Active teaching methodologies using gamification to facilitate the learning of Biochemistry in graduation

The literature reports difficulties from the students in learning Biochemistry due to the high density and complexity of its content, making this subject one of the most feared. This is probably caused not only by the great amount of chemical structures, but also by the way that this content has been taught. Introducing gamification learning collaborates with a motivating methodology, stimulates the students participation and develops aptitudes and competences. The aim of this game creation is to make the learning experience more dynamic and attractive. The methodology consists in a board game with question about the discipline’s content. The students are divided into teams that face each other, promoting interactions among players and among teams that have been preparing themselves to develop the best performance. The game was named AVC (Atividade AValiativa Contínua) and it has been applied since 2019 for classes of undergraduate Medicine students. The gamification proposal is presented on the first day of class and is executed in the last module of the discipline. The results with gamification learning show that, although the level of difficulty is the same as the traditional tests, the students’ performance is much better. From the teamwork’s view, the gamification stimulates collaborative action, respect, empathy and promotes the discovery of classmates’ abilities. The game’s outcome is to make the understanding easier and the Biochemistry studies teaching more attractive