Lately we often hear the term creative and innovative teachers. Especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, there are many trainings aimed at teachers on how to become creative and innovative teachers during the pandemic in order to raise students’ enthusiasm for learning. Training on creative and innovative teachers is actually not only needed during the pandemic. Teachers should be able to attract students’ interest in learning both during and after the pandemic.
How to Become an Innovative Teacher
One way that teachers can do to attract students’ interest in learning is by always innovating in learning so that learning is not monotonous and attracts students’ attention. Therefore, being an innovative teacher is an important thing that must be in a teacher. This article will discuss tips and tricks for becoming an innovative teacher. However, before we discuss further about tips and tricks for becoming an innovative teacher, the following will explain about teachers and innovation first.
Law Number 14 of 2005 states that teachers are professional educators with the main task of educating, teaching, guiding, directing, training, assessing and evaluating students in early childhood education through formal education, basic education, and secondary education. In more detail, Law Number 14 of 2005 article 20 also states the duties of teachers as follows.
- Planning learning, implementing quality learning processes, and assessing and evaluating learning outcomes.
- Improving and developing academic qualifications and competencies in a sustainable manner in line with developments in science, technology and art.
- Act objectively and non-discriminatory on the basis of considerations of gender, religion, ethnicity, race, and certain physical conditions, or family background, and socio-economic status of students in learning.
- Upholding laws, regulations, and teacher codes of ethics, as well as religious and ethical values.
- Maintain and foster national unity and unity.
Furthermore, teachers must have competencies, namely pedagogical competence, personality competence, social competence, and professional competence. Pedagogical competence is the ability to manage learning. Personality competence is the ability of teachers to be role models for their students or it can also be interpreted that teachers must have noble morals. Social competence means that teachers must have the ability to communicate with students, fellow teachers, parents of students and the community. Meanwhile, what is meant by professional competence is that teachers must have a broad and deep mastery of subject matter. So we can briefly interpret that a teacher is someone with certain competencies who plans, implements, and evaluates learning.
Innovation in English is innovation which means renewal, change (in a new way). Meanwhile, according to KBBI, innovation is the introduction or introduction of new things, or renewal. Based on this meaning, we can say that innovation is related to new things or it can be said that innovation creates something different from before. If we look at everyday life, many people create new things (innovate) to improve the quality of the products or services they provide. So we can conclude that innovation in education means creating renewal in the field of education to improve the quality or quality of education. Therefore, it is important for a teacher to continue to innovate in learning in the classroom they teach.
The 3 pillars of innovative teachers according to Prof. Dr. Nunuk Suryani, M.Pd who is the Secretary of the Directorate General of Teachers and Education Personnel of the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture which were conveyed on the Innovative Teacher YouTube channel are as follows.
- Improvement and development of teaching and learning methods in the classroom.
- Developing teachers’ learning methods.
- Innovative curriculum development.
Next, we will present several tips and tricks for becoming an innovative teacher according to the author, as follows.
- Varied ability to present lessons.
In order for learning not to be monotonous, innovative teachers must have the ability to present learning materials in a variety of ways. A teacher can find ideas on how to present learning in class from reading books, watching videos, or sharing experiences with fellow teachers.
- Be clever at utilizing the things around you.
Innovative teachers are good at utilizing items in the surrounding environment to be used as learning media. Therefore, innovative teachers are not only teachers in cities who can easily find various kinds of modern learning media but teachers in villages or teachers in remote areas can also become innovative teachers by utilizing existing items.
- Technology literate
Teachers today are indeed required to be technology literate. This is proven by the current situation where everything is digital, such as online exams, online school registration, online seminars, online training and so on.
- Never give up
Innovative teachers do not give up easily, meaning that when they try to present learning materials using a method and in the end the method is deemed to have failed because it has not been able to improve student achievement, they will try again to find ideas for presenting the material in a new way.
- Cooperative/collaboration
Innovative teachers are willing to work together or collaborate with other teachers.
- Can accept criticism
An innovative teacher is very open to constructive criticism. This is because he is aware that criticism is what will cause him to be better in the future.
- Able to be a role model
Innovative teachers can be role models for students, colleagues and the wider community.
- Communicative
Innovative teachers are able to communicate well with students, colleagues, superiors, parents/guardians of students, and the wider community.