IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ACADEMIC INNOVATION PROJECT IN A BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE COURSE

Educators recognize the impact of current economic, political, social and cultural transformations on education. That is because, faced with various means of obtaining information, the educator is no longer the only source, however, is essential for the construction of knowledge, since he must prepare students for systematization and formalization of this knowledge through questions, stimuli and articulation of experience. This leads to the need for a process of educational innovation for the construction of a new design form for the teaching-learning process. Within this perspective, the Biomedicine course instituted an academic innovation project, aiming to install a culture of academic innovation within the course framework, across the pillars that make up a University, stimulating and implementing differentiated methodologies and techniques in the classroom, with debate and the consequent development of know-how, the Biomedicine professors have methods for deploying active learning, with the professor as mediator. To this end, the following methodologies were implemented: peer instruction, problem based learning, project based learning, gamification or teaching through research, in specific lessons in 46.6% of the course subjects. Educators have reported some problems in the deployment, such as the difficulty in changing students' attitudes, to understand and take on a decentralized role of mediator in the classroom, coordinating the skills they wanted students to develop and resolve conflicts between the groups. The final results, however, were positive regarding the perception of the student and/or their use. The use of peer instruction methodology in the Genetics subject, adapted regarding the choice of groups with the aim of reducing the predictability, reported an average of 92.7% of students considering the activity more interesting than traditional classes. The problem based learning, used in Systemic Pathology and Pathophysiology, culminated in an average increase of 1.5 points in the general yield of classes. Project based learning, in the Special Topics I subject, focused on curricular flexibility, generated a decrease in frequency of meetings in comparison with that observed in lectures in the same discipline in the previous year, with about 70% of students present on average in the follow-up meetings. However, there was a major engagement in the realization of the project itself and in the presentation of the final product. In the discipline of Food Science, students were encouraged and guided to develop a game in groups, which were exchanged and played by the different groups. This procedure led the students to seek information to build the game, which became a greater challenge than learning through playing the activity, showing that the gamification can be adapted and used in different ways, expanding its potential in the teaching-learning process. The Biostatistics subject conducted a teaching with research procedure, which generated an increase in yield in comparison to previous years, probably due to the active learning with practical application. Thus, the project of academic innovation in Biomedicine demonstrates that, despite the implementation difficulties, it is possible and advantageous to implement differentiated methodologies in the area of health, with low implementation costs.