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| (Image Source: Inquirer.net/STI Colleges) |
It is without question that education is one of several major sectors in the Philippines that are heavily hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. With school closures and physical classes no longer a feasible option amidst health and safety concerns, educational institutions have shifted to distance learning methods. However, the sudden shift to these methods has its own challenges as most learners, educators, and schools sport limited resources that are considered to be not enough to meet the abrupt demands of the new normal in learning.
STI Colleges, one of the premiere Information Technology (IT) schools in the Philippines, address the situation by utilizing innovation and technology to make education inclusive, robust and effective during the pandemic through the introduction of ONline and ONsite education (ONE STI), an educational framework to enable students to complete their studies from last school year, as the premiere learning method for school year 2021-2022. The ONE STI Learning Model combines online learning via the eLearning Management System (eLMS) at home with the invaluable hands-on training on campus once approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force Against Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID). The concept of online learning is not new to STI as it has implemented a blended learning mode in the past years using a two-way cloud-based platform where students and teachers can discuss and collaborate seamlessly.
To increase students’ productivity, STI partnered with Microsoft to provide its students and teachers with their own Microsoft Office 365 accounts which they can use to install Microsoft productivity apps on their devices and login to MS Teams. Through the MS Teams, students can also attend their online classes through its extensive video conferencing and other collaborative features. With connectivity being the main hurdle in online learning, STI showed the institution’s commitment to bridging the gap with their recent partnership with PLDT Enterprise and Globe Telecom where students across all STI campuses will be provided with up to 34GB monthly data plan for free. To complement this new learning model, STI continues to strengthen its partnership with key players in the industry to address the learning gaps brought by the limitations of remote learning. This is a way to ensure that students still get the most out of their education and get to apply their learnings in real world settings to prepare them for future employment.
STI’s experience with blended learning in the past years has allowed the institution to recalibrate its learning contents and teaching methodologies to educate students even outside the classroom effectively. For an instance, STI College is one of the 11 top universities and colleges in the country that joined the Huawei ICT Academy, a program of a leading multinational tech company Huawei that aims to enhance the awareness as well as the ICT knowledge and skills of future talents in the Philippines. College students from various STI campuses have also successfully completed the UnionBank Blockchain Xcellerator Program where they had undergone an eight-week intensive course to create a blockchain application based on a business model. Aside from these programs, STI teachers are actively inviting industry practitioners to their online classes to provide an insightful firsthand perspective to the learners.
A virtual career fair exclusive for STI students and alumni was also conducted with the help of companies such as Accenture and Teleperformance to open more opportunities of employment to students. In addition, a series of STI Webinars were continuously held for both students and parents, which discussed matters like mental health, data privacy online, and ways to deal with learning from home. Apart from the ever-evolving content of the curriculum, STI has optimized its learning contents by making each module highly engaging and interactive.
