Designing STEM-based AJarMat activities for the study from home program

Abstract

Abstract AJarMat or “Ayo Belajar Matematika” was a movement program that involved teachers and parents in guiding children to learn mathematics at home. Especially during a pandemic, learning is done from home so its need parental support. This study aimed to determine parents’ role in assisting children to learn mathematics at home, obtain a STEM-based AJarMat activities design that can be supported by parents, and know the strengths and weaknesses of the design from the parent’s perspective. This research began with a survey on parental perceptions followed by a focus group discussion with two AJarMat ambassador teachers who had attended STEM training and two teacher trainer who had experienced in STEM and AJarMat. The participants of AJarMat from Jaten Public Elementary School were 26 parents of grade VI students. Data were collected using a Likert scale questionnaire 1 to 4, interview and document study then analyzed by descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis. The results showed that parents mainly act as motivators for children to learn mathematics at home. Furthermore, STEM-based AJarMat activities that parents can support include a project to make necklaces from seeds for integer learning and a cake-making project for learning fractions. On the other hand, the strengths of this design are using creative activities and using real objects as counting objects so that students find it easy to understand mathematics, are enjoy and not bored. Lastly, the weaknesses of this design are the difficulty in obtaining materials and the process of making requires special skills and patience.