UNS — A Team of Student Creativity Program (PKM) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta takes an active role in solving recurring problems in Padirah Al-Qur’an Education School (TPA Padirah), Jebres, Kota Surakarta. The initiative was implemented through a new learning system is known as a smart card-based audiovisual system.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia, for the last one and a half years, is affecting various community activities, including formal and non-formal learning activities. One of the non-formal education activities is TPA; one of them is the TPA Padirah. Amid the difficulties, the problem of an imbalanced number of teachers and students in TPA Padirah becomes an obstacle in implementing ideal and conducive teaching and learning activities. Due to the pandemic situation, each session is shorter, and not much material is delivered. TPA Padirah must continue its teaching and learning activities for its students, who are mostly residents of the surrounding community. This education unit has 6 (six) teachers and 40 students.
Based on the prevailing problem, the UNS students incorporated within the PKM Program in Community Service (PKM-PM) propose a solution for the problem. The team is supported by five members, Apin Fitri Amalina, Aga Prasetya Amanda, Diva Primadani, Fazri Pristichandini Bachtiar, and Fahri Setyo Utomo. Multidisciplinary collaboration is shown from the diverse members’ Study Programs, namely the Urban and regional planning study program, Psychology, and Regional Literature.
The team proposed a Smart Card-based audiovisual system as a solution for the problem in TPA Padirah. The smart card mechanism in this matter is a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) card that can deliver a command to the control box to play learning videos via projector. This mechanism can be executed in conjunction with Al-Qur’an personal recitation routine by dividing the class into two sections. The first section is to recite the Qur’an first and followed it with audiovisual learning. In comparison, the second section is to join the audiovisual session first and followed with Al-Qur’an recitation.
Apin Fitri Amalina, as the Head of the UNS PKM-PM team, explains that the audiovisual system implementation in TPA Padirah will deepen the students’ understanding of the learning materials.
“This learning system can increase students’ interest and knowledge, and facilitate the teachers during teaching and learning activity. Moreover, additional knowledge will be available for the students, who receive less formal aqidah and religious knowledge, during this Covid-19 movement control policy,” Apin explained.
To demonstrate the use of audiovisual technology introduced by the UNS PKM-PM team, the team organized an assistance and dissemination activity for the TPA Padirah students and teachers on Thursday (7/7/2021). The Padirah Mosque Takmir (t/n: specific administrator in a mosque), Suryanto, expresses his gratitude and positive responses to the contribution of the UNS PKM-PM Team. He thanked the team for choosing TPA Padirah for the program. “As a teacher, I thanked UNS students for their assistance. Now, the students will get additional useful material. Aside from the assistance in TPA Padirah, the projector will be the Padirah Mosque inventory,” said Suryanto.
The UNS PKM-PM Team hopes for the method to be an innovation and inspiration for teaching and learning activities in the other TPA. This learning method is also expected to improve learning activities’ quality and to enhance educators’ performance. Moreover, the method can also reduce boredom through audiovisual learning. Humas UNS
Reporter: Rangga Pangestu Adji
Editor: Dwi Hastuti
