The Future of Education

The transition from the traditional educational model centered on teaching to that emanating from the EHEA focused on learning and the acquisition of competences by the student implies a change in the educational paradigm that makes it necessary to complement the master classes with active methodologies that enhance the central role of the student in his or her learning process. Our experience shows that collaborative learning and class inversion (flipped learning) are methodologies that can be useful to improve the teaching/learning of Biochemistry and metabolism for Biology students [1]. In particular, metabolism is a subject that many students consider difficult because it is so broad, they do not have time to study it and integrate its contents, and where they miss the fact that more exercises are not solved in class [2]. Collaborative learning is grounded on social constructivism, which considers learning a social process that is built not only with the teacher, but also with peers, the context and meaning of what is learned. This learning approach not only favors the academic performance of students but also allows them to acquire important transversal competences that are very useful in their professional development. However, its application demands new skills and more effort from the teacher than giving master classes [3]. Therefore, and because of the idea that they will be forced to give up parts of the curriculum, not many teachers use it in the teaching of Biochemistry. Many of these problems could be alleviated by associating the collaborative learning with methodologies that, like those of flipped learning, allow "gaining time" without sacrificing content.  In the present communication, the different roles of teachers and students in this new scenario, its advantages and disadvantages, will be analyzed. This work is supported by an Educative Innovation Project (PIE19-057, funded by University of Málaga).

Keywords: collaborative learning, flipped learning, metabolism.

References:
[1] García-Ponce AL, Martínez-Poveda B, Blanco-López A, Quesada AR, Suárez MF, Alonso-Carrión FJ, Medina MA. Learning contract, co-operative and flipped learning as useful tools for studying metabolism. Education and New Developments 2018, pp. 513-515, 2018
[2] García-Ponce AL, Martínez-Poveda B, Blanco-López A, Quesada AR, Alonso-Carrión FJ, Medina MA. A PBL case on glycogen as an evaluable task for students studying metabolism. Education and New Developments 2019.
[3] Alonso-Carrión FJ. Metodología de aprendizaje colaborativo y flip learning como ayuda para el aprendizaje de la Bioquímica. En: La enseñanza del metabolismo: retos y oportunidades (Medina MA, Suárez F, Alonso-Carrión FJ, coordinadores), pp. 117-139. Málaga, 2017. [In Spanish]