In response to the present need for continuing education in this time of pandemic, the College of Education together with the Integrated Developmental School (IDS) and Integrated Rural Development Academy (IRDA) conducted a webinar series on Innovative and Flexible Teaching and Learning or InFleX every Tuesday at 10-12 noon from June 9 – July 14, 2020.
InFleX is a remote teaching and learning modality, which can be synchronous or asynchronous in terms of its delivery. It is anchored on the REACH (Relevant, Engaging, Achievable, Clear, and Holistic) framework. This approach ensures that outcomes, content, and resources provided by each faculty are relevant to the students through engaging, achievable, and authentic learning experiences coupled with clear direction, assessment purpose as well as holistic and inclusive course design. According to the College Dean, Dr. Amelia T. Buan, REACH as a framework may serve as a bridge that connects students to school and to their teachers even if they are learning from home.
InFlex enables the college to capture the 3 categories of its students based on their access to technology and the internet (wide or full access, limited and entirely offline) for an inclusive and flexible learning. For wide or full access to the internet, courses are delivered through the MOLE (MSU-IIT Online Learning Environment), an e-learning platform of the Institute. On the other hand, students with limited or no access to online technology will make use of learning packets which are being prepared by their teachers and will be sent to them through couriers. The learning packets may also be used by students with full internet connectivity at home.
The InFlex webinar series consists of 6 meaningful and well-sequenced sessions that provide basic and comprehensive contents and workshops to its participants. The list of topics and their respective resource persons during the said sessions are the following:
1.Considering Psycho-social perspectives of Learners by Dr. Imelu Mordeno
2.Preparing OBE syllabus in InFlex Modality by Dr. Manuel Barquilla and Mr. J-Roel Semilla
3.Fostering Student Engagement & Learning Guide Developmentby Dr. Roxan Cosolacion and Dr. Amelia Buan
4.Connecting Institute Goals to the Learning Course Outcomes with Learning Guide by Dr. Ruben Abucayon and Dr. Lowell Lucero
5.Introduction to Learning Management System; Developing Online Assessment and Setting-up the MOLE Gradebook by Ms. Nenen Borinaga; Dr. Lowell Lucero
6.Showcasing of Outputs Asst.Prof. Vanessa Zabala, Asst. Prof. Neal Alfie Y. Lasta, Mr. Leo Santillana, Mr. Joniel Medina and Mr. J-roel Semilla
For each session, the participants are tasked to submit corresponding output/s to ensure that the intended outcomes of the webinar series are achieved. Also, to guide the participants in developing their course syllabus and teaching-learning materials and check on the quality of their outputs, a checklist was provided by the CED Quality Assurance team. Hence, the following steps in assessing the outputs were established as shown in the figure below.
It is hoped that through this training, the CED will be able to deliver quality instruction this coming first semester which will open in September 2020. Despite the new challenges, the College is determined to continually work as a team in the pursuit of quality, equity and flexibility in education.
ALTHOUGH provisional face-to-face classes may be allowed in areas placed under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) like Iligan City, MSU-IIT is developing alternative learning arrangements – including online learning – to minimize the threat of COVID-19 infections when the first semester of the academic year 2020-2021 opens.
With its issuance earlier this month of Special Order No. 00835-IIT, S. 2020, MSU-IIT promulgated the guidelines for its innovative flexible teaching and learning (InFLex) delivery that will function as a way for teachers and students to have classes without being physically present.
The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has been pushing for universities and colleges to use alternative learning or flexible learning systems to ensure that learning continues during the quarantine period and beyond.
For the InFLex delivery, MSU-IIT, upon the recommendation of its Committee on Innovative and Flexible Learning, will be utilizing its Online Learning Environment or MOLE as the primary learning platform.
The guidelines, which came into effect when the Special Order was issued on June 9, 2020, included the procedure for the enrollment that will take place for the whole month of July.
The MOLE is a Moodle-based facility that lets faculty members connect to their classrooms virtually at their convenience.
MOLE also helps teachers organize course requirements and supports synchronous and asynchronous activities.
This moodle-based learning management system lets students also monitor their progress in the courses or subjects they are enrolled in.
Moodle is a popular open-source learning management system used for blended learning, distance education, and other e-learning activities in schools that allows the creation of private websites with online courses for teachers and trainers.
With InFLex modality of teaching and learning, classes may be conducted at a specified time for real-time instructions, activities, and presentations at a specific online classroom.
Class instructions, which will be in an online format, may also be given without the teacher and student meeting virtually. Students are given a time frame for participation and may contribute and submit assigned tasks in accordance with course instructions.
To capacitate teachers in the InFLex design and delivery, a six-week virtual MOLE training is provided for them by the MSU-IIT Center for e-Learning (MICeL).
The training covers syllabus preparation, learner’s guide development, fostering engagement, creating a video lecture, and MOLE as support for assessment.
Prior to the training, teachers were given their academic load for the first semester so they can start preparing an InFlex delivery of their assigned subjects to teach.
According to the guidelines, each college is also expected to create an InFlex quality assurance team to ensure the quality of course materials.
Aside from MOLE, the guidelines allow faculty members to also use other available learning tools to support it such as Google classroom, MSU-IIT SMS blast, Facebook, and phone call or video conferencing. Tutorials on the use of the different tools to support learning are made available on the website of MICeL.
To support research activities during classes, teachers and students can also access the Institute’s e-library, curated and maintained by the Office of the Institute Library.
As the COVID-19 pandemic runs its course, higher education institutions like MSU-IIT are implementing certain measures to limit the number of individuals entering the campus.
Some of these measures are the establishment of a skeleton workforce, rotational reporting of employees, and adoption of the work from home arrangement.
The online enrollment and InFLex classes are added measures to control and contain the spread of COVID-19 during the opening of the first semester of the academic year.
