Innovation in the teaching of human physiology at university and school: pedagogical process based on interdisciplinarity and learning station rotation

This paper presents the description and analysis of a didactic experience involving the participation of a university and a community school, developed as part of the National Science and Technology Week, at a public university in northeastern Brazil. For this purpose, the use of learning station rotation enabled innovation in the teaching of physiology integrated with biochemistry and health education contents. The didactic approach consisted of creating a learning circuit comprising seven stations. The central theme of the stations emphasized physiology, with specific foci on biochemistry and cardiorespiratory and endocrine health. Each station provided unique activities related to the central theme, including a station concerning digital technology in physiology. The school students were divided into small groups (6 or 7 people) that rotated through the stations, with a total of 81 students visiting each station. A qualitative assessment was performed using a Likert-scale questionnaire to measure the level of satisfaction of the students. It was found that this didactic approach increased the receptivity of the students to the contents, facilitated student-teacher dialogue, and provided an excellent tool for establishing an interface between the university and the community school. Overall, 76.5% of the students rated the activity as excellent.

Flipped Classrooms and the Pitfalls of Digital Learning

In the recent rise of digital learning, “flipped classrooms” have become a controversial subject. This new form of learning inverts the traditional conception of the classroom: instruction is transferred from the classroom to out-of-class (online) tasks such as pre-recorded lectures on the Internet, while class time is devoted to activities that put the knowledge into practice. These classrooms have been touted as learner-based and student-centered models of education. Yet there is still little evidence supporting the effectiveness of the flipped classroom at higher levels of education, especially in the humanities. Taking American studies as an example, I will examine some of the arguments in favor of this model, but also and most importantly some of the challenges facing the application of this new educational model in the humanities. In general, the main concern is that flipped classrooms may undermine student-teacher dialogue, viewing teachers as “moderators” who design learning environments geared to the students. At the same time, home-learning environments may compromise learner autonomy and limit learners’ opportunities for self-organized work and interaction with peers outside class. Ultimately, a critique of the concept of flipped classrooms is also a critique of the egalitarian aspirations of digital pedagogy in general.

Deliberating change

PurposeHow teachers collectively address conflicting beliefs about reforms and come to privilege some over others is critically important in understanding instructional change and stability. The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on in-depth qualitative data gathered in interviews and observations of teachers’ formal collaboration time, this study focuses on teacher dialogue to examine the voicing and debate of teachers’ beliefs about reform efforts in their schools. Specifically, in two urban middle schools engaged in math instructional reforms, what are the conditions of teachers’ collaboration time that shape their dialogue about the feasibility of these reforms?FindingsThe findings reveal that the beliefs teachers voice vary widely depending on the topic of conversation. Teachers’ conversations about student achievement data and tracking elicited doubts about the possibility of instructional change, and conversations about other forms of student data and instructional strategies elicited a wider range of beliefs. Further, opportunities to meet with trusted colleagues as well as with wider groups provide teachers with different, but both useful experiences in exploring their own conflicting beliefs.Practical implicationsAvenues for shifting institutionalized beliefs about instruction in schools that have struggled to embrace equitable instructional practices for struggling students are discussed, along with implications for future research.Originality/valueThere is considerable research highlighting the characteristics of productive collaboration, but this paper provides a deeper understanding of the way teachers collectively negotiate beliefs about instructional changes in schools struggling to meet that mark.

A calculus course in knowledge feedback format

This paper presents a design of an undergraduate calculus course which attempts to achieve higher student activity and teacher-student exchange, allowing the teacher to adapt more to the present student group and to increase students work time. This is done by switching between examinations in small format and examination-free, open mathematical dialogue occasions – two learning-enhancing opposites that reinforce each other during the course. In the examination-free dialogue, students solved problems during lectures every week, where the quality of the student-teacher dialogue is essential both for dissection of properties of mathematics and for students’ willingness to continue participating. Thus, students regularly practiced verbal presentation and reflection in mathematics.