Environmental learning in the 21st century requires students to have Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). The purpose of this study was to measure HOTS students using Higher Order Thinking Skills Assessment based on Environmental Problem (HOTS-AEP). The research method used in this study was descriptive method with a total sample of 248 students consisting of Elementary School (ES), Junior High School (JHS), Bachelor Program (BP), and Master Program (MP). The results showed that students overall have a very low HOTS category. HOTS scores scale of 0-100 on ES (22.3) are still higher than JHS (20.2). Whereas at the university level, BP scores (19.9) are lower than MP (21.4). This showed that learning must be oriented towards increasing HOTS through various media development learning, learning materials, learning models, and strategies. This study concludes that the HOTS score of students was still very low and needs to be improved.

Methods of education in schools should promote students' activeness, self-awareness, initiative and creativity; be suitable with the characteristics of each class and subject; foster self-study methods, ability to work in groups, practice skills to apply knowledge into practice, and impact emotions to bring joy as well as excitement to students. Experiential education is a method of teaching and meets the above requirements. In fact, experiential activities are closely related to teaching and educational activities in schools, in order to create an environment for learners, associate theory with practice, and unify awareness with action and learners, and have the opportunity to experience their own behavior. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of activities through experience in solving problems about the equation of a circle and investigate students' attitudes as well as beliefs in such activities. The experimental class included 30 10th grade students and was taught by experiential learning model, while the control class also had 30 students and was taught in a conventional way of teacher’s guidance. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyze and evaluate the collected data. The results showed that the experimental class achieved better mathematical results than the control class as well as had a positive learning attitude, showing interest in the learning topic.

The empowerment of metacognitive skills has an important role in increasing the capacity of critical thinking and active control of students' cognitive processes in learning. Metacognitive skills can be enhanced through the implementation of learning strategies involving higher-order thinking. The RQA, ADI, RQA integrated with ADI are constructivistic learning strategies that can accommodate these skills. The researches specifically examining the correlation between metacognitive skills and critical thinking skills at the implementation of RQA, ADI, and RQA integrated with ADI learning strategies are still rarely found. This research is a correlational research, aiming at revealing the correlation between metacognitive skills and critical thinking skills. The data of metacognitive skills and critical thinking skills are collected by using a valid and reliable essay test. The samples of this research are the fourth semester (IV) biology education students programming Animal Physiology course in the 2016/2017 academic year consisting of 109 students. The results of this research show that (1) there was a significant correlation between metacognitive skills and critical thinking skills at the implementation of the four learning strategies, (2) the regression equations analyzed using Anova obtain regression lines (not coincide), and non parallel regression lines (intersected); meaning that there is a difference in the increase rate and magnitude of the critical thinking skills influenced by the four learning strategies. It is expected that the teachers and the lecturers always strive to improve the quality of the learning process through the implementation of active and constructive learning strategies.

This research aims to find out: (1) the more effective learning model on students' divergent-thinking skills; (2) the better adversity quotient on students' divergent-thinking skills; (3) the better adversity quotient to improve students' divergent-thinking skills in each learning model; and (4) the better learning model to improve students' divergent-thinking skills in each adversity quotient. This research uses a quantitative approach with a quasi-experimental type. The fifth-grade students were selected as the research subjects. This research was carried out at the public elementary schools in Laweyan District, Surakarta, Indonesia. Test and questionnaire techniques were used to collect data. The data analysis was performed with the analysis prerequisite, hypothesis, and multiple-comparison tests. The results showed that the learning model and adversity quotient have an influence on divergent-thinking skills; for each adversity quotient, the thinking actively in a social context learning model is better than the creative problem solving and direct instruction learning model; the creative problem solving learning model is better than the direct instruction learning model; and adversity quotient of the climbers is better than that of the campers and the adversity quotient of the campers is better than that of the quitters in each learning model.

