Pedagogical Challenges and Opportunities during Covid-19 Pandemic: Perspectives from the Pre-Service and High School Teachers

This study aimed to determine the pedagogical challenges and opportunities of the Pre-Service and high school teachers in the new normal education.  The sample size was determined using the slovins formula and 13 pre-service teachers, and 26 High School Teachers were the participants. Descriptive and inferential were used. Findings revealed that most of the respondents were 21-26 years old, female, high school teachers, and situated mostly in urban areas. The conduct of online classes was the major challenge faced by both pre-service and high school teachers for they used to conduct classroom teaching for many years. The online teaching-learning modality was successfully implemented to practice teaching as a mission to facilitate students learning through various online strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Age, sex, type of respondents, and locality did not show a significant degree of variance in the extent of the pedagogical challenges and opportunities they encountered. The locality has a significant degree of variance in terms of teaching-learning engagement and opportunities for teaching-learning platforms. Hence, seminars and workshops on online pedagogies and online assessment tools strategies to facilitate online teaching more engaging was recommended.

Growth Hack Service Framework for Boleh Dicoba Digital Company Based on Growth Hacking Framework and Value Co-Creation Framework

BDD growth hack service practice is close to Bohnsack and Liesner (2019) and Kohtamäki & Rajala (2016) growth hack framework but lacking in data analysis and testing. The author suggested a new framework that combines the growth hack framework and the value co-creation framework. New operational instructions include value creation agreements and A/B testing based on comparative analysis. BDD should also remind clients about value creation and discuss value in exchange and value in use assignments. The new framework should increase service quality and resource availability of BDD growth hack service.

Stock Valuation and Business Performances of Indonesia Health Care Provider Company after Post Covid 19 Pandemics (Case Study of PT. Medikaloka Hermina, Tbk.)

The Covid-19 pandemic caused a contraction in the Indonesian economy, as evidenced by the large number of layoffs, and several companies had to declare bankruptcy, but this did not occur for companies engaged in health services, including hospitals. The large number of Indonesians infected with the Covid-19 virus caused hospitals to experience an increase in inpatient admissions, which accelerated the hospitals’ financial performance in a very short period of time. PT Mediloka Hermina, Tbk (HEAL) is a private hospital with the greatest number of branches in Indonesia, all of which are impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. This is also a positive sentiment among stock investors, as they perceive the health industry sector to have very promising future prospects. Several listed hospital company on the IDX have seen their share prices increase significantly over the past year, including PT. Mediloka Hermina, Tbk, whose share price increased by 197 percent between 23 March 2020 and 23 March 2021. This made the author curious about PT Mediloka Hermina, Tbk’s stock valuation and whether its shares are classified as overvalued or undervalued. This study utilizes secondary data obtained from the annual report of PT. Mediloka Hermina, Tbk as well as idx.co.id and stockbit.com, among others. The data was processed with the absolute valuation method (Discounted Cash Flow) and the relative valuation method (Relative Value) in mind (EV EBITDA and Price Earnings to Ratio). Using the Discounted Cash Flow model, the company’s intrinsic value is IDR 452.80 per share. It has a safety margin of -135 percent relative to the per-share market price of IDR 1,065 as of 31 December 2021. The intrinsic value per share is 688 IDR based on the relative price-to-earnings ratio and relative valuation EV EBITDA of 7.21. Following the evaluation procedure. The author may determine the relationship between HEAL’s fundamental company and its stock price growth.

Analysing Banking Compliance from Maqasid Shariah Perspective: Evidence from Islamic and Conventional Bank in Indonesia

Using the Shariah (Islamic legal rulings) and its higher ethical objectives namely the maqasid shariah, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the success of Banking in Indonesia. The maqasid shariah index (MSI) and limited maqasid shariah index (LMSI) are emphasizes disclosures regarding education, social justice, and redistribution of wealth. Researchers assess the ethical and social performance of selected banks in Indonesia from its annual reports. Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) technique used to calculate the sample’s MSI score. Empirical evidence suggests that conventional performance measurements do not truly reflect

IBs’ higher ethical objectives and create a deficiency of attaining maqasid shariah performance in these banks. This study extends the previous literature on evaluating the performance of banks beyond the financial return to include their ethical and social identity based on the maqasid shariah scale, particularly over the past five years. The result reveal that there is a financial cost to achieving the maqasid shariah, as in the model generated from the panel data regression which shows a significant negative relationship between MSI and ROA for Islamic banks. Different results were obtained in analyzing conventional banks and mixed banks (Islamic banks and conventional banks) using the Limited MSI (LMSI). LMSI has a significant positive relationship to ROA in both conventional banks and Islamic banks. This happens because the elements used in MSI and LMSI calculations are different.

