Sharing Ccfa Experience at Asmi Santa Maria

Today we will share some of experience in the US to show that we really went there Our program was titled Community College Faculty and Administrator Program In our case, the faculty is myself and the administrator is Adi On the background of the program is the enactment of the Higher Education Act on July 13, 2012 community college was ractified as a form of higher education institution in Indonesia Community College Faculty and Administrator Program was initiated partly because Indonesia has decided to adopt the community college concept The main difference between Indonesian community college and America community college is that CC's in the US welcome everyone in the community that needs education, not just high school graduates The implication of the "equal opportunity for all" policy in US CC's is that their students have very diverse background, even more diverse that our students As an example CC's there are not allowed to decline students with physical or learning disabilities So, no one can be denied education in a US CC, even students with learning disabilities since they believe in equal opportunity for all or have an open access policy Another example of the open access policy is that US CC's accept students with limited mastery of English Then, some students of US CC's have yet to graduate from high school; these are the very smart students in Javanese we call this type of students "nyolong start" or running start as they are called in the US these students are enrolled into colleges while they are yet to finish high school Since US CC's in the large have an open access policy or "equal opportunity for all" they need a learning system that could accommodate every type of students not just the smart students, and leave out the less intelligence ones; a system that works for everyone thus, they use an approach called UDL, which stands for Universal Design for Learning the fundamental philosophy of UDL is that everyone can learn but people differ in the way they learn in UDL, we do not say that certain students have no ability to learn, or are not "college material", or are merely garbage input but in UDL we would rather say that those students have a different method or preference in learning, as compared to the "smart" students UDL believes that students differ in three dimensions; the first one is the "what" dimension Students have differing preference for the type of information Some might prefer information in form of text; they prefer collecting information through reading Others might prefer graphical information, kinetic learning, or audio information the next dimension is "how"; the way people learn also differs Some might prefer learning by a hearing a lecture, others might like site visits, others might prefer learning through direct observation, and other might like practicing or actually doing what they learn People also learn for differing reasons, which is the "why" dimension In conclusion, UDL is base on a belief that everyone can learn; it is only the way that people learn which differs Because people differ in the way they learn, UDL is build on three pilars The first pilar is representation, the second one is expression, and the third one is engagement The implementation of UDL requires not only hardwork on the part of teachers, but also a strong infrastructure support; during his stay in Hawaii, Adi had the opportunity to observe the infrastructure required to implement UDL Adi will present his observations, the infrastructures required to support UDL; how students with learning disabilities were given extra support to learn The strategy that we feel can be implemented here in ASMI Santa Maria is peer mentoring The peer mentoring implemented here does not have to be as complex as the one in KCC (Kapiolani CC) It can just be in the form of course peer mentors; for example the Photography course which is offered during the 2nd semester We can recruit students to mentor their juniors For example, we can recruit 4 students from the 4th semester and 4 more from the 6th semester To differentiate the mentors from the other students, they do not have to put on special t-shirts which might be rather expensive, but they can simply put on colored ribbons I am confident that if the system is implemented, the 4th semester students won't forget things they have learned in the previous semesters and the 2nd semester students can freely ask for assistance, because students are sometimes reluctant to go to their teachers for help then we share our knowledge to our community and document the process for example, we can improve the making of batik, or visit local churches students from Public Relation and Secretary can collaborate to do social work I am confident that the work can serve as a revenue generating project where the fund generated could be used for bigger things KCC has already gone international; they have sent students to Korea, China, and Thailand