In cooperation with the University of the People (UoPeople), the IB has aimed to address the global shortage of qualified educators. This year, we are funding 100 educators on their way to earning a Master of Education (M.Ed.) degree. We hear from Ahmad Putera, an educator from Sinarmas World Academy, Indonesia to reflect on how access to this programme is shaping his knowledge and career aspirations.
My name is Ahmad Putera and currently I am a Middle Years Programme (MYP) and Diploma Programme (DP) Indonesian language B teacher at Sinarmas World Academy, Indonesia. I graduated from Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta (UIN) in the Faculty of Tarbiya and Teachers Training in Jakarta. As a teacher, I like to and need to keep learning to improve myself. I have completed multiple educator trainings, such as the Apple Teacher Learning Center programmes, National Geographic: Integrated Service with Learning Goals, Reading and Writing programme, the Inquiry IB Workshop and the Indonesian K-13 Curriculum training. I hope to benefit myself and my students with new ideas from these trainings. Outside of the class, I also support my students with their creativity, activity, service (CAS) activities, such as Habitat for Humanity, badminton and poetry readings.
What do you hope to learn through your education with UoPeople?
I hope after graduating that I will use my M.Ed. from UoPeople to enrich my approaches to teaching and learning as well as conduct research into best practices in pedagogy. In the end, I hope to share best practices from my research with my school, fellow teachers and wider IB Community.
According to UNESCO, there is a global educator shortage, and we will need almost 69 million new teachers by 2030. What is the impact of having qualified educators for students?
A qualified educator can provide a holistic approach to the development of a student. They also have professional knowledge and approaches to deliver content and concept-based curriculum based on added years of experience.
Qualified teachers will always create opportunities for students to become the center of the classroom, to grow in themselves the quality of being a lifelong learner that can work individually and in teams based on proved techniques that they can modify.
“I hope after graduating that I will use my M.Ed. from UoPeople to enrich my approaches to teaching and learning as well as conduct research into best practices in pedagogy”.
Could you tell us about your first teaching experience?
I was nervous, not confident and always in a rush. It was difficult for me to control the class. When students did not show interest, I did not even know how to implement differentiation to fulfill different needs of students.
However, I’ve learned to start making essential agreements with the students on how to have a great teaching environment to support their own learning processes. I found out that if the students take the ownership of learning, the impact will be greater. Having a solid preparation in written curriculum, made up of a combination of multimedia and student-centered approaches, also helped me to grow inquiry in my classes as well as make it challenging and engaging for every individual.
As an educator, what aspects of the IB inspire you the most?
I think the IB learner profile attributes of inquiring, knowledgeable and caring are very powerful for me to embody as an IB teacher, not only as an individual who keeps learning to act out those words but also in terms of thinking about my approaches in teaching, so that can pull out those characters in my students.
Ahmad Putera is currently an IB educator teaching Indonesian language and literature and acquisitions in Middle Years Programme (MYP) and Diploma Programme (DP). He has been teaching for 14 years in various levels of elementary and high school. He earned his S.Pd. (B.Ed.) in 2006 in the Faculty of Tarbiya and Teachers Training from Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta (UIN). He has two daughters and one son and enjoys coaching badminton and football clubs.
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