STUDENT PROTAGONISM IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE IN CELL BIOLOGY: THE USE OF INSTAGRAM AS A DIDACTIC TECHNOLOGICAL RESOURCE IN AN EMERGENCY REMOTE TEACHING PERIOD

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic abruptly interrupted the routine of several people around the world, bringing about a series of challenges in the most diverse areas of our life. From an educational point of view, the suspension of face-to-face classes, due to the uncertainty concerning the end of this serious global health crisis, required extreme reformulations so that teaching continued to occur, in an adapted and remote way. In this experience report, it is described how the pedagogical didactic process of the discipline of Cellular and Molecular Biology, taught to first term undergraduate students of the bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy, was suitable for the emergency remote teaching format, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The main objectives of the intervention were: to increase students' interest and participation in distance learning activities; facilitate communication and interactivity between teachers and students, as well as among students themselves, and promote collaborative learning activities, such as group projects. At first, the themes were presented in an expository and asynchronous way, through video classes prepared by the teachers, in addition to occasional synchronous meetings to answer any lingering questions and hold discussions on the contents with the students. During this first stage of the term, evaluations were carried out through individual online forms, with open ended as well as multiple choice questions, after each content had been taught. Secondly, it has been suggested that the students develop a project, summarizing the content which had been learnt until that moment. For this activity, one of the tools used was Instagram, a widely used social network that facilitates the exchange of knowledge and interaction. The analysis of the results achieved by the four classes that experienced remote teaching indicates a better overall performance in this second evaluation activity. With this methodology, students have been able to be protagonists in the active and dynamic process of knowledge building of the course contents, organizing, integrating and contextualizing the knowledge acquired during this process.