Desenvolvimento e aplicação de um jogo eletrônico como estratégia facilitadora de aprendizagem dos conteúdos de genética molecular

Abstract

Biology teaching involves abstract content that is difficult to understand, which often leads to frustration and lack of interest, making the learning process even more difficult. It is a fact that the use of playful didactic tools, more closely related to the student's reality and which make the student the protagonist of the learning process, is an important factor in better understanding and grasping the content. The aim of this study was therefore to provide third-year high school students at the Joaquim de Macedo State School, Barra do Piraí, RJ, with a different methodology for teaching genetics, promoting discussion of the content using the creation of a game as a didactic tool. In order to allow the student to be the protagonist of their learning, a different pedagogical practice was sought for the teaching of this content, proposing the joint construction of a digital game for the teacher/students to understand the concept of heredity. This work was carried out in four stages: probing; designing/producing the game; running the game and analyzing the results. We used a qualitative approach to the results through the use of questionnaires, observation and a literature review. The results of the pre-test revealed that students use the internet mainly to access social networks (76%) or play games (68%), while only 23% use it for research. We also found that the students have various difficulties in assimilating the genetics content, with the greatest conceptual difficulty being related to the concepts of mutation (88% of errors), gene (86%) and genetic crossbreeding (83%). In this context, we organized the production and execution of five digital games with the effective participation of the students. In the final stage, the results were analyzed with an activity evaluation questionnaire answered by the students, revealing a significant improvement in the percentage of correct answers, which reached levels above 50% in 9 of the 10 questions proposed. We therefore believe that the application of the games has helped to strengthen teaching practice, enabling students to participate in a more committed way in the construction of their knowledge and could also be used by other biology teachers. The evaluation of the strategy of developing games as aids in teaching genetics concepts by other teachers (n = 51) revealed that 92% of the teachers interviewed consider that the proposal to develop educational games can act as a teaching-learning facilitator and 88% of the respondents said they would use the tool. However, 88% pointed to the lack of internet and 63% to the lack of time to develop the activities as obstacles to implementing this type of strategy. We believe that the use of this approach proved to be effective in helping the teaching-learning process, having revealed the enthusiasm, satisfaction and dedication of the students during the development stages of the games, with a significant improvement in their understanding of genetics concepts.