The use of an active learning approach to teach metabolism to students of nutrition and dietetics

Abstract

This article describes the transition from a traditional instructor-centered course, based on lectures, to a studentcentered course based on active learning methodologies as part of the reform of the Spanish higher education system within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Specifically, we describe the use of active learning methodologies to teach metabolism to students of nutrition and dietetics during the first year of their professional training in a 4-year undergraduate degree (Bachelor of Human Nutrition and Dietetics). In the new course design, the number of didactic lectures was largely reduced and complemented with a series of activities (problems/case studies, discussion workshops, self-assessment quizzes) aimed to get students actively engaged, to encourage self-learning, and to promote sustained work throughout the length of the course. The article presents quantitative data demonstrating a clear and significant improvement in students' performance when an active approach was implemented. Importantly, the improved performance was achieved without work overload. Finally, students' responses to this new teaching methodology have been very positive and overall satisfaction high. In summary, our results strongly argue in favor of the teaching model described herein. IntroductionIn 1999, thirty European countries engaged in a voluntary process to create the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) which was formalized in the Bologna Agreement [1]. The EHEA was meant to ensure more comparable, compatible and coherent systems of higher education in Europe. In addition to changes in structure of higher education systems, the Bologna Process called for a deep change in the approach to education, involving a shift from instructor-centered to student-centered learning [2], as exemplified by the adoption of a credit system (ECTS, European Credit Transfer System) based on stvudents' workload. In this context, the Bachelor of Human Nutrition and Dietetics at Universidad Aut onoma de Madrid (UAM) has evolved from a 3-year to a 4-year undergraduate degree (240 ECTS), and the contents of the former one-semester course of Biochemistry (course ID 14841) have been segregated into two different but related courses: General Biochemistry (course ID 18425) and Metabolism (course ID 18427) (Fig. 1).The former Biochemistry course was a classical instructor-centered course based on information delivery in face-toface and did not encourage student self-directed learning. The assessment of student learning was through three written tests that covered specific subsets of the curriculum and a final exam that covered the whole course content, and accounted for 75% of the final grade. Traditionally, performance in Biochemistry used to be very poor with, for example, 65% and 52% of students passing the 2008/09 and 2009/10 courses, respectively. Herein we describe the design of a new teaching methodology and the results obtained in the first two academic years after its implementation. Our data reveal improvement on stude...

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