Advances in physiology and other fields are strongly associated with a solid base knowledge of biochemistry and cell metabolism. On the other hand, the complex and abstract nature of metabolic pathways, the traditional lecture method, and other factors made the teaching-learning process of biochemistry a challenging endeavor. To overcome this, we…

This work provides information about the design, implementation, and assessment of the instructional role of a bilingual (English and Portuguese) web-based board game designed to assist Brazilian Mechanical Engineering undergraduate students in reviewing the content related to thermodynamics, chemical equilibrium, and chemical kinetics. The game…

The digestive system is a fundamental topic in biological science teaching. Despite its importance, the level of students' knowledge on the topic appears to differ from recommended levels at several educational grades. Their knowledge also seems to be resistant to change; therefore, this discrepancy may be viewed as an epistemological obstacle to…

Correspondence courses have been offered in Brazil since the late 19th century; in the 20th century, instructional media such as radio and television were successfully used long before the introduction of the Internet. However, distance education (DE) was officially established in Brazil only in 1996 by the National Educational Law of Policies and…

Research indicates that students frequently struggle to apply their knowledge of organic compounds' structural theory to understand the concepts related to resonance and learn to use curved arrows to write resonance structures. Educators have developed educational tools and methodologies to aid students in overcoming their learning difficulties.…

This paper reflects on the problems faced by refugee students during the COVID-19 pandemic (summer semester 2020) as "calouros," i.e. freshmen during their first year, in a public university in Brazil. Through a content analysis of their personal accounts, collected electronically by their teacher of Portuguese for academic purposes (the…

Adaptive curriculum sequencing (ACS) is still a challenge in the adaptive learning field. ACS is a NP-hard problem especially considering the several constraints of the student and the learning material when selecting a sequence from repositories where several sequences could be chosen. Therefore, this has stimulated several researchers to use…

Teaching and learning in higher education are being transformed through complex configurations of people, tasks, and material and digital resources. Successful designs for innovative learning require us to understand how these complex configurations relate to learners' activity. This paper illustrates the application of a networked learning…

The distance education (DE) modality evolves as new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are developed and based on the methodologies that are being used in the media dissemination of information, educational institutions and organizations take ownership of these innovations to promote their teaching processes. One of the methods that…

The constant technological development in education, and the potentiality of the resources offered by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), are challenges faced by teaching institutions in Brazil, especially by those institutions, which by the very nature of their services intend to provide distance education courses. In such a scene,…

To address a common problem of teaching the sliding filament theory (that is, students have difficulty in visualizing how the component proteins of the sarcomere differ, how they organize themselves into a single working unit, and how they function in relation to each other), we have devised a simple model, with inexpensive materials, to be built…

In this paper, we explore the use of concept maps (Cmaps) as instructional materials prepared by teachers, to foster the understanding of chemistry. We choose fireworks as a macroscopic event to teach basic chemical principles related to the Bohr atomic model and matter-energy interaction. During teachers' Cmap navigation, students can experience…

Many researchers have highlighted the important role of teachers in creating and managing argumentative, as well as the need for teachers, during their training, to have opportunities to develop knowledge about arguments, enabling them to work from the perspective of argumentation. This study investigates to what extent a context of explicit…

Using a toy construction set, we introduce to students the job characteristics model in a fun and engaging way. The activity not only describes the theoretical variables of the model but also allows students to (a) experience the dynamic interaction among these variables and (b) gain a better, hands-on understanding of the model. The exercise…

This paper analyses the experience of pre-service teachers enrolled in a course at a Brazilian university that was guided by three Cyberculture Laws formulated by Lemos (2004)--which entail "transmitting connecting and reconfigurating" information and practices--and by Connectivism's concept of "relevance" (Siemens, 2004). They…