The mathematics department, through the community service team, chaired by Fridgo Tasman, S.Pd., M.Sc, is back to holding community service activities. This activity aims to improve the ability of teachers to design questions that can assess higher-order thinking skills or commonly known as higher order thinking skills (HOTS).

The activity was held on 20 and 21 June, 31 August and 7 September 2019 which took place in the UNP postgraduate lecture and lecture building with the faculty of mathematics and natural sciences UNP. The resource persons in this activity were mathematics experts from the UNP mathematics department, namely Prof. Dr. Ahmad Fauzan, M.Pd., M.Sc. with the activity participants are mathematics teachers who are members of the MGMP Mathematics for SMP Kota Padang.

At the beginning of the activity the resource person emphasized the teacher so that learning orientation is not a value, but rather provides a place for students to think. One of the ways to do this is by implementing HOTS questions for students, so that students get used to practicing thinking to solve mathematical problems.

In addition, the resource persons also gave explanations to the teachers about several things, namely 1) what is HOTS, 2) examples of HOTS questions, 3) how to design HOTS questions, 4 ) how to assess HOTS questions. In the activities the teachers were asked to design HOTS questions based on the class they were teaching and on certain topics that were being taught. The questions that have been designed are validated together, with the guidance of resource persons. After the questions are valid, the teachers also try out the questions on their students and assess the results based on a rubric that has been designed together.