The Implementation of Analytical Hierarchy Process to Choose the Best Solution to Increase Mould Maker Profit

Mould Maker is a company that buy and sell machine for their main business activity. Mould maker have long time machine waiting time to be sold and have low profit margin. The longer the time taken by a machine to be sold, the higher the maintenance cost for the machine. Besides, Mould Maker always purchase machines for their stock in every offer that comes to Mould Maker, so they have overstocked machine in their workshop. With many and vary type of machines that they have, Mould Maker can utilize the machines to increase their profit margin.

Mould Maker have good business environment from the external factor analysis. As for internal analysis, Mould Maker still have room for improvement, some of them are the number of their stock and the number for decision maker. Caused by their low profit margin, Mould Maker cannot hire high value employee to be one of the decision makers. The problem that Mould Maker face is how to improve their profit by utilizing the machines that they have.

Further analysis needed to solve this problem. The SWOT analysis used to find some strategies and need to be fit with the problem faced by Mould maker. The strategies that able to be implemented are rent their machine, accepting manufacture order, improving stock policy, boost marketing strategy, and purchasing car to help Mould Maker to sell their product.

From the strategy alternatives, AHP method is used to choose the best strategy. With AHP method, the best solution can be chosen by considering the value from each consideration criteria. For this research, the best solution proposed by AHP method is to accept manufacture order.

Optimizing Investment Portfolio of a State-Owned Company Pension Fund

The Pension Fund of PT Pos Indonesia (Dapenpos) is considering cutting off all its stock from the portfolio and trying to find the optimal portfolio to increase the funding ratio level. This research is using Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) by Markowitz to solve the current issue faced by the company by optimizing company’s current portfolio, company’s stock universe, and optimizing modified portfolio of company. Portfolio optimization of the company is complying to the OJK regulation as well as company’s investment direction with constant government bond proportion of 30% and unchanged proportion of both direct investment and property assets. The historical existing portfolio of Dapenpos from 2017 to 2021 has an expected return of 8.83% with standard deviation of 3.45%, so it is suggested that both mutual fund and stock portfolio should be emptied and reallocated to time deposit and corporate bond. The efficient frontier from current portfolio optimization indicated that Dapenpos could get a higher return of 9.31% by choosing portfolio above the optimal frontier. The optimal LQ45 index has a range of return from 6.90% as its Global Minimum Variance (GMV) to 27.46% as its optimal portfolio suggestion. GMV LQ45 is the preferable portfolio to modify the existing portfolio, with an optimal modified portfolio expected retrurn’s range of 7.37% to 9.28%. The decision of the fund manager to cut all the stock from its portfolio is validated by MPT tools with strategic reallocation to time deposit and corporate bond in gaining potential higher return with similar risk.

 

Capacity Planning of New Product in PT Perkebunan Nusantara VIII (Oolong Tea)

In early 2021 PTPN VIII began producing a new product based on consumer demand, namely oolong tea, within an estimated contract worth IDR 6.000.000.000 of 150 tons. Thus, the firm should be prepared related to the garden and the factory to produce the oolong tea. This research uses a quantitative descriptive method by analyzing the capacity of the garden to provide the raw material for oolong tea; in the process of oolong tea production, the garden can provide 2.5 tons per day, exceeding the calculation of 1.9 tons. However, the machine used for the production process is inadequate. The machine’s capacity is only available to produce 106.78 tons per year, which is below consumer demand. It requires the firm to add three rotary dryer machines. Adding three machines meant oolong tea production reached 150 tons only in 13 hours and 25 minutes. Adding these machines also requires the firm to invest as much as IDR 540,000,000; by this investment value of the machine, the payback period will return in 4,4 years with the machine durability more than 25 years.