This study aims at exploring the problem of the readiness and competence of new teachers to teach in primary schools. This study specifically focuses on identifying the readiness of new teachers to conduct teaching professionally, and analyzing their competence in conducting teaching. This study employs a mixed-method research design with data collected from two different approaches: a qualitative approach by conducting interviews and observation, and a quantitative approach by conducting a survey. The data were collected from lecturers, graduate teachers working as teachers, graduate teachers working not as teachers, and users of graduate teachers. The results of data collection and analysis were made into several themes. The results showed that the majority of graduates were ready to join the workforce as professional teachers with the risk that they had to accept the lack of welfare and legitimacy as unprofessional teachers because they had to attend further professional education programs. The education provided by the lecturers during their study in their institution in the aspects of knowledge and skills in the field of study and pedagogy became the foundation for new teachers in starting their careers as professional teachers in schools. A good educational process had produced teachers who have competencies with good categories in various aspects.

Mathematics is one of the most challenging subjects for many students. A similar problem is faced by special needs students, such as students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Various instructional strategies are implemented by specialists to help ASD students understand mathematics in schools. To explore the impacts of an instructional strategy of mathematics on ASD students, the authors conducted a review of literature from 2011 to 2017 using various databases including ProQuest Digital Dissertations and Theses Full Text, Google Scholar, and Science Direct. A total of 39 articles were found. Most of the instructional strategy aimed to assist ASD students in solving mathematics problems. The implications of the study are also discussed in this literature review, which indicates that teachers need to use the appropriate instructional strategy to meet the needs of students with ASD and maximize their mathematics learning outcomes in schools.

Problem-solving and mathematical communication are essential skills needed by students in learning mathematics. However, empirical evidence reports that students’ skills are less satisfying. Thus, this study aims to improve students’ problem-solving and mathematical communication skills using a Metacognitive-Based Contextual Learning (MBCL) model. A quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group design was used in this study. The participants were 204 fifth-grade students; consisting of experimental (n = 102) and control (n = 102) groups selected using convenience sampling. This study was conducted in four Indonesian elementary schools in the first semester of the academic year 2019/2020. The Problem-Solving Skills Test (PSST) and Mathematical Communication Skills Test (MCST) were used as pre- and post-tests. In order to analyze the data, one-way ANOVA was used at the 0.05 significance level. The results showed that students in the experimental group had higher post-test scores than the control group in terms of problem-solving and mathematical communication skills. It can be concluded that the MBCL effectively promotes fifth-grade students’ problem-solving and mathematical communication skills. Therefore, it is suggested that MBCL should be used more frequently in primary school mathematics to further improve students’ problem-solving and mathematical communication skills.

Research on critical thinking skills has been frequently carried out, but it has not shown maximum results. This problem is exacerbated by the differences in pre-service teachers’ academic abilities. A new learning model that can improve pre-service teachers’ critical thinking skills and reduce the gap in critical thinking skills among the upper, middle, and lower academic ability pre-service teachers is needed. This research aims at exploring the potential of the QASEE learning model on the critical thinking skills of different academic ability. This quasi-experimental research involved 107 pre-service teachers of Universitas Islam Negeri Raden Fatah, Indonesia. The research classes were divided into three classes, namely the QASEE class (experimental class), the RQA class (positive control class), and the conventional class (negative control class). Each class was further divided into upper, middle, and lower academic categories. The data were collected using an essay test supported by a critical thinking skill rubric. The data were analyzed by using ANCOVA and followed by LSD test. The research results show that the QASEE (Questioning, Answering, Sharing, Extending, and Evaluating) learning model can improve and equalize the critical thinking skills of pre-service teachers with various academic levels. Thus, the QASEE learning model can be used as a new reference to improve pre-service teachers’ critical thinking skills, especially the lower academic ability.

This study aims to analyze students’ creative thinking skills in answering the problem-solving questions. This study employs qualitative design, involving 110 fifth graders in Malang Municipality and Regency as the subjects. The obtained data were analyzed using the descriptive-explorative approach. The findings reveal that the high-achievers in Mathematics showed good skills in the aspects of fluency and flexibility, but were still struggling in the novelty aspect.  The average-achievers showed good skills in flexibility aspects but were lacking in the fluency and novelty aspects. They showed an understanding of Mathematics problems but found it difficult to decide the solving strategies, and thus their answers were lacking in structure and less systematic. When solving a problem, the calculation made seemed rushing, was less careful, and frequented with trial and error strategy. The low-achievers showed difficulties in understanding the problems. Their answers were not systematic, not well-structured, and not detailed. This indicates that the low-achievers had not shown creative thinking skills in fluency, flexibility, and novelty aspects.

