APPLICATION OF MODEL BASED LEARNING TO IMPROVE UNDERSTANDING OF THE HISTORY OF THE STUDENT IN LEARNING ABOUT THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL MATERIAL REFORM PERIOD (1998)

This research is in the underlying by the observations of researchers to study of history in the Department of History Education, Faculty of Social, University of Medan, class A Regular school year 2016/2017 that seemed less attractive. Lecturer at the center of learning and not a student. The learning activities are done with one-way communication through the delivery of content by the lecturer. While a student as a learner, being a passive individual. The learning process that takes place tends to show a history of information in the form of memorization and less meaningful in their daily lives. And should the lessons of history that gives meaning can be actualized in the dynamics of social life. Therefore, in an effort to make learning more interesting and meaningful, researchers applied a model of Problem Based Learning in learning activities in the classroom. PBL or problem-based learning is based on the theory that learning is a process in which learners or students actively construct knowledge or constructivism approach. This research is a class act. The research objective is to increase students' understanding of history teaching in the subject matter "Future Political Reform (1998) in Indonesia, which is the learning outcomes and competencies required of students in the subject of History Indonesia Reform Period (History Indonesia V). Subjects in this research activity is the fifth semester students of history education, class A Regular school year 2016/2017. The research was conducted from September to November 2016. The study consisted of two cycles with each cycle of four stages. The stages of the implementation is the planning, implementation, observation and reflection carried out repeatedly to the extent of competence that the set (equal to or more than 90% of students have a high level of mastery of the material). the students improved their learning comprehension in the second cycle compared with that in the first cycle. The students’ scores in the pre-cycle were 41.66%, Then, in the first cycle their scores were 58.33%, and in the second cycle they gained 95.75 %. of their scores. The results showed that Problem-Based Learning model could enhance the students' learning comprehension up to 54.09%. Furthermore, the students’achievementcan be seen as follows: 13.38 (39.10% clear) in pre-cycle, 14.48 (58% clear) in the first cycle, and 18.66 (95.87% clear) in the second cycle. The results indicated that the students’ achievement of the history lesson improved up to 56.77% as a results form PBL model.