Teaching metabolism with scientific articles: A new approach.

Abstract

Scientific articles have been explored as a didactic resource in the teaching of Biochemistry, as well as in other areas of science. This teaching strategy contributes to the learning and understanding of specific concepts, and development of the skills, necessary for the research training of students. The present study investigated the use of scientific articles in the Topics in Metabolism course, which was offered to Biochemistry graduate students, at the University of São Paulo. Instead of lectures and seminars, two main activities were used: directed study (DS) and discussion groups (DG). Both utilized and explored high impact publications with a recognized quality of intellectual production. In this active learning environment, the objective was to evaluate the perception of the students regarding the teaching strategy, and the level of effort each student expended to understand the course material. Data collection involved using the responses to open and closed questions, from two questionnaires. Then the Pirouette software was employed to perform the Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA). The results indicated that 78% of the students had a positive perception of the teaching strategy and struggled less to understand the course material. On the other hand, 22% of the students had a less positive perception of the strategy and displayed a less intense course engagement. Ultimately, the results presented in the present study indicate that the adoption of this teaching strategy can help graduate students to develop the ability to read critically and thoroughly understand scientific materials, which are fundamental skills for future researchers. © 2018 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 47(1):85-92, 2018.