THE CHALLENGES IN INTEGRATING HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS INTO LESSON PLAN FACED BY IN-SERVICE ENGLISH TEACHERS OF TEACHER CERTIFICATION PROGRAM

The demand of 21st century skill has a great effect to the educational sector.
Higher order thinking skills (HOTS), equip students to deal with any circumstance
and viewpoint in the contemporary world. Therefore, the Ministry of Education
and Culture intends to integrate HOTS in every aspect of Indonesian education
especially in the teaching and learning process at school. Considering this issue,
designing lesson plan and integrating HOTS in lesson plan become important
competency to be mastered by teachers, including in-service teachers during the
training of Teacher Certification Program. A mix method was used as the research
design of this study. Forty-six lesson plans designed by twenty-three in-service
English teachers were analyzed by using a checklist. Then ten in-service English
teachers were interviewed to obtain more information regarding the challenges
faced by the teachers. The finding of this research showed that the most dominant
HOTS category integrated into the lesson plans designed by the in-service
teachers during the Teacher Professional Education Program (Program
Pendidikan Profesi Guru/PPG) is create (C6), and the most dominant section of
the lesson plan integrated with HOTS is the learning activities section. The
interview result reveal that the teachers still faced some challenges in integrating
HOTS into the lesson plans, which included four main problems: Student ability,
Teacher competence, Time constraint, and School facilities. These results have
implications for English teachers to enrich their knowledge about HOTS and
integrate HOTS appropriately into their lesson plans. To enhance knowledge of
HOTS can be done by attending seminars or workshops, as well as engaging in
self-literacy by reading various sources related to HOTS.
Keywords: Challenge, HOTS, Integrate, In-Service Teacher, Lesson Plan,
Teacher Certification Program