HAFECS (Highly Functioning Education Consulting Services)

HAFECS (Highly Functioning Education Consulting Services) was founded by Dr. Zulfikar Alimuddin as a platform to contribute to the improvement of education quality in Indonesia.

The vision of HAFECS is to drive the transformation of Indonesian education through teacher competency development. 

This vision is realized through our missions: 1) Helping teachers and educational institutions transform faster in the teaching and learning process for the better; 2) Inspire teachers and education practitioners by enriching relevant knowledge for teaching. 

For this mission, our focus are: 1) Teacher’s Teaching, 2) Teacher’s Learning, and 3) Innovative Curriculum. 

As the Coordinator of HAFECS Research and Publication (HRP), I am responsible for conducting evaluation training programs and initiatives in HAFECS. Together with our team, I have developed several instruments to measure the effectiveness of training programs and collect data for program reports. My position in the organization allows me to modify and make changes to existing programs as part of program development. Additionally, I am involved in designing solutions as part of the program development team.

As the team lead, it is my responsibility to ensure that the challenge presented in the solution for the LEAP Project accurately reflect what is happening in the field. I also ensure that the solutions from the LEAP Project are smoothly integrated within the organization.

I assemble a team of experts from the organization with whom I will be working. It is my responsibility to guide the team, helping them focus on the challenges and utilize their expertise to ensure informative and insightful discussions during the LEAPathon project refinement.

Our team consists of trainers and program developers in HAFECS who are eager to create practical solutions that can effectively address teachers' problems. We have firsthand experience in teaching students and training teachers, so we are familiar with what happens in the field. However, teachers' perspectives are seldom exposed to the academic world, creating a gap between the solutions provided by academia and the solutions that teachers require in their daily teaching activities. The LEAP Project provides us with an opportunity to approach our work in a more academic and strengthen by evidence. We aim to ensure that any new development or program we implement is thoroughly researched and well-documented.

In HAFECS, our team has received feedback on how our program delivers the necessary knowledge and skills for anyone aspiring to be an effective and professional teacher. Whenever we encounter a problem in teachers' classrooms that we are unable to solve immediately, we consider it an opportunity for evaluation. We examine our shortcomings and determine the perspectives needed to address the problem, integrating this knowledge into our existing solutions.

Through the LEAP Project, we are eager to seize the opportunity to strengthen our solutions using evidence-based reports. These reports will serve as justification when introducing our solutions to the most skeptical groups regarding the practical needs in the field. Improving the quality of our program systematically will be a priority for our organization, as completing the LEAP project will provide us with valuable experience and serve as the foundation for improving our other programs. Additionally, engaging in discussions and brainstorming sessions is fundamental to our organization, so participating in the LEAP Project aligns with our regular practices.

Teaching Mastery Framework as a framework for identifying the areas in which teachers need to systematically improve their classroom practices.

When Dr. Zulfikar Alimuddin conducted evaluations of the teachers at the school under his direction in South Kalimantan, Indonesia, he was perplexed by their inadequate teaching abilities. This was despite their status as graduates of esteemed teacher training programs and having undergone a rigorous selection process. He harbored concerns over the implications of this situation, recognizing that if even highly qualified teachers struggled in the classroom, students would inevitably encounter difficulties in their learning endeavors. The issues he identified were as follows:

1. Teachers are too focus to finish a concept in the classroom, or following the curriculum timetable, while ignoring different students’ difficulties and needs during learning.
2. Inability to engage with students during classroom instruction and academic discourse.
3. Too much assessment, but did not empower students when they are unable to answer question (learner experiencing learned helplessness)
4. Inability to manage classroom flow due to lack of finesse in interacting with children and teenagers
5. Lack of planning, hence inability to anticipate things that might go wrong in a class
6. Lack familiarity in growing students critical thinking
7. Lack of contextual learning that could make students relate the learning with their life
8. No ecosystem to support teacher peer review and reflection on what has been conducted in the classroom

This problem is not limited to this school. Indonesia's teacher development program has been a challenge since the country's establishment. Since 1945, Indonesia's government has prioritized education to ensure its citizens' rights and better livelihood. In the first decade of independence, rapid teacher development programs were established to address the needs of uneducated Indonesian citizens. Those willing to undergo a 6-year (equivalent to elementary school graduate) education to become teachers were promptly recruited as teachers to teach in newly constructed schools nationwide.

