Online Laboratory Instruction as Alternative and Supplementary Mode: Students’ Assessment of the BS Agricultural Biotechnology Program

Abstract

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the education sector, the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) faculty started to tailor-fit their lectures and laboratory activities in the form of course packs to continue the delivery of various academic programs. The BS Agricultural Biotechnology (BS ABT) program is one of the courses in hard science that relies heavily on laboratory exercises. To assess the remote learning of the courses with laboratory exercises, BS ABT students were randomly surveyed to evaluate the effectiveness of their laboratory classes in the remote learning set-up. Based on the results, 94.5% of the BS ABT student-respondents were generally satisfied with the teaching style of the faculty, and implementation of the laboratory activities remotely. Experiments in all exercises were conducted synchronously and asynchronously through Google Classroom, and commonly accomplished with simplified experiments, simulations online, and supplemented by online videos via their personal laptops and smartphones. Regular synchronous meetings (96.4%) were religiously done every week with classes meeting once (49.1%), or twice (85.5%) a week. Ranking the three major courses of the ABT program that require laboratory exercises, ABT 104 (51%) obtained the highest satisfaction rating, followed by ABT 103 (47.3%), and ABT 106 (40%), respectively. Aside from ABT subjects with laboratory, Agriculture core subjects such as AGR21 (27.27%), AGR22 (27.27%), AGR31 (27.27%), AGR32 (27.27%), AGR41 (32.74%), AGR42 (23.64%), and AGR51 (20%) were the most enrolled courses. The findings of the present study serve as inputs in enhancing implementation of laboratory classes remotely in hard science particularly in the BS ABT program.