New Inquiry-Based Learning (NIBL) was developed to improve students’ multiple higher-order thinking skills (MHOTS), such as thinking critically, analytically, creatively, and practically (CACP). This study aimed to examine the increase of students’ MHOTS ability, their perceptions of the NIBL model, and the contribution of the NIBL model to the learning outcomes.  A quasi-experiment of the nonequivalent control group design was implemented in this study. Research subjects were university students majoring in chemistry education and enrolling in the Organic Chemistry course. The experiment and the control groups consisted of 34 and 32 students, respectively. The collected data were analyzed by using t-test and ANCOVA procedures. N-Gain scores were calculated to measure the differences in the increase in learning outcomes. Eta square values measured the contribution of NIBL. The results of this study revealed that there were differences in the learning outcomes of the experiment and control group. The CACP thinking skills and the mastery of organic chemistry concepts of the experiment group increased significantly. The N-Gain scores of practical thinking skills aspect were on medium category, and for critical, analytical, and creative thinking, as well as for mastery of organic chemistry concepts were on high categories. For the control group, the N-Gain scores of all categories were on low or medium categories. The NIBL model effectively improved the prospective chemistry teachers’ M-HOTS in terms of CACP thinking skills and contributed significantly to the increase in the students’ mastery of organic chemistry concepts.

The implementation of Lesson Study (LS) varies considerably across countries and institutions and is still in a phase of adaptation and experimentation. This article explains the result and the process of a school-based initiative endeavor to implement LS at a suburban elementary in Padang, Indonesia. The study involved 13 teachers, the principal and 6 classes of students. The data were collected through observation and interview. They were classified on the basis of three noticeable emerging themes- teacher collaboration, scaffolding, and reflection. The data were analyzed qualitatively. The results of data analysis reveal a promising improvement in these aspects. Implementing school- support LS increased by weaving the concept into practice helped teachers develop their professionalism gradually. It was obvious that the teachers felt more at ease to work collaboratively when they designed the lesson. This also affected their design which showed more meaningful learning activities and challenging tasks. Then, the teachers improved the way they scaffolded the pupils. The content of reflection and the way the results of reflection were conveyed became better. The principal’s support and the teachers’ strong willingness to elevate their quality apparently took an important role. In spite of that, there were some challenges in carrying out collaboration, providing appropriate scaffolding, and doing reflection. Changing the teachers’ common practice to LS apparently needs some adjustment and time.

This research aims to describe the expectations of prospective teachers for students' mathematical thinking processes in solving problem-based on the Polya model. This model is perceived by the theory of mathematical thought processes proposed by Mason. A descriptive method with a qualitative approach was used in this research. The research subjects were 25 students from the Department of Mathematics Education, Ibrahimy University. The test was given to collect data related to mathematical thinking processes expected by prospective teachers to students. Collected data including observations, tests, and interviews were tested in the aspect of their validity by triangulation. The qualitative descriptive was used to analyze the data. The results indicated that: (1) The average GPA (Grade Point Average) of the high, medium, and low group prospective teachers' were 93.25; 89.89; and 83.63 with a standard deviation of 1.754 each; 1.054; and 5.370, respectively (2) The prospective teachers expected that the students' mathematical thinking processes were able to carry out all of four mathematical thinking processes based on Mason Theory; (3) The prospective teachers expected that students were able to use Mason Theory on every stage of the Polya model problem solving; and (4) The expectation of prospective teachers were specializing (89%), generalizing (75%), conjecturing (62%), and convincing (59%). The results suggest for following up in a teachers or lecturer’s meeting in order to find out the expectations of their students' mathematical thinking processes, both in mathematics or other disciplines.

