Virtual Biology Laboratory (VLab-Bio): Scenario-Based Learning Approach

AbstractThe aspiration of the nation to become an industrialised society depends on various fundamentals in the fields of science and technology. The success in one's achievement can be planned ahead of time as to lead the nation into comprising of a plural society with global knowledge. In line with this, the Biology curriculum and syllabus are designed to create a scientifically and technologically oriented students and later, workers. Important components contained in science subjects like Physics, Chemistry and Biology include the aspects of doing experiment. As students embark in the process of doing experiment in the lab, they have to face some constraints such as safety, time and cost. Due to these obstacles, some topics in Biology in which experiments are part of, have not been done at school. Virtual technologies generally, and the Scenario-based Learning approach specifically, when integrated into a system in enhancing teaching and learning, have shown to be a promising tool to help students acquire knowledge in science. This study aims to i) identify teaching aids used by teachers in school, ii) investigate the topic that is to be focused in VLab-Bio and iii) analyse the examination reports to support the findings. This preliminary research uses the method of survey on 72 students and 10 biology teachers, interview and test to obtain data. Findings show that learning area under focus is Cell Division, the learning objective is Understanding Mitosis and the learning outcome is the Application of Knowledge on Mitosis in Cloning. Thus, this topic will be the main contents of designing learning modules intended to serve as a learning support tool of the Scenario-based Learning Approach for Virtual Biology Laboratory (VLab-Bio)