What is the best way to relate concept with the application? How can teacher make the information effective to help the students get best learning result? The answer is by doing CTL. Contextual Teaching Learning (CTL) is a teaching approach that hep the teacher to relate the teaching materials with the reality and help the students to apply the materials the get to the community. The teacher is not only transferring the materials, but he/she also engages the students to experience and apply the materials. With this approach, the students can have a better result of learning.
CTL concept arises because the majority of students have difficulty in applying the material they get to their work place or social community in their future life. In the traditional approach, the students have to relate the concept they have to reality outside the classroom on their own. This approach helps them to have their own understanding about the materials taught.
CTL approach needs the teacher to design learning environments that relates many different forms of experience such as social, cultural, etc based on the goal of the teaching itself. With the learning environment designed, the students will know the meaningful relation between abstract ideas and the application in the real world.