Study of Agronomic Characteristics of Citronella Plants (Cymbopogon nardus L.) Cultivated Agroforestry in Gayo Lues Regency, Aceh Province

Citronella plants can grow on marginal lands. Cultivation of citronella by farmers in Gayo Lues Regency is carried out under pine stands and in open fields. This study aims to examine the agronomic characteristics of citronella cultivated agroforestry that was carried out in citronella gardens owned by farmers in all sub-districts in Gayo Lues Regency. This study used a field survey method and quantitative descriptive analysis. The citronella gardens observed were citronella orchards under pine stands and in open land on different soil types, altitudes and slopes, which were designated as homogeneous land units (SLH) of the observation site. Variables observed were variety, number of tillers, quantity, length and width of leaves, weight of wet herb, dry weight of herb and oil yield. The results showed that the agroforestry cultivation pattern of citronella plants under pine stands showed very good growth, which was indicated by the agronomic characteristics of citronella, namely the number of leaves; the leaves were longer and wider than when planted in open land. The agroforestry system of citronella cultivated in open land has agronomic characteristics of citronella, namely the number of tillers, the weight of the wet herb and the dry herb weight is higher than when cultivated under pine stands in Gayo Lues Regency. Citronella plants should be cultivated in open land (without shade) with Red-Yellow Podzolic soil type at an altitude of 1,000 – 2,000 m above sea level so that the best oil yield is obtained, namely SLH AAS44, without pine stands.

Quality Improvement to Enhance Customer Satisfaction Using Lean Six Sigma (Case Study: XYZ Restaurant)

Bandung was designated as a national culinary destination city in 2017 by the Ministry of Tourism due to its culinary diversity. The development of food and beverage businesses in Bandung, which increased from 524 in 2020 to 729 in 2021[4], shows that competition in the culinary business is quite intense. XYZ is one of the restaurants that can survive during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, XYZ often experiences complaints from customers regarding the quality of its products and services. Usually, this restaurant can receive 200-300 customers on weekdays and 400-600 customers on weekends. But until now, XYZ only receives 50% of its customers. This research will discuss the improvement of product and service quality using the DMAIC Lean Six Sigma methodology. The research uses primary data by distributing questionnaires to XYZ customers who visited in 2021 to 2023. From the results of the questionnaire, 4 out of 19 sub-variables customers feel that the performance is not good but has a high importance, namely in T1 (Taste), TX1 (Texture), E1 (Empathy), and R1 (Reliability). These four indicators need to be improved so that customers feel satisfied with the services and products provided by XYZ. Based on the main problems from the data obtained, quality improvement efforts that can be made such as employee training and quality control at suppliers. These efforts aim to improve and maintain the quality of XYZ for the long term so that an increase in the number of customers can be achieved, such as 200-300 visitors on weekdays and 400-600 on weekends.

Public Speaking Anxiety among College Students at St. Paul University Surigao

Public speaking is the act of making speeches in public or the art of effective oral communication with an audience. Fear of public speaking is common among students and the general population. The National Institute of Mental Health Report stated that public speaking anxiety is considered a social anxiety disorder (Brewer, 2001). This research aimed to find out the public speaking anxiety among college students of St. Paul University Surigao. It sought to answer the participants’ anxiety levels as Trait Anxiety, Context Anxiety, Audience Anxiety, and Situation Anxiety. The data were tested for the significant difference when grouped according to their profile. The researchers utilized the quantitative descriptive survey design using a researcher-made questionnaire that was subjected for validity and reliability checking and was administered to 81 education students. The findings revealed that students experienced very high Audience Anxiety while only high Trait, Context and Situation Anxieties. Furthermore, the findings found no significant difference in the participants’ level of anxiety when grouped according to profile. This means that anxiety level remains the same regardless of age, sex, and year level. Hence, it is recommended that public speaking should be offered as a subject to all degree programs at the tertiary level especially for teacher education programs. Also, the school administrators should encourage more public speaking activities in and out of the school where students would participate in such public speaking events to hone skills, thus, minimizing public speaking anxieties.