The Advance Organizer Model to Improve Primary School Teacher
Education Students’ Learning Activities and Achievement in the
Philosophy of Education Class
Kurniasih Kurniasih
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Advance Organizer Model, Learning Activity, Learning Achievement.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to describe the implementation of advance organizer model to improve learning
activities and achievement of students in the philosophy of education class in Primary School Teacher
Education Program (PGSD), Faculty of Educational Sciences (FIP), Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
(UPI). To this end, a classroom action research was conducted, involving 49 students enrolled in the even
semester of lecture year 2015/2016. The data were collected through field notes, observation, and test.
Qualitative data were analyzed through the phases of data reduction, data classification, data display, data
interpretation, reflection, and conclusion drawing, and quantitative data were analyzed using statistical
calculation. The results show that: (1) The implementation of advance organizer model in the philosophy of
education class through discussion method requires the syllabus and course unit to be equipped with a
teaching scenario. (2) The implementation of advance organizer model improved the teaching and learning
activities. The lecturer actively prepared the lesson through a lecturing orientation, chaired students’
discussion, motivated students to learn, and help them relate the materials to their prior knowledge, so the
concept map is easily understandable. At the same time, the students actively delivered the material,
conferred with each other, drew a concept map, and answered questions. (3) The implementation of advance
organizer model improved student absorption rate up to 77% from 68% in the previous year. It is
recommended that the advance organizer model be implemented not only in the philosophy of education
class, but also in other classes.
1 INTRODUCTION
The philosophy of education course in the structure
of PGSD curriculum, Department of Pedagogy, FIP,
UPI, is assigned to the faculty specialized expertise
course (MKKF). This course aims to enable students
to understand the concepts of philosophy and the
philosophy of education, to understand the basic
concepts of several schools of educational
philosophy (traditional, modernism and
postmodernism), to understand the basic concepts of
national educational philosophy (Pancasila), and to
criticize the basic concepts of educational
philosophy from various schools based on national
educational philosophy of Pancasila.
During the lecture, all students are expected to
actively participate in the learning process. At the
end of the course, ideally the students can achieve
the course objectives according to the minimum
standard of absorption rate set out in the curriculum.
In the even semester of 2015/2016 term, only few
students actively took part in discussions during the
lecture, and most students were silent listeners. The
result of evaluation show that student absorption rate
in the philosophy of education class only reached
68%, and the minimum standard set out by the
curriculum was 75%. There were of course many
factors contributing to this condition. Of those
suspected to be determinant factors among others are
student learning habits, textbooks, and teaching
approach and model. However, essentially there is a
demand for an effective teaching model.
Considering the importance of philosophy of
education as it will serve as a theoretical foundation
of educational practices, the lecturer is demanded to
select and implement an effective teaching model in
order for the students to be able to achieve the
course objectives. The failure of students to achieve
the learning objectives in the philosophy of
170
Kurniasih, K.
The Advance Organizer Model to Improve Primary School Teacher Education Students’ Learning Activities and Achievement in the Philosophy of Education Class.
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences (ICES 2017) - Volume 2, pages 170-174
ISBN: 978-989-758-314-8
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

education is projected to negatively affect their
educational practice once they become teachers in
the future because misconceptions about educational
philosophy may imply educational malpractices.
To get to know about the advance organizer
model, a literature study was carried out. Advance
organizer belongs to the information processing
model; however, looking at its characteristics, the
writer hypothesizes that this model could improve
students’ learning activities and achievement in the
philosophy of education class. The research problem
is then formulated in the form of this question: how
is the advance organizer model implemented to
improve primary school teacher education students’
learning activities and achievement in the
philosophy of education class? This problem is then
elaborated as follows:
1) How should the advance organizer model be
designed to be implemented in the philosophy of
education class?
2) How should this model be implemented in the
philosophy of education class?
3) How significant can this model improve
students’ achievement?
The purpose of this study is to describe the
implementation of advance organizer model to
improve learning activities and achievement of
students in the philosophy of education class in
Primary School Teacher Education Program
(PGSD), Faculty of Educational Sciences (FIP),
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI).
Specifically, this study is aimed to describe the
course design of the philosophy of education class in
which the advance organizer model was
implemented and students’ achievement after its
implementation.
This study is useful for students, lecturers, and
PGSD. For students, this study improved their
learning process quality and achievement. For
lecturers, this study is useful to solve teaching-
learning problems, so the lecturers could effectively
facilitate the learning so as to achieve the objectives.
As for PGSD, the result of this study is useful for the
development of practical pedagogy.
2 MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION
The advance organizer model is developed by David
Ausubel (Joyce and Weil, 1986). Using this model,
Ausubel defends his theory of the effectiveness of
presentation method as a meaningful verbal teaching
model against the criticisms from the proponents of
discovery method.
