environment, how the child understands the state of the environment and influences it in behaving both to himself and to others. From this statement it can be emphasized that the social development of students is the ability of students to adapt to the norms and traditions that apply to groups or communities, the ability to communicate with each other and work together. The social development of students can be seen from the level of their ability to interact with other people and become a community in their environment.
There are several factors that influence social development, namely family, maturity, peers, school, and socioeconomic status. In order to obtain a clearer picture of these five factors, they will be presented in the following section.
a. The family is the first environment that influences aspects of child development, including aspects of social development. The family is a good place for children's socialization because most of the time children spend in the family. Family members, especially parents, will be used as models for their children. Therefore, parents need to apply the right parenting style to their children.
b. Maturity, to be able to socialize properly requires physical and psychological maturity so that they are able to consider social processes.
c. The influence of peers, Peers become important people in the socialization of children because their interactions make children understand about social relationships more than relationships with family members. Usually the opinion of peers is very concerned and heard. Through peers, children can learn to adapt to social demands, help children achieve independence, and also the child's self-concept. Therefore, adults (teachers and parents) need to accompany and supervise them so that children are not affected by negative things.
d. Schools are institutions that influence children's social development because one of the functions of this institution is to develop children's abilities to be able to live in society.
e. Socio-economic status, the social life of children is much influenced by the economic conditions of the family, the economic status of the family will certainly affect the norms that parents instill in their children, such as a simple lifestyle and the way the child looks so that this will affect the child in choosing friends.
The factors mentioned above need to be considered and understood by educators in carrying out the educational process. Efforts that can be made by educators to develop students' social attitudes according to Masganti (2012: 124) include a). implement cooperative learning. Cooperative learning will develop an attitude of cooperation and mutual respect for students, respect for the abilities of others, and be patient with the attitudes of others, b) Collaborative learning. Collaborative learning will develop an attitude of helping and sharing in learning. Smart students are willing to help their friends who do not understand the subject matter. This learning model will foster an attitude of mutual love. In the author's opinion, conduct interviews with community leaders. Through this activity will emerge the ability to interact with older people.
11. Moral and Spiritual Development
In social life, including the community in the school environment, they must know morality, even this morality is used as a source / reference for assessing an action or behavior because morality has value criteria that have implications for qualitative measures, such as: good-bad, right-wrong, appropriate. - inappropriate, unreasonable, unworthy, and the like. Morality in students can be from the lowest level to a higher level in line with maturity. Kohlberg (in Suyanto, 2006: 135), Sunardi and Imam Sujadi (2016: 7-8) moral development of children/students is divided into 3 stages, namely 1) preconventional, 2) conventional, 3) postconventional.
Preconventional Stage (6 - 10 years), which includes aspects of obedience and paunism orientatation, the orientation of children/students is still on the physical consequences of their right-wrong actions, namely punishment and obedience or the child judges good or bad based on the consequences of his actions; and aspects of naively egoistic orientation; orientation of children/students on relative instruments. Right action is an act that instrumentally satisfies one's own desires. The concern is whether it brings profit or not or whether the child judges good or bad based on the contract/reward. services. At the pre-conventional stage, students have a fear of the negative consequences of their actions.
Conventional Stage, (10 – 17 years old) which includes aspects of good boy orientation, the orientation of good deeds is that which is pleasant, helpful, or agreed upon by others. Children are obedient to certain characters that are considered natural, become good children, relate to and care for other people or people judge good or bad based on
other people's approval. Aspects of authority and social order maintenance orientation; child orientation to rules and laws. The laws and orders of the rulers are absolute and final, emphasizing the obligations and duties related to their accepted roles in society or people judge good or bad based on social order. From this description, it can be emphasized that at the conventional stage, students have feelings of guilt when they are different from other people.
Post conventional stage (17 – 28 years old)This post-conventional stage includes contractual legalistic orientation, orientation of people to the legality of social contracts. People are starting to care about individual rights, and what is good is what the majority of society agrees on. People judge good or bad, right or wrong based on applicable law. The next stage, which is the peak stage of the post-conventional stage, is the stage of conscience or principle orientation, at this stage the orientation of people is on universal ethical principles. Good and bad must be adjusted to the demands of the core ethical principles of universal principles or people judge good and bad based on their conscience.
The three stages of moral development mentioned above will be experienced by our students, although not always increasing the age of students also causes a shift to a higher stage of moral development. The implications of the stage of moral development in the educational process include the third stage, namely post conventional, especially the 6th aspect, which should be our goal.
Educators besides needing to understand the moral development of their students, it is also necessary and important to understand their spiritual development. The term spiritual in recent years is very much discussed by people when the term spiritual intelligence is raised. This spiritual intelligence is individual and needs to be developed especially in the learning process. Spiritual intelligence according to Zohar and Marshal (in Mustafa-Alif) includes the ability to appreciate values and meanings, have self-awareness, be flexible and adaptive, tends to look at things holistically, and tends to seek fundamental answers to his life situations.
Efforts that can be made by educators to develop religious attitudes include: 1) The exemplary method, educators provide direct examples / become examples to their students, both in speaking, behaving, and others. Through examples / examples will be more impressive to students than just words. 2) The habituation method, this method means that students are expected to repeat things that are good in nature, such as praying before doing learning activities, reading books, 3) The advice method, educators are expected to give advice about the truth to their students consistently. 4) Moral development, educators are expected to always foster noble character or character for their students, such as humility, respect for older people and patience.