Over the course of 77 years, there have been improvements in teacher professional development and the duration of teacher training has been extended to enhance the quality of subject matter and teaching. Currently, individuals are considered prospective teachers if they have completed a four-year bachelor's degree, with two years dedicated to learning the subject matter and two years focused on pedagogy. However, when compared to teachers in more advanced countries, Indonesian teachers receive less education in the specific subject matter, resulting in a lack of mastery in teaching it. Furthermore, There is also the issue about the lack of strict selection processto enroll in teacher training faculties, which exacerbates the existing issues. This situation falls short of the ideal requirements for teachers, as stated by Lee S. Shulman's concept of Teacher’s Pedagogical Content Knowledge: teachers must possess a broad and deep understanding of the knowledge they are going to teach in order to effectively convey it for pedagogical purposes.

The issue of inadequate teaching skills among teachers needs to be addressed. One potential solution is to ensure that Indonesian teachers have a broader perspective of their teaching practices. Hence, there is a need for an effective teaching framework.

Our solution is to introduce the Teacher Mastery Framework (TMF) to teachers and school management, fostering collaboration and enhancing teaching practices. TMF, developed collaboratively by Dr. Zulfikar Alimuddin and other teachers within the school, emerged from reflective dialogues focused on improving classroom activities. It encompasses eight aspects, categorized into three core areas, forming the foundation for effective teaching practices among educators.

Planning

1. Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Teachers’ ability to evaluate what to teach, how to teach it, what kind of context that need to be used to carry introduce the narrative, who are the audience and how they best learn, how to evaluate the learning outcomes. He must consider it while also considering the curriculum that is being used to teach the kid and the general education context that they operated in. this aspect were adapted from Morine-Dershimer and Kent’s formulation of PCK (1999).

2. Higher Order Thinking Skill

Teachers’ ability to map out the cognitive journey (based on Revised Bloom Taxonomy, 2001) that students would go through in learning, starting from the foundation, remembering facts (Factual – Remember) to creation (Metacognitive - Create).

3. Lesson Plan 

Detailed description of what would a teacher do and prepare for classroom activities, including what could go wrong and how teachers could prevent or anticipate it

4. Teaching Tactics 

A set of teacher action strategies to direct the learning atmosphere in the classroom related to achieving learning objectives such as giving specific instructions or certain learning strategies to deal with a dynamic classroom atmosphere.

5. Classroom Management 

Refers to a variety of skills and techniques teachers use to keep students engaged, focused, attentive, on task, and academically productive in class. When classroom management is carried out effectively, teachers minimize behaviors that hinder learning for students individually or in groups, while teachers maximize behaviors that facilitate or enhance learning.

6. Soft Skill

Personality entities, personal attributes, and communication skills needed by a teacher to be successful in learning management.

7. Teaching scenario

A scenario containing step by step expected instruction, students’ response, and the learning flow in the classroom based on the lesson plan created by the teacher.

8. Teaching Grading 

The process of assessing teacher performance for the purpose of self-reflection by reviewing the class through video recordings and getting feedback on the effectiveness of teaching in class in relation to the development of the teacher's teaching competence and what the teacher should do to improve it.

Our organization introduces the TMF to teachers through in-service teacher training programs, which are either self-funded or funded by the government. The training consists of a minimum of 16 learning hours, primarily conducted indoors, and facilitated by a team of trainers. These trainers explain and facilitate the adoption of the TMF into teaching practices. The training concludes with a review of teachers' teaching practices after they have implemented the TMF into their instructional approach.

Teachers in Indonesia

We have conducted separate foundational research and/or formative research for aspects in Teaching Mastery Framework (TMF).

Formative Research

Formative research has been conducted on all eight aspects of the TMF, utilizing interview and survey methods. However, it was not carried out in a strictly academic manner, lacking proper documentation and adherence to rigorous research methods. Nevertheless, these testimonials were collected to evaluate the response to the ongoing training program's performance.

Foundational Research

The TMF was developed based on teachers' best practices and successful approaches observed in the school directed by Zulfikar Alimuddin. Two aspects of the TMF, namely Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS), have already undergone academic study through literature reviews and desktop research. The findings from these studies have been compiled into a reference book for teachers, providing theoretical frameworks and step-by-step guidance on integrating PCK and HOTS into classroom practices, supported by academic theories and research findings.

However, for the remaining aspects of the TMF, comprehensive foundational research has yet to be conducted.

Formative Research 

We sought feedback from teachers who attended our training sessions regarding the practicality and usefulness of the TMF in enhancing their teaching skills. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive and delivered with enthusiasm. We often received comments such as “this is what is missing from teacher education in Indonesia,” “this is what actually need to be taught for teachers,”. 

