New educational experiences. Student-centered education: an experience and its potential

Abstract

Introduction: The teaching of pharmacology has traditionally been characterized by the transmission of information where pedagogical strategies have focused on the teacher, privileging theoretical knowledge, master classes and memory tests. It is essential to introduce new elements to increase the student's active participation in the construction of knowledge and in the evaluation of the achievement of their competences; the development of creativity and teamwork. This methodology seeks to break the notion of traditional teaching, change the idea of an evaluation by the note to an evaluation with a motivation of its own (of the student), to internalize the knowledge and make it part of its structure of thought. Objective: Develop a teaching and evaluation strategy that allows students to actively participate. Materials and methods: 172 students participated in the subject of Pharmacology and Therapeutics "B", between March and September 2017. Four individual and complementary activities were developed related to the prescription of drugs, for the evaluation of the process and performance of the students Standardized rubrics were used, a perception survey was applied to the students about the usefulness of the strategy in their training. Results: The results show a good performance of the students in the prescription activities of medications, a significant improvement in the performance when comparing the results. The students consider that the strategy is useful for the development of their professional competences, it allows them to have an active role in the learning process and the evaluation methodology allows them to recognize the elements that they must reinforce in order to reach an optimal development of their competence.