In the New Normal: Students’ Perception and Experiences on the Shift to Flexible Learning System During the Covid-19 Pandemic

This study aims to identify the way La Salle University managed in providing quality education during the Coronavirus Pandemic when Universities had little to almost no time to adapt to the abrupt changes in the educational processes from traditional face-to-face set-up to flexible online learning. Using a semi-structured questionnaire through a Google Form Survey, the researchers look into the students of La Salle University particularly on their perception, and their lived experiences regarding the flexible online distance learning, highlighting their ability to retain information, and lesson content, and their effectivity of the utilization of online platform as a tool to achieve quality education. Data collected provide an undeniable challenge that the learners experience in the course of a year in the flexible online distance learning set-up. Such challenges include but are not limited to technical issues in their access to online platforms, technical skills of teachers and instructors alike, the communication between students and teachers, and the inappropriate teaching methods used in a flexible online distance setup. Biggest emphasis on the challenges lies on the poor communication between the instructors and the learners. Based on these data, implications for the use of the universities doing flexible online learning setup, and others, are presented.