Foundational Research 

We have discovered that the effective practices and best approaches implemented in our school have been extensively discussed by education experts. This serves to validate our methods and contributes to refining our theory of change. By aligning our changes with previous academic discourse, we ensure that our interventions are evidence-based and well-informed.

We are currently experiencing difficulties in convincing academia that the TMF is an alternative framework for teachers to effectively teach. This has become an issue because we want to share this framework with prospective teachers as early as possible. Our framework has been acknowledged by Indonesia's Ministry of Education and Culture as a practical and functional framework for teachers. In 2021, we were chosen by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture as one of the organizations to prepare in-service teacher training for implementing the "new paradigm" curriculum after presenting our framework to the ministry.

However, we often encounter skeptical voices regarding our solutions. Currently, we are able to introduce it to prospective teachers through internships at the school where TMF was first introduced, as well as through seminars that we hold. Those skeptical voice often no longer heard after we agree to engage in dialogue and demonstrate how TMF looks like when implemented in the classroom. Although this tactic works, we cannot always use this approach if we plan to reach a wider audience of adopters.

Another issue we face is the need for an instrument that can be easily used by TMF adopters to assess how optimally they have adopted TMF in the classroom. Currently, we assess whether TMF has been optimally adopted by evaluating students based on their ABEC (Affection, Behavior, Engagement, and Cognition). When students demonstrate negative ABEC feedback, it means that teachers need to evaluate their teaching and analyze their practice using the TMF.

In our ideal TMF training, teachers would work for 32 learning hours, gaining knowledge about what TMF is and what each aspect of TMF looks like in practice. At the end of the training, HAFECS ensures that TMF ideals has been adequately adopted by the participants by including a teaching review session followed by a reflection session for the teachers.

The review session is rewarding for the teachers because they receive direct feedback from the trainers on whether they have adopted TMF in their teaching. Other teachers attending this session also have the chance to observe various cases being reviewed and learn from them. However, we are constrained by time and the number of available trainers, so not all teachers can always be reviewed. Additionally, we offer mini sessions lasting 8 to 16 learning hours. In these mini sessions, we often do not have the freedom to review more than two teaching practices. To address this, we also provide online teaching review videos that teachers can access on our online platform, allowing them to familiarize themselves with spotting TMF.

We wish to share the rich insights that our trainers have in reviewing and spotting which aspects of TMF are already good or need improvement. However, for a new trainer, it requires at least one month of training, which involves watching other trainers review learning practices and participating in group reflections, before they can be considered experts in reviewing teaching practices

1. How can we academically justify our formulation, derived from our best practices, that the aspects of TMF are effective in guiding teachers to teach effectively?

2. How can we develop an instrument that ensures the comprehensive implementation of all aspects of TMF by teachers? The instrument should be user-friendly and practical for teachers (prospective teachers, in-service teachers and second career teachers). This research question aims to enhance the implementation of the Teaching Grading aspect within the TMF.

The first output: We expect to have a non-exhaustive document that could explains and reflect our values and insight regarding effective teaching while still able to connect with wider academic audience, yet can still be accessed by novice teachers in Indonesia. This output will be supported by evidence that could strengthen TMF as solution to educational problem, and then strengthening our attempt in realizing our vision: transformation of education in Indonesia. 

The second output: We also expect to have an instrument, such as rubric, or other adequate means of assessment, that could be easily used and accessed by teachers who have learned about TMF, so that teachers could more independent in reviewing their adoption of TMF other than by assessing students ABEC and being directly reviewed by other teachers.

The first output will be used in our outreach attempts to teacher training and education faculty and professional teacher preparation programs in higher education institution in Indonesia. We will not only demonstrate Teacher Mastery Framework (TMF) to them but also provide them with the documents that is academically sound to strengthen our position.

The second output will be used directly in our training programs to improve the quality of the TMF training and TMF as THE practical solution to education issues in Indonesia. Specifically, we will start to distribute the instrument to the training participants. In the future, we also plan to develop a TMF module, equipped with the instrument, which can be distributed widely and make it easier for teachers to adopt independently.

The short term outcomes:

Our organization:

• Become familiar with the various ways in which our solutions to education problems can be strengthened by evidence (other than TMF)     
• Recognition of our training certificate by teacher training and education faculty from a well-known teacher training institution or higher education institution. 

Our solution:

• Our solution aims to be incorporated into the curriculum of teacher training and education faculties to prepare pre-service teachers.
• We strive for broader recognition of our solution among educational practitioners in Indonesia.

The long term outcomes:

Our organization:

• Recognized as organization that could provide evidence-based solution to education problems in Indonesia.

Our solution:

• Our solution is to be recognized and adopted by more educational practitioner in Indonesia.