THE UST Faculty of Arts and Letters (AB) will allot two hours for onsite learning and one hour for online classes per course for the academic year 2024-2025, according to its faculty secretary.
Professional and general education courses would be delivered in a 70:30 onsite to online class ratio for the next academic year, Faculty Secretary Asst. Prof. Louie Benedict Ignacio told The Flame.
Ignacio said the 70-30 setup came from the Office of the Vice Rector for Academic Affairs and would be implemented in all academic units of the University.
“All [courses] are 2:1 except for select [courses], even, not all laboratories are three hours. Some of the laboratory classes are 2:1. It really depends on the course and the program if they requested for their class to be three hours instead of 2:1,” Ignacio said.
“I [think we’re] just trying to maximize the learning opportunities for both onsite and online,” he added.
Class schedules have already been predetermined across different programs and courses in AB, the faculty secretary added.
Last March, UST Vice Rector for Academic Affairs Prof. Cheryl Peralta said the hybrid mode of learning would be a permanent set-up in the University to “maximize” the advantages of technology in education.
During the previous academic year, UST programs conducted their professional and general education courses with at least 70% and 50%, respectively, delivered onsite. Faculty members were given the leeway to determine the mix of their classes although a pure onsite learning was not allowed.
READ: (UPDATED) Hybrid learning to be a permanent set-up in UST, says academic affairs chief
‘Taking advantage of AI’
Policies on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) on academic works are also underway and are set for implementation for the upcoming academic year, Ignacio said.
“The fact that the University conducted an AI summit is really because they recognize and acknowledge the presence of AI, and we are really looking at either taking advantage of it and making sure that we would benefit more than having problems,” he added.
Peralta earlier said it is time for the University to expand its knowledge of AI as hybrid learning becomes permanent for delivering instructions.
“That’s also the reason why we really pursue hybrid learning as an approach…The future of work really has to use technology. And if we do not promote hybrid instruction, then students will not be deliberately trained in the use of all these technologies,” she told The Flame last March.
READ: UST to boost AI use in instruction delivery as hybrid learning stays
Meanwhile, the University will continue to use Canvas as its learning management system (LMS) for the next academic year.
“Our LMS has the basic needs—the basics that we need like, for example, Turnitin [and] checkers, so I haven’t heard of any new addition to the LMS,” Ignacio said.
According to Ignacio, supplementary applications integrated in the system will be discussed during a system training for faculty members in July. F — with reports from Christian Querol and Ma. Alyanna Selda