This research aimed to develop a web-based application for teacher candidate competence instruments to prepare professional teachers in the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) era. Teacher candidate competencies consist of pedagogical, professional, social, and personality competences. This is a research and development with 8 stages, involving the development of instrument grids/ construct, focus group discussions, instrument item development, instrument validation, manual instrument testing, application development, application assessment by experts, application trial, and final revision of the application. The initial focus group discussions involved 9 experts, while the instrument validation involved 35 experts consisting of 21 experts for pedagogical and professional competences, 7 experts for social competences, 7 experts for the personality competences, and 4 media experts. The trial involved a total of 107 Mathematics, Indonesian, and English student teacher candidates. Expert validation was analyzed using the Aiken formula; application effectiveness and readability were described based on expert judgment, and discrimination tests on the results of social and personality competence tests between the study programs used the Multivariate Analysis of Variants. The results showed that there were no differences in social and personality competences between Mathematics, Indonesian, and English prospective teachers. The developed instruments for pedagogical, professional, personality, and social competences were deemed valid. The application has met the readability aspect and is scored well by experts with an average assessment rating of  .78. These results suggest that the application can be used by the government as a solution to assess teacher candidate competences in the IR 4.0 era.

This research aims to investigate the effect of socio-scientific issues (SSI) based instruction on preservice science teachers’ soft skills and environmental awareness. By applying cluster random sampling, 83 preservice science teachers (PSTs) were selected from the Department of Science Education at a university in Indonesia. The participants were divided into two groups which comprised the experimental group who were taught using SSI-based instruction, while the control group received direct instruction. The quasi-experimental study was carried out through a pre- and posttest control group design. Data was gathered quantitatively using soft skills and environmental awareness questionnaires. The soft skills questionnaire comprised six sub-skills questions: communication, collaboration, problem-solving, creativity, teamwork, and social interaction. The environmental awareness questionnaire contained questions about the PSTs’ attitudes, behavior, and willingness to act. These sub-skills were developed based on literature studies and reviews of previous studies. Face validity was conducted by the experts, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.84 (for soft skills) and 0.86 (for environmental awareness) were obtained. The data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The result showed that SSI-based instruction had a significant effect on improving preservice science teachers’ soft skills and environmental awareness. After being taught using SSI-based instruction, all the sub-skills of the soft skills of the experimental group had increased compared to before. A similar trend was also found in their scores for environmental awareness. All the components of environmental awareness, after lecturing using SSI-based instruction, showed a significant increase compared to before. These results support the claim that SSI-based instruction fosters soft skills and promotes environmental awareness.

This study aims to determine the effectiveness of the IPA KIT teaching aids for earthquakes science KIT in improving students' collaboration skills and creative thinking. The design of this research is a quasi-experimental research with a stratified random sampling technique. This study involved two classes, namely the experimental class (n = 32) and the control class (n = 33) with a pretest-posttest control group design. This research was conducted at SMP Negeri 5 Depok. The statistical analysis used to test the research hypothesis based on the pretest and posttest scores is the normality test, linearity test, homogeneity test, correlation test, effect size, and MANOVA test. The results showed that the use of IPA KIT teaching aids for earthquakes was more effective in improving students' creative thinking skills and collaboration. Therefore, teachers are advised to use the earthquake science KIT teaching aids for earthquakes to improve the creative thinking skills and collaboration of junior high school students.

Students' critical thinking ability requires improvement from schools as an educational institution. Besides, it is important to maximally integrate character education into mathematics learning. One of the attempts was implementing mathematics comic that contains Pancasila values as teaching material through contextual teaching and learning. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the effectiveness of mathematics comic teaching material with Pancasila values in improving students' critical thinking and character. This is a quasi-experimental study that involves non-equivalent control group design. The population was fourth-grade students of elementary schools in Gajahmungkur District, and data were collected using a critical thinking test and questionnaire. The results showed that using mathematics comic teaching material with Pancasila values was (1) effective in improving students' critical thinking ability; (2) effective in developing character, especially discipline and hard work trait. In the beginning, both character traits were categorized as good, and after treatment, there was an increase in the very good category. Therefore, it can be concluded that the use of mathematics comic teaching material with Pancasila values is effective in improving critical thinking ability and character traits.

