TEACHING AND LEARNING IN THE BASIC HEALTH SCIENCES

AN ACCOUNT OF A TEACHING TRAJECTORY

Abstract

Introduction: Basic Sciences are one of the pillars of health professions education; however, they have historically been characterized by pedagogical practices centered on content transmission and by high conceptual density, associated with high rates of course failure and delayed academic progression in the early stages of undergraduate training. At the same time, discussions concerning learning processes, adaptation to university life, and the development of study strategies have not always been present in faculty development. Objective: To reflect on a 17-year teaching trajectory in the Morphological Sciences within undergraduate health programs and to discuss how different theoretical frameworks contributed to broadening the understanding of learning and of pedagogical practices in higher education. Experience report: This paper presents a qualitative, reflective account of teaching experience in Histology and Embryology, taught in the first semesters of the Nursing, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, Speech-Language Pathology, and Nutrition programs. Engagement with frameworks from Educational Psychology, Learning Neuroscience, and Didactics fostered the incorporation of strategies aimed at making learning processes explicit, promoting self-regulated learning, using multiple forms of information recording and knowledge representation, developing structured teaching materials, and connecting basic science content to future professional practice. The analyses were developed from teaching experience and from the monitoring of students' perceptions, recorded in institutional evaluations and in spontaneous accounts over the years. Conclusion: The experience reported suggests that teaching in the Basic Health Sciences can be enriched by articulating scientific rigor with an understanding of the cognitive, emotional, motivational, and relational processes involved in learning. Expanding teachers' pedagogical repertoire may foster more meaningful, participatory, and humanized learning environments in higher education.