Memes and Entomology: A didactic sequence through Ecuadorian students' perspective

Mayra Carolina Vélez Ruiz,Jardel Coutinho dos Santos

doi:10.33448/rsd-v10i5.15228

Mayra Carolina Vélez Ruiz, Jardel Coutinho dos Santos

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v10i5.15228

Copy DOI

Abstract

This study aims at presenting memes as a teaching technique and the students' perspectives on the use of memes in education. Two groups of 35 and 31 students, ranged from 18 to 33 years old, enrolled in the entomology classes in a public university in Ecuador, participated in this project. The didactic sequence was put into practice from November 2020 to March 2021, and it was based on Marcuschi (2008). Students were asked to create a meme related to each unit of the course. To collect the data, one online questionnaire was used to get to know the participants' perspectives at the end of the semester. The results showed that the participants saw the use of memes as an untraditional type of class with positive outcomes. Also, they saw memes as a fun tool for educational purposes. So, we consider memes an essential and powerful tool for education because they permit interactivity among students, raise curiosity, foster motivation, nurture critical thinking, and help students remember the previously learned content. Considering the positive outcome of this research, we believe this study is addressed for professors of higher education in the area of Entomology who seek new methodologies to be used in class.

Highlights

One of the main challenges of contemporary education, at any level, is to promote practices that allow students active participation in activities of the digital culture (Souza, 2019)
2.1 The didactic sequence Based on Marcuschi (2008), this didactic sequence was done throughout the entomology classes from November 2020 to March 2021
Some memes that the students created are presented in order to see how they combined the learning topic with this genre

Summary

Introduction

One of the main challenges of contemporary education, at any level, is to promote practices that allow students active participation in activities of the digital culture (Souza, 2019). Technology has become a crucial tool to be used in class when accompanied by goals and purposes. Its use has demonstrated advantages for the teachers who lead with the 21-century student and other generations. Through the use of technology, it is possible to privilege other spaces besides the class. Teachers can bring different cultures and work with different subjects simultaneously, resulting in an interdisciplinary way that can involve different languages, spaces, and times (Almeida, 2020). The meme is an influential 21-century genre that helps teachers work with this interdisciplinary idea. A meme is a picture or a text, usually shared on social media, that aims to make people laugh or foster critical thoughts

Objectives

Methods

Results