Serendipity: Student Readiness and Adaptation Model for Remote Teaching and Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This study attempted to develop a model of student preparation for the abrupt shift from traditional to remote teaching and learning. Guided by the Transactional Distance Theory (Moore, 1989), the model is dubbed SERENDIPITY, i.e. a mnemonic that stands for: Screenshot ready; Engagement (with content, co-learners, and teachers); Resiliency (maintaining sanity); Endless (adaptation); Nonchalant (being calm and relaxed); Diligent; Independent (learning); Procrastination (how not to procrastinate); Integrity; Tenacity (determination); and Yeasty (exuberantly creative). The model is a student readiness framework developed by the UPLB Learning Resource Center and operationalized through capacity development programs using webinars via zoom, Facebook, and YouTube delivered by various social scientists, psychiatrists, communicators, and artists. These webinars on readiness for online learning, mental health, mindfulness, netiquette, tutorials, bridging activities, daily doses of inspiration, and the like did not only capacitate UPLB students but also teachers, school administrators, and researchers in other universities and high schools in the country.  The multiple attribute setting amounting to more than six million does not matter but the emerging strategies to prepare students to study remotely enabled them to adapt to the new learning platform that may now become the new norm.