Improving Creativity of Graphic Design for Deaf Students Using Contextual Teaching Learning Method (CTL)

This study is addressed to the issues of improving the creativity of deaf Students in graphic design using contextual teaching learning (CTL). Various researches have highlighted the ability of the deaf students in graphic design skill and also provided relevant information for those teachers to prepare a program. The main problem in deaf learning is poor of communication between the deaf students and their teachers, comprehensible visual language inputs, and how to use teaching learning method effectively. The focus of this study was to improve creativity of graphic design skill using CTL Method at SLB Melati as a School for kids with special needs in Pekanbaru (capital city of Riau Province, Indonesia). SLB Melati held Computer Skill as an extracurricular activity andused bitmap image processing. In this paper, CTL Method applied to a vector image processing during learning activity at computer laboratory with video and printing learning media. The authors used single subject research (SSR) with Gutman Scale, involved pretest and posttest observations by questionnaires with 8 questions and 5 respondents (as a representative). The result of pretest observation showed that 12.5% of students have understood using graphic design. Finally, after CTL application method was obtained and showed 75% improving, therefore, given the ability of deaf students in computer graphic design skills using CTL Method can be concrete solution in deaf education in computer learning skill.