This model is developed to strengthen students’
cognitive structure. Students’ cognitive structure is
one of the most determinant factors in determining if
the new material is meaningful and how this new
material can be acquired and preserve. Before
presenting a new material, we should consider what
students need and their prior knowledge.
Strengthening their cognitive structure make it easy
for them to acquire and preserve new information.
This is one of the main goals of this model.
Ausubel rejects the assumption that meaningful
material cannot be presented, but through personal
discovery. Ausubel argues that it is down to the
students to make sure if the material is meaningful
rather than the delivery method. The material
meaningfulness is a result of the interrelation
between new teaching material and prior knowledge
available in their cognitive structure.
In this model, the lecture may use an informative
lecturing strategy or discussion, and the role of
students is to receive and acquire new information.
The advance organizer model deals with the material
organization and presentation, especially through
informative lecturing strategy and discussion.”
Ausubel argues that there is a relevance between
how the teaching material is organized and how
students organize knowledge in their cognitive
structure. He suggests that every academic discipline
has a hierarchically organized structure of concept
(and/or proposition); i. e., at the top of each
discipline (science) there are a lot of very broad
abstract concepts, encompassing more concrete
concepts at the lower organizational stage.
To make the learning process effective, the
advance organizer model suggests two principles: 1)
the principle of progressive differentiation, which
refers to the teaching of general concept before
presenting its derivative concept, and 2) the
principle of integrative reconciliation, which refers
to relating new teaching material to the previously
taught materials.
The advance model organizer has three stages as
outlined in the following table.
The Advance Organizer Model to Improve Primary School Teacher Education Students’ Learning Activities and Achievement in the
Philosophy of Education Class
171

Table 1: Syntax of the advance organizer model
In the curriculum of Universitas Pendidikan
Indonesia, the philosophy of education is assigned to
the faculty specialized expertise course (MKKF), 2
credit hours, coded IP300.
This course aims to enable students to
understand the concepts of philosophy and the
philosophy of education, to understand the basic
concepts of several schools of educational
philosophy (traditional, modernism and
postmodernism), to understand the basic concepts of
national educational philosophy (Pancasila), and to
criticize the basic concepts of educational
philosophy from various schools based on national
educational philosophy of Pancasila.
The course outline includes the following twelve
topics:
1) Definition of philosophy.
2) Educational philosophy.
3) Idealism educational philosophy.
4) Realism educational philosophy.
5) Pragmatism educational philosophy.
6) Scholasticism educational philosophy.
7) Existentialism educational philosophy.
8) Progressivism educational philosophy.
9) Essentialism educational philosophy.
10) Perennialism educational philosophy.
11) Constructivism educational philosophy.
12) Pancasila-based national educational philosophy.
(Callahan and Clark, 1983; Kneller, 1971; Ozmon
and Craver, 1981; Ornstein and Levine, 1985;
Power, 1982; Sadulloh, 2003; Syam, 1984;
Syaripudin, and Kurniasih, 2008).
The course of Philosophy of Education is
considered important to be mastered by students as
prospective educators. The reason, that this course
will provide an understanding of the philosophical
foundation as an assumption of practice and
educational studies. The understanding and
application of these assumptions is expected to
reduce the possibility of errors in the practice of
education and educational studies.
This study used a classroom action research (CAR)
method, adopting the model of Kemmis and
McTaggart of Deakin University Australia (Suyanto,
1996; Wihardit, 2008).
Classroom action research is carried out through the
following steps:
Figure 1: Kemmis and McTaggart’s CAR Model.
The present study was carried out in the Primary
School Teacher Education Program, Department of
Pedagogy, Faculty of Educational Sciences,
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia located at Jl. Dr.
Setiabudhi No. 229 Bandung. The subjects were 49
students attending the philosophy of education class
in the even semester of lecture year 2015/2016. The
research instruments consisted of field notes,
observation sheets, and test.
1) Field Records
Field notes are notes made by lecturers to record
important events in the form of student activities and
lecturers in learning.
2) Observation Sheet
The observation sheet is the sheet used in the
observation process as the lesson takes place. The
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172

observation sheet is used to record lecturer activities
and student activities during the lesson.
Observation is done openly, therefore the type of
observation sheet used is an open observation sheet.
However, as a guideline, first set of activity points
should be observed.
3) Test
The test sheet is given to each student to work
individually. The goal is to know the results of
student learning after following the lesson.
Qualitative data were analyzed through the
phases of data reduction, data classification, data
display, data interpretation, reflection, and
conclusion drawing, and quantitative data were
analyzed using statistical calculation.
