APPLYING THE DEMONSTRATION METHOD TO IMPROVE SKILLS OF DISTILLATION EQUIPMENT ASSEMBLY

Abstract

A teacher must be able to involve her students to find the materials that they are studying It may encourage the students to apply the materials in their daily lives. The problem faced by the students of SMK-SMTI Pontianak concerned the misconceptions in the assembly of distillation equipment. They also got confused when installing condenser hoses for the line and the direction of cooling water. It was identified that when doing their practicum, the students only read the work instruction on the jobsheet without any demonstration. To overcome the problem, the teacher needs to apply the demonstration method. This research aimed to investigate whether the demonstration method could improve the students’ skill in distillation equipment assembly. It was a Classroom Action Research (CAR) that consisted of 2 cycles. The research subjects were 16 students grouped in XIF. The technique and the instrument of the data collection were an observation technique and test respectively. The data were analysed qualitatively. It is found out that the demonstration method improved the students’ skills in assembling the distillation equipment. The skill improved 18.75% from 75% in Cycle I to 93.75% in Cycle II; or the average score increased 9, that is, of from 76 in the first cycle to 85 in the second cycle In conclusion, the application of demonstration method improved the students’ skills of distillation equipment assembly.

Keywords: demonstration, destillation, assembly skills