IS IT IMPORTANT TO KNOW YOURSELF?

Everyone's learning type and math learning style is not the same, everyone has their own unique way of constructing knowledge. Recognizing yourself is the key to being able to develop optimally, especially in learning mathematics. Quantum learning, a good and interesting strategy when applied to deal with different types of thinking of students, especially in learning math. The Mathematics Education study program of UNY invited a practitioner lecturer who explores Quantum Learning, namely Mrs. Yeni Muhliawati, S.Pd as a public lecture speaker for Mathematics Education students.

Mrs. Yeni is a teacher at SMP Muhammadiyah 2 Yogyakarta who is assigned by the Education Office as a Counseling Guidance teacher. The public lecture was held on Tuesday, October 18, 2022 in the seminar room of FMIPA UNY. The event started at 15:30 WIB on time as scheduled. The event was opened by Mrs. Endah Retnowati, Ph. D., as the Head of the Mathematics Education Department of UNY. Mrs. Endah Retnowati encouraged the mathematics education students who attended to maximize the opportunity for public lectures, absorb as much knowledge as possible, and ask not to hesitate to ask questions.

Ms. Yeni started the lecture by explaining the types of student learning, namely visual, auditorial, and kinesthetic. Then, how to recognize students' learning types? Here are some characteristics of students who have a learning type (1) Visual: “oh this is an interesting picture, cool to look at and soothing to look at”, “what is the shape of the object?”, visual students prefer to observe rather than listen to lectures. (2) Auditorial: “ooo, that's how it sounds”, “how does the object sound?”, “the sound is very crisp”, auditorial students prefer to be read to rather than reading. (3) kinesthetic: “if you hold it, it seems comfortable and soft”, kinesthetic students prefer to learn by practicing. Based on the characteristics above, which one is your learning type? In addition to the characteristics above, we can also take tests provided online to recognize students' learning types, one of which is by visiting the website: https://akupintar.id/tes-gaya-belajar. Every student present enthusiastically tried the test to recognize their respective learning types. Students with an auditorial learning type will be maximized when learning using auditorial techniques compared to visual techniques. This also applies to other learning types.

In addition to students' learning types, Ms. Yeni also added about students' thinking styles. There are 4 types of thinking styles, namely structured thinkers (concrete sequential), logical thinkers (abstract sequential), exploratory thinkers (concrete random), flexible thinkers (abstract random). To find out the students' thinking styles, Mrs. Yeni gave a short test that lasted about 10-15 minutes. After doing the test given, many students were enthusiastic to consult asking for learning advice according to their respective thinking styles. The lecture was fun and the time flew by. Without feeling it, the sky outside was dark and the time showed 17:30 WIB. The lecture was immediately closed by Mrs. Yeni while giving a closing statement, namely “Be diligent in taking psychological tests, the goal is to know and recognize and understand your own condition. After knowing your own condition, it is hoped that there is no need to compare with other people, because everyone has their own uniqueness in their way of thinking and learning”.