The implementation of advance organizer model
in the philosophy of education class improved
students’ learning activities and achievement. This
improvement requires a careful plan in the form of
comprehensive syllabus and course unit. The
implementation of this model in the classroom is
reflected in discussion, students’ assignment of
creating a concept map about the lesson they are
studying. Students actively relate new information to
their prior knowledge. During discussion, students
took part in revising and refining the concept map
presented by their peers. The lecturer helped
students relate the material to their prior knowledge
and encouraged them to actively involved in the
discussion and criticize the teaching material. In
addition, the lecturer also plays a role of clarifying
the conceptual systems and/or students’ concept
maps.
Students’ improvement is evidenced in the
average of their absorption rate of the educational
philosophy teaching material. In the first cycle, their
average absorption rate reached 69%, in the second
cycle 72%, in the third cycle 75%, in the fourth
cycle 76%, and in the fifth and sixth cycles 77%.
This indicated a consistency in their achievement,
justified by their average absorption rate as much as
77% in the final examination. This achievement is
higher than that of the previous year where the
average absorption rate only managed to reach 68%.
Application of the Advance Organizers Model in
the lectures of Philosophy of Education declared
successful. This success includes two things,
namely: (1) with regard to the increase in student
learning activities, and (2) an increase in student
learning outcomes. The success of the Advance
Organizers model application in improving student
activity and learning outcomes is supported by
several factors. First, an understanding of the theory
of the Advance Organizers model that forms the
basis for its application in learning. Second, the
learning plan is good enough, that is by the syllabus
of the course, the lecture unit and the learning
scenario are continuously improved in each learning
cycle. Third, adequate learning facilities.
Found some obstacles in learning by applying
the Advance Organizers model. Obstacles basically
arise because initially the method chosen in the
context of applying the Advance Organizers model
is the method of presenting the information, but the
lecturer hopes that students are more active in
learning. In this connection, the presentation of
information is represented through printed media,
which is a textbook. The problem is, the presentation
of information on certain subjects in the textbook
turns out that the structure of writing, explanation
and giving examples is not in accordance with
expectations as demanded by the applied learning
model. Therefore, it should be every subject in the
textbook is structured with a coherent structure so
that it will be very easily understood and made a
concept map. This also needs to be supported by the
explanation of the concepts in contextual with the
level of students' thinking ability, the state of the
physical environment and the social and cultural
environment.
Another lesson to be learned from this research is
that the application of the Advance Organizers
model using the discussion method requires an
adequate textbook in terms of presentation of the
concepts. Before learning begins, careful preparation
is required. This starts with the orientation of
lectures, assignments, examples of concept maps,
and rules and rules of discussion. In addition, the
task of drafting concept maps and presentation tasks
in groups alone is not enough to motivate all
students to stay focused and to participate in
learning. Therefore, it should also be given the task
of preparing a concept map individually on the
subjects that will be presented and discussed in the
classroom.
David Ausubel (Joyce and Weil 1986: 172),
although the application of the Advance Organizers
model uses the method of presenting information,
but does not mean passive students in learning.
Because, with the application of this learning model
requires students to actively think in processing new
information. They should seek to link new material
with the knowledge they possess, to weigh which
concepts or propositions accommodate new
knowledge. They struggle to see new material from
different angles, combining it with the same
information, or perhaps with the contrary, and
finally translating it into their own terms of
reference and terminology.
To streamline learning by applying the Advance
Organizers model using information processing
methods, the teaching materials should be organized
The Advance Organizer Model to Improve Primary School Teacher Education Students’ Learning Activities and Achievement in the
Philosophy of Education Class
173

from simple to complex, from the general to the
special teaching material as its derivative, and all of
it is made in a hierarchical manner. Again, it should
be mentioned, that every concept taught must be
connected with the concept that has been owned by
the student.
3 CONCLUSIONS
The implementation of advance organizer model in
the philosophy of education class in improved
students’ learning activities and achievement. This
improvement requires a careful plan in the form of
comprehensive syllabus and course unit. The
lecturer and students carried out various activities in
the learning process according to steps in the
classroom where the advance organizer model is
implemented. As for students’ absorption rate, there
was an increase in their achievement up to 77% from
68% in the previous year.
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Callahan F. J., and Clark, H. L., 1983. Foundations of
Education, Mcmillan Publishing. New York.
Joyce, B., Weil, M., 1986. Models of Teaching, Prentice-
Hall International Editions. New Jersey, Third Edition.
Kneller, F. G., 1971. Foundations of Education, John
Wiley & Sons Inc. United States of America.
Ozmon, H. A., Craver, S. M., 1981. Philosophical
Foundations of Education, Charles E. Merril
Publishing Company, Ohio.
Ornstein, A. C., Levine, D. U., 1985. An Introduction to
the Foundations of Education, Houghton Mifflin
Company. Boston, Third Edition.
Power, J. E., 1982. Philosophy of Education, Studies in
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Prentice Hall Inc. New Jersey.
Sadulloh, U., 2003. Pengantar Filsafat Pendidikan,
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Suyanto, S., 1996., Pedoman Pelaksanaan Penelitian
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