Proposed Prototype Offline-Based Laboratory Activity in Cellular Respiration

Science education in the Philippines has significantly change through time with the advent of the K to 12 program of the department of education in response to the ASEAN integration to meet the so called demands for “quality education and global competition.” In the light of the present curriculum, science is now characterized as decongested following the spiral progression approach. The major areas of science curriculum are earth and space science, living things and their environment, matter and forces, motion and energy which was previously known as, biology, chemistry and physics. The terms might have changed and methods and approach also have been upgraded or updated but one thing is certain, and that is “the importance of a hands-on activity” or the “laboratory activities” in teaching science. Lecture method is a time-tested approach in teaching various discipline such as science and math but lecture alone is no longer effective for learners of this generation. Teachers and educators are now engaging in various techniques and strategies in order for students to construct meaning in what they learn. Technology, not to mention plays a vital role in delivering quality instruction and information, internet are a great source of information, thus saving time and energy. This paper hoped to combine laboratory activities and technology to bring about meaningful learning among students. How exactly is this possible? The current global situation served as one of the driving mechanism of this research. Various sectors such as schools are discouraged to conduct face – to – face classes this year in order to avoid the spreading of COVID -19. Online classes can be considered as the “new normal” nowadays, there are advantages and disadvantages of having such, in addition as teachers and educators we are finding ways on how to deliver the best learning experience to our students. This paper sought the help of thirty-four (34) science teachers from public and private secondary and tertiary schools to evaluate the “level of acceptability of the proposed offline-based laboratory activities in cellular respiration.” There are forty-four (44) teacher evaluators in total but ten (10) of which were used for testing first the reliability of the instrument used in this paper. They have provided valuable suggestions to further improve the instrument that will be used to evaluate the software program. The reliability test showed that the Cronbach’s alpha is .823 greater than the acceptability value of .5, which means to say that, the instrument is a valid instrument to measure the level of acceptability of the proposed offline-based laboratory activities for cellular respiration. The research made use of a descriptive quantitative methods of research and a survey questionnaire was distributed via google forms.The thirty-four teachers were asked about the type of computer/units they use for lessons and instruction, this was done in order determine if the software program will work and function best at which type of unit and operating systems. Majority of the teachers were using laptop or notebook computers with 76.47% or 26 out of 34 respondents.

There are a number of reasons why people in general chose laptop over desktop computers; portability, ease of assembly, keyboard and monitor sizes, power usage, upgrading and repair, are some of the advantages of laptop over desktop computers [1]. With the vast information found on the web, it is not surprising that the respondents of this study rated themselves “excellent” in terms of the basic computer literacy skills which coincided with their answers pertaining to basic computer and webpage browsing skills with 3.80 mean interpreted as “with high mastery,” specifically highest on “creating ppt presentation and “least skill mastered” in creating a simple database using access” with only “moderate  mastery”, and a  mean of 2.85. It goes to show that a significant number of respondents might not yet be fully oriented or have mastered well the designing or creating their own software program or applications for classroom instruction or laboratory use just like what the researchers of this paper did. Moreover, this paper also revealed that majority of the respondents were mostly engaged in “World Wide Web” or internet surfing with a mean of 4.97. While “blogging” ranked last among the list of applications and or activities for instruction that were used by teachers with only 2.44 mean value, they only used or did blogging for about once or twice a month for instruction and lesson purposes. The paper also shows significant value in terms of the “Overall Level of Acceptability” of the Prototype Offline- Based Laboratory Activities and result of the evaluation revealed that the teacher respondents commended the software program given the remarks of “Highly Acceptable” with an overall weighted mean of 3.71, this includes the content quality, order of presentation of activities and usability/user – friendly nature of the prototype offline – based laboratory activities in cellular respiration when all the three criteria combined respectively. Although the level of acceptability of the prototype offline-based laboratory activity was highly commendable by the science teachers, there were still a number of significant recommendations and suggestions for the improvement of this software program. To mention a few, majority of the responses were on the technical quality and presentation of the software program including the size of the texts, transition of the windows, and the most important is the system requirements of the software program which is to be most compatible but not limited to the latest and widely used operating systems there in in most laptop and even desktop computer units. In addition, cellular respiration is just part of the many pre requisite knowledge in cell biology, therefore aside from including more personalized and customized examples of the different stages; glycolysis, kreb cycle and electron transport chain, the researchers also encouraged future researchers to create their own, identifying abstract concepts and topics in cell biology like, central dogma of molecular biology and even genetics.