PROFILE OF STUDENTS’ MATHEMATICAL COMMUNICATION ABILITIES IN LEARNING USING RECIPROCAL PEER TUTORING STRATEGY

Abstract

Abstract

Mathematical communication ability is the skill of students in expressing the set of problem or idea in mathematics by using concrete object, picture, graph, table or mathematical symbols as the content of the message to be delivered. Mathematical communication ability should be created in the learning process so an appropriate learning strategy should be chosen by teacher. One of the learning strategies that can be used to do so is Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Strategy. It is a strategy that focuses on the learning process in which the teacher divides the students into some groups consisting of two students in each group.

This study aims to describe students’ mathematical communication ability during discussion, on writing and in oral form while they are learning mathematics using Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Strategy. This study is descriptive in nature, and using qualitative approach. There are six research subjects. They are two students with high mathematics ability, two students with medium mathematics ability and two students with low mathematics ability. The data were collected by using observation sheet to know students’ mathematical communication ability during discussion, then Mathematical Communication Ability Test to know students’ mathematical communication ability on writing and the last interview to know students’ oral mathematical communication ability.

The result of the research showed that the students’ mathematical communication ability during discussion can be categorized as ‘very good’, while the one in writing form shows that students only fulfill two indicators, namely writing the formula or condition that were used to solve the problem, and writing the calculation related to the formula. In addition, in the oral form, the results show that students fulfill only the indicators of accurateness and fluency.

 Keywords: mathematical communication, reciprocal peer tutoring strategy