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21st Century Teacher Professionalism and a Set of Challenges

When we talk about teachers in the 21st century, it seems that we are also talking about how Indonesia's hopes for progress from the education sector in particular. 

Hope for this progress needs to be planned more carefully because today the relationship between humans and technology is getting closer.

Teacher Professionalism and a Set of Challenges
Teacher Professionalism and a Set of Challenges. Photos by Firmbee from Pixabay
Tian Belawati in the online course GuruInovatif explained that, in order to face the 21st century, the industrial revolution, and society 5.0, it is necessary to create a high-quality education system that is affordable and reaches everyone using the e-learning system. as well as the latest technology.

More than that, the expected quality of education also needs to support the formation of a mindset and skills to do anything ', armed with STEM and Industrial Revolution 4.0 skills.

When we look at the expectations for the quality of 21st century education, at first glance, upgrading competencies is quite complex, right?

That is it. At least, each of us, especially learners, need to hone ourselves to have various competencies that support the Industrial Revolution 4.0.

However, the main competency that is the most basic and at the same time we need to fix first is the mindset. 

Yes, the origin of progress is a mindset.

The challenges and situations of the 21st century want every learner to be able to raise the level of their thinking to critical thinking.

"Critical thinking has been called the art of thinking about thinking" (Ruggiero, V.R., 2012)

Sounds heavy, huh? Again, we are trapped in a mindset as stated in the Malay proverb "People want a thousand powers, people don't want a thousand excuses."

Zulfikar Alimuddin as the director of HAFECS said that, the key to change is to study, study, study, practice, practice, and practice.

What needs to be learned and trained?

21st century teachers can start by designing learning designs. So far, perhaps we are familiar with the 4 main competencies of a teacher consisting of pedagogical, personality, social, and professional competences.

However, in order to face the complex challenges of teaching, 21st century teachers need to add 2 more competencies, namely Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS).

PCK is presented as a tool for creating Experiential Learning (learning that emphasizes discovery and meaning) in the classroom, while HOTS is presented as a tool for creating critical thinking.

By getting used to teaching and learning to think critically, students slowly begin to be honed and accustomed to reading a phenomenon to social symptoms in the field.

Learning to understand phenomena is important so that students can find solutions to a problem.

A Set of Challenges to the Professionalism of 21st Century Teachers

Indeed, anything that demands change will not be far from a problem. Not only in the field of education, but in various sectors of life.

However, to maximize the professionalism of 21st century teachers, we need to continue learning and get out of today's comfort zone. 

The 21st century seems to lead teachers to be more agile and more adaptive in responding to learning situations.

With the crowd of students belonging to generation Z and generation Alpha, there are also many trends in lifestyle and new learning styles.

Some things that are clear from the attitudes of these two generations are fast learner but easily bored, born in a new era, familiar with technology since childhood, knowing the digital world more deeply than parents, being individualistic, loving freedom, to being disruptive.

For these new things, when we link these two generations to the world of learning, the teaching style of teachers needs to adapt to the learning styles of students. For example, because students get bored easily, the learning system can no longer be coherent and based on manual theory.

Teachers need to bring a set of social phenomena that are actual, factual, but also close to students. From there the teacher can take students to the "nature" of learning.

More than that, the challenges of 21st century teachers are indeed quite complex because they have to hold Distance Learning (PJJ) in the midst of a pandemic.

However, the situation today is actually a lesson for education. On the one hand, PJJ needs a mountain of adaptation, while on the other hand, PJJ is a way for teachers and all of us in order to familiarize ourselves with technology.

Thus, the 4 keywords as well as messages for teachers that I can take from this online course as a whole are mindset structuring, critical thinking, learning, and practice. 

I think these 4 keyword collaborations are very crucial in achieving expectations for educational progress.

Regards.
Written by Ozy V. Alandika

Guru Penyemangat
Guru Penyemangat Guru Profesional, Guru Penggerak, Blogger, Public Speaker, Motivator & Juragan Emas.

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