Improve High Order Thinking Students through Contextual Teaching Learning Based on Cognitive Distance

Abstract

This article describes the efforts of teachers in increasing High Order Thinking (HOT) Learners through Contextual Teaching Learning (CTL) based on Cognitive Distance. In the current learning process there are several gaps related to students' thinking assumptions. The majority of teachers understand their role as disseminators and not student centres; so that the focus of education in schools is more on factual knowledge. This then has an impact on the student achievement assessment system which is based more on tests that are tested for low-level cognitive abilities only. The existence of the Contextual Teaching Learning (CTL) learning model is expected to be a bridge to build High Order Thinking (HOT) learners who can ultimately make learners able to achieve High Order Thinking (HOT). CTL has five elements that must be considered, namely, activating existing knowledge (activating learning). Acquisition of existing knowledge (acquiring knowledge) by studying the whole first, then paying attention to the details. The next element is in the form of understanding knowledge, by compiling hypotheses, sharing with others in order to get responses (validation) then from that response, the concept is revised and developed, practicing the knowledge and experience (applying knowledge), reflecting (reflecting knowledge) on the knowledge strategy. Based on the development process at the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation stages, it can be concluded that CTL (Contextual Teaching and Learning) is quite effective and efficient for developing history and culture learning programs for grade 5 elementary schools. This has been proven to save the number of lesson hours by 49.45% of the total number of normal lesson hours provided for studying the field of History and Culture in grade 5 elementary school. Likewise, HOTS can increase students' learning achievement, the average is 7,516. Implementation of CTL can also increase students' learning motivation and self-regulation of learning. This is proven by the level of achievement of student learning motivation is 88.01% and student learning self-regulation reaches 86.6%.