Production and evaluation of digital atlas of embryology by students who experience the problem-based learning

Abstract

The basic Embryology program is of fundamental importance in shaping the practice of healthcare professionals, since it provides a better understanding of the human development processes and their possible abnormalities. Although the science of Embryology plays an important role in the medical area, students find this course difficult, as it requires a great effort to understand the embryonic development, spatial location, and function of many complex anatomical structures. This difficulty makes the study less pleasant and rather tiresome, hindering the learning process. Faced with this and considering that the students who are inserted in a context of active methodologies are the shaft that drives their own knowledge, more effective learning tools should be developed to help them become the active constructors of their own knowledge. In this context, since the appropriation of knowledge in this area is grounded in the visual nature of this science, the use of multimedia resources for embryology plays an important role and may assist in the teaching-learning process, stimulating the construction of knowledge and creativity, thus making the study of embryology more effective, instructive, and interesting. The current research aims to produce a color photographic atlas in digital format with subtitles on the embryonic development of cardiovascular, urinary, muscular and nervous systems utilizing sheets of bird embryos, and conduct an evaluation of its effectiveness and ability to facilitate the process of knowledge construction in the learning scenario based on problems. (AU)