Many students think that Islamic studies are a boring course. A solution proposed to diminish the belief is using a ‘fun card’ which is a flash card comprising of exercises and the answers.

The aforementioned statements were research findings of Dra. Siti Aminah, M.A. on “Effectiveness of the Fun Card Use as Learning Media to Enhance Students’ Learning Motivation, Self-Activeness, and Learning Outcomes in Islamic Studies at Sleman Senior High Schools” presented in a dissertation defense on Saturday (15/10) at meeting hall of Graduate School of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY).

Siti noticed that the high schools teachers applied a conventional teaching method, teacher-centered learning. “The teaching method caused learning process to run monotonously,” argued Siti, who is also a supervisor of middle schools, Office of Ministry of Religion of Sleman.

Siti explained how to use the fun card. First, a student takes random cards. Second, he is required to answer a question on the card. “After that, his other friends check whether or not his answer is correct as mentioned on answer cards.  Besides question and answer cards, there are control cards which function to evaluate the students so that the concept of self-assessment emerges in this learning process,” Siti told.

Even though materials of Islamic Studies vary such as Al-Qur’an, Fiqh, and others, the fun card can be implemented in each material. “Therefore, the fun card use is used in not only certain materials, but also all materials,” Siti emphasized.

The fun card as learning media in Islamic Studies was inspired by cognitive elaboration theory by Wittock. “Psychological research revealed that, if information is maintained in a memory and connected to previous information (background knowledge), the person will experience cognitive rearrangement or elaboration of a material,” Siti conveyed.

The fund card use was also imbued by Silberman in ‘Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject.  In strategy 44, students attempt to ‘look for information’. “I tried to collaborate strategy 44,46 which is ‘selecting cards’, and 79 which is ‘matching index cards’,” she presented.