Page 188 - Jurnal Kurikulum BPK 2020

second issue here is the need of more guidance on how to make meaningful connections which
are connecting to their understanding of the texts. This is substantiated by Akbari and Razavi's
(2016) findings that their participants also indicated a need for additional training in using
authentic materials.
In addition, I encountered my students were reluctant to accept the new role of a teacher
as a facilitator in of PBL activities as they always asked for ideas on what to write in the
reflections. Probably, they were used to spoon-feeding and teacher-centred learning
approaches. Anyway, I tried to help by prompting but not evading their questions. Eventually,
they all realised that the teacher was there to assist but they would not get direct answers as
they were encouraged to think critically and collaboratively. A similar situation was also
experienced in Yiying's (2015) study as she stated that students had difficulty accepting teacher
as a facilitator and coordinator at the beginning of the treatment but later the students realised
that the teacher was there to support and assist.
Next, I also noticed that somehow knowledge acquisition was unevenly distributed
among the students either in PBL-online or PBL-book groups. For instance, some students who
are good at English, dominated the reflections writing and thus their weaker peers took
advantage of their hardworking members to write most of the reflections which resulted in
passive participation. Brown (1992) indicates that students often fail to distribute work
equitably on their own because they are used to working with others but not with collaborating,
giving feedback, articulating and synthesizing one's work with that of others. On the contrary,
Yiying (2015), managed to overcome passive participation in PBL by making the students
presenting their project work and reflecting what they learnt. Therefore, future implementation
of similar PBL tasks should allocate some time for additional instructional activities which
requires students to present and share their reflections of learning process.
Another issue, there were two PBL-online groups complained about slow network
connection and very limited mobile data in the first two months of implementation (October
and November). Actually, the two months were ‘waiting-time’ to monitor whether the students
could solve problems/challenges by themselves because one of the PBL’s skills is problem-
solving. Most of my students were not really independent in learning or solving problems. It is
presumed that one of the possible reasons for such characteristic might be due to their hectic
schedule.
These challenges are normal at the initial stage of PBL as Termizi and Yassin (2013)
also reported that their participants struggled at the preliminary phase of PBL. Termizi and
Yassin (2013) indicated that there were participants who required more time in the PBL
learning process and teamwork process. Undeniably, there are some students in my study who
were sceptical about the claim of the effectiveness of PBL in teaching and learning. This is in
line with the findings of Kerdpol (2016), whereby the questionnaire distributed to 50 ten grade
students at Muang Chalieng School revealed that there were somehow students who had
negative attitudes towards PBL approach.
Even though their scores were not statistically different in the post-tests, majority of my
students who underwent PBL were motivated to read in December. Based on my observations,
students’ work who underwent PBL had portrayed their abilities to comprehend beyond the
texts and write better reflections in the third month (December). Besides, they could collaborate
better than before. In terms of positive change of attitude towards reading, it is consistent with
Yiying's (2015) findings as she reported that the participants’ motivation and autonomy of
learning English were enhanced, and their ability to use knowledge to acquire, analyse, and
synthesize information was improved dramatically. Unfortunately, my study does not involve
attitude towards reading.
The implementation of this study is an eye-opener for me as I have gained some
new insights of not only what works well and what needs improvement in the conduct of PBL

179