The National Examination in Indonesia, which began in 2015, was no longer a determinant of student graduation at the end of the education level. Utilization of the examination results will affect the seriousness of the students in working on it. This study aims to describe the level of seriousness of 12th grade students in working on National   Examinations, when it no longer a determinant of graduation by examining teachers and school principals’ point of view. This research is a qualitative study by using the phenomenology approach. Data was collected using focus group discussions (FGD) conducted 3 times in 3 provinces in Indonesia, consisted of Yogyakarta, South Kalimantan and East Nusa Tenggara. FGD participants were 9 high school principals, 9 vice principal of curriculum, and 54 teachers who teach subjects that are tested on national exam. In each province, three schools were selected, consisted of   two public schools, and one private school. Data were analyzed using data reduction stages, to find relationships between themes, and verification. The results showed that the motivation of 12th grade students in preparing National Examination were reduced.  They no longer focused on preparing the exams, otherwise they preparing themselves for higher education.  Furthermore, students tended to select subjects that were easier and the teacher should motivate students harder to prepare for the National Examination.

Problem solving is an essential aspect of students' mathematical activities. This ability could practice by using heuristic strategies in learning. Besides, these are assured to be able to promote metacognitive skills. In the implementation, teachers faced several challenges. This research aims to describe the challenges of teachers in implementing learning with heuristic strategies. This research is a descriptive qualitative. Participants of this research were 12 junior high school mathematics teachers from 12 high schools in the Special Region of Yogyakarta and Central Java. Data collection was taken by questionnaire and added with documentation. Data were analyzed using the Miles and Huberman stage-data reduction, data display, and drawing conclusion/verification. The data then validated using triangulation technique. The results revealed that some of teacher has already implement heuristic strategy in the learning process, but unable to define the heuristic strategy correctly. In its implementation, teachers experience several obstacles. These obstacles were found in providing non-routine problems to students, solving problems by students, and in discussions conducted to solve problems.

This study describes the characteristics of the test and its items used in the national-standardized school examination by applying classical test theory and focusing on the item difficulty, item discrimination, test reliability, and distractor analysis. We analyzed response data of 191 12^th graders from one of public senior high schools in Yogyakarta City, Indonesia, to the examination on the elective mathematics subject. The results showed that both multiple-choice and essay items contained in the test were at a moderate level of difficulty. The lowest item difficulty index went to the multiple-choice item where students failed in interpreting straight and dashed lines and went to the essay item that required complex intra-mathematical connections. In addition, we only found one item which was poor in distinguishing student competence. Furthermore, students’ test scores on multiple-choice and essay items were reliable. Although most multiple-choice items had at least two functioning distractors, it was still found two items whose all distractors were not functioning. In this article, we provide some suggestions concerning improvement towards mathematics learning practices.

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic forces learning, including mathematics learning, to be carried out in online or distance mode. This situation is a challenge for teachers in facilitating mathematics learning because they are required to organize mathematics content and integrate it with certain learning technologies. In this article, we reviewed a total of 14 articles to describe how mathematics teacher in Indonesia facilitates online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on types of technology used and reasons for choosing the technology, strategies used in integrating the technology with certain learning models or methods, ways of facilitating online discussion to construct knowledge, and assessments conducted as well as effects of the online learning facilitated by the teacher. Some implications for policy and practices are also provided in this article for improvement of online mathematics learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and may also after the pandemic is over in which it is possible to combine online and offline learning.

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