The teaching and learning in Indonesian elementary schools focus both on students’ concept mastery and character development.  Teachers are encouraged to implement a learning model that integrates character values and yet promote learning interest.  This study was aimed at investigating the mathematics learning interest of grade three elementary school students through the integration of thematic learning with character education, referred to as the character-integrated thematic learning model. Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design, this study involved 70 students and employed a questionnaire to obtain data, which were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical techniques. Descriptively, the average scores of students' learning interest before and after the implementation of the character-integrated thematic learning model are respectively 117.54 and 140.69 with the gain index of 0.44 in the fair category. While score obtained for thematic learning model are 116.11 and 120.23 with the gain index of 0.07 in the low category. The results of the statistical inference analysis using the independent sample t-test were obtained t-count of 4.98 > t-table of 1,667. This indicates that there has been a significant increase in students’ learning interest scores with the implementation of character-integrated thematic learning model. Thus, this learning model can be applied to pay attention to the development of student’s character which has an impact on increasing student’s learning interest.

Considering the low achievement of Indonesian students in international studies (PISA), which measures Higher-Order Thinking Skill (HOTS) in solving the problem, improving the quality of mathematics learning in Indonesia is very important. The purpose of this research was conducted to explore the variations in students’ learning strategies and students’ Self–Regulated Learning (SRL) in solving mathematical HOT problems. The study employed a mixed-method, namely quantitative and qualitative methods were applied through five tests and seven interviews for over eight weeks. Two types of instruments were employed in this study, and they include tests and interviews. At the initial stage, we randomly selected 30 students from all those in grade 10 (Senior High School ), after which 12 were chosen purposively after the pre-test for an interview, having satisfied all complete group, middle group, and lower group. All of them were treated using metacognitive questions. Data analysis techniques used were percentage, data reduction, presentation, and conclusion. The quantitative results showed the students could generally use orientation, organization, and elaboration learning strategies as observed with 68.3%, 60%, and 56.7% for complete, middle, and lower groups. Moreover, the students were also observed to have conducted three cognitive processes in selecting the rules for solving the mathematical HOT problem, namely using models and drawing, written texts, and combining both. Furthermore, their final solution failures were affected by their misconceptions and errors in creating the mathematical model. The interview results on designing the learning procedures, monitoring the progress, and evaluating the outcomes, show that the students’ SRL level is good for complete (89.3%), middle (75%), and lower groups (60.7%).

Professional teaching competence is significantly influenced by beliefs about teaching and learning. Prospective teachers start their teacher training with quite persistent beliefs about learning processes. These beliefs are mainly influenced by the way they experienced their own lessons as a student at school. Previous biology lessons at school might be linked to the imagined biology lessons of prospective teachers. We interpret these future lessons as a representation of their beliefs about teaching and learning. The present study investigated how prospective teachers remembered their previous biology lessons as well as how they imagine the lessons they will conduct in the future. The drawings of 181 prospective biology teachers in Germany (Mage = 22.1; SD = 3.6; 64.1 % female) were analyzed using the Draw-a-Science-Teacher-Test Checklist (DASTT-C). Results of the study indicate that the lessons they experienced were mainly teacher-centered, whereas the lessons they imagined were mainly student-centered. Results of a chi-square-test indicate that there is no connection between these two drawings of biology lessons. This suggests that experiences from one’s own schooling may have no connection with the way prospective teachers would like to teach in the future. The results of this study might be used as a basis for further studies examining the development of prospective biology teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning.

This paper explores misconceptions and errors (M/Es) of eighth-grade students in Nepal with a quasi-experimental design with nonequivalent control and experimental groups. The treatment was implemented with teaching episodes based on different remedial strategies of addressing students' M/Es. Students of control groups were taught under conventional teaching-learning method, whereas experimental groups were treated with a guided method to treat with misconceptions and errors. The effectiveness of treatment was tested at the end of the intervention. The results showed that the new guided treatment approach was found to be significant to address students' M/Es. Consequently, the students of experimental groups made significant progress in dealing with M/Es in mathematical problem-solving at conceptual, procedural, and application levels.