Ensinando anatomia através de jogos: análise da percepção e ganho cognitivo dos alunos em aulas de biologia para o ensino médio.

Abstract

Currently, in the context of high school, one of the topics taught in Biology is the constitution of the human body and a difficulty frequently reported by students is to assimilate the “technical” names related to structures and their anatomical positions. This leads to difficulties in memorizing and acquiring knowledge, reflecting on student’s performance. The use of new pedagogical strategies that can innovate the teaching of anatomy is necessary, making learning more accessible and attractive to students. Educational games are valuable teaching material that motivate students and arouse their interest in the content. The objective of this project was to develop an educational game for the learning of human anatomy and use it as a complementary tool in public high school, assessing the students' perception and cognitive gain. The project was carried out with the Biology discipline in the second year of high school, in the two classes supervised by teacher Paulo Sérgio Ferreira Nunes at the Mercês Garcia Vieira Elementary and High School in São José do Calçado-ES in the year 2019. The proposal was to develop a card game that mixes the dynamics of UNO, a game known and present in the students’ daily lives, with the content of human anatomy - UNUMANO. Initially, the systems of the human body were studied in lectures or at home through material prepared and sent by the teacher. The students then helped build the game in the classroom throughout the year: they received cards containing only the images of anatomical structures that should be filled in with name, system and location in human body.At the end of the study of all systems, the game was concluded and UNUMANO was used by students who played in groups of 4 to 5 people, always under the teacher’s supervision. After a period of playing the game, a knowledge acquisition test was given to the students, and the results were compared with those of the previous year's class which had lectures taught by the same teacher and received the same materials, but without using the card game. The students also answered a perception questionnaire about UNUMANO. This game activity improved the performance in the anatomy knowledge acquisition test in the intervention group, whose students’ averages were higher than those of the students who had the discipline in the year 2018. Most of the 78 students who tried UNUMANO had a positive perception of the game with an average of 9.58 ± 0.66 (mean ± SD), and 95.6% of the students agreed that the anatomy game had a positive impact on learning and stimulated the student’s active participation in this process. In addition, 94.1% of the students agreed that the game improved the understanding of the content and 76.4% thought it helped in memorizing the name of the structures. The results suggested that the educational game is an excellent alternative to increase the learning of anatomy in High School students, improving their perception and cognitive gain. In addition, UNUMANO increased the student’s role in the construction of knowledge and brought the content of Biology closer to their daily lives.