Learning biophysics by building models: is it possible?

Machado, Nuno; Baptista, Mónica

Publication

Learning biophysics by building models: is it possible?

2017-11Journal article

dc.contributor.author	Machado, Nuno
dc.contributor.author	Baptista, Mónica
dc.date.accessioned	2018-06-05T11:49:47Z
dc.date.available	2018-06-05T11:49:47Z
dc.date.issued	2017-11
dc.description.abstract	The curricula of higher education courses in the area of Health usually place the curricular units of Basic Sciences in the first years of the course. This knowledge, supposedly, is ‘stored’ by the students in order to be applied in later curricular units. One of the major disadvantages of this structure is that knowledge and skills will have to be acquired in the long term. In this way, it is necessary to use teaching methodologies that guarantee retention of the acquired knowledge in the long term, so that students take the knowledge as if it were their own so that it can be correlated with the new knowledge. But on the other side, this kind of structure is not very well accepted by the students because the importance of the learning the fundamentals sciences is not immediately understood by them. This implies that the motivation for this kind of basic science disciplines is very low. The building of numerical models of biophysical phenomena, such as the mechanics of breathing, or blood circulation, has the potential for student motivation as well as long-term learning. Our theory is that by building well known numerical models of physiological phenomena in a spreadsheet, students have the opportunity to change their perceptions about the relevance of the contents addressed, simultaneously improving their learning in the topics covered and increasing their motivation in the discipline. The option for the use of a spreadsheet is justified because it does not require prior knowledge of programming languages, or about complex mathematical software, which would an obstacle to the biophysics learning. There is also the side effect of learning how to use a spreadsheet that is a plus in itself. After the development time of the model, the students have an individual oral assessment, which includes a final assessment of the developed model. Following this, the student delivers a written report. It is in this report that the students show the tests they have done to the model, as well as a reflection on the model they used, its limitations, some possible applications, and some considerations about possible future developments. It is intended to recognize the challenges that students face when building the models, and also know the evolution of the learning and to know the students' perception about the importance of the construction of models in biophysics and in the learning of biophysics. At this moment we have done already two complete cycles. At the end of each cycle, there is an evaluation which is used to develop the next cycle, the third one at this moment. In the very near future, we will try to apply this learning methodology to other disciplines, using different models according to each discipline. In this way, we would be able to compare results of different implementations of this new learning methodology.	pt_PT
dc.description.version	info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion	pt_PT
dc.identifier.citation	Machado N, Baptista M. Learning biophysics by building models: is it possible? In: ICERI2017 Proceedings Papers – 10th Annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation. Seville (Spain), November 16-18, 2017. p. 6286-91.	pt_PT
dc.identifier.doi	10.21125/iceri.2017.1627	pt_PT
dc.identifier.isbn	978-84-697-6957-7
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/8562
dc.language.iso	eng	pt_PT
dc.peerreviewed	yes	pt_PT
dc.relation.publisherversion	https://library.iated.org/view/MACHADO2017LEA	pt_PT
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/	pt_PT
dc.subject	Physics	pt_PT
dc.subject	Model based learning	pt_PT
dc.subject	Spreadsheet	pt_PT
dc.subject	Biophysics	pt_PT
dc.title	Learning biophysics by building models: is it possible?	pt_PT
dc.type	journal article
dspace.entity.type	Publication
oaire.citation.endPage	6291	pt_PT
oaire.citation.startPage	6286	pt_PT
rcaap.rights	openAccess	pt_PT
rcaap.type	article	pt_PT