E-AV Biology Courseware: A Model of Learning about Renewable Energy

Abstract

Teaching and learning process was often faced with abstract subjects and it is out of the daily experience such as the process of biofuel production or renewable energy on industrial biotechnology field, which is one of subject unit in Biology. Therefore, this subject was difficult to be taught by teacher and difficult to be understood by student. In this research, biology especially renewable energy (the process of biofuel production) one of industrial biotechnology field was chosen because of many factors such as the production of biofuel needs long time, the process to produce biofuel is very complex and industrial biotechnology subject was difficult to be taught by teachers in the classroom. So they need the aids to explain biofuel in the classroom. The teachers’ ability and competency are necessary to teach the Biology course to be more attractive and efficient. Visualization is one of the ways that can be done to concretize an abstract idea. e-Audio Visual Biology courseware (e-AV BIOLOGY) is one of the alternative aids to explain this course, so biology learning will be more interesting for the students. This paper considers the design and development of a web-based courseware for education of biology in Indonesia Senior High Schools. The new teaching media, namely e-AV BIOLOGY, had been developed as a teaching approach in science education. e-AV BIOLOGY had been developed with integrated and comprehensive Assignment, Quizzes, and Discussion Board for supporting the students' learning process. This research had examined the impact of e-Audio Visual Biology towards students’ attitude, students’ interest and learning outcomes in Indonesia Senior High Schools. The later part of this paper presents the evaluation data from a main research conducted with students at Senior High Schools in Semarang, Indonesia. The findings from the main research are also discussed.