The use of the “Endocrine Circuit” as an active learning methodology to aid in the understanding of the human endocrine system

The search for more efficient teaching methodologies is a great challenge for Brazilian educators, since most classes are still traditional (theoretical) and have little student involvement during the learning process. Active learning methodologies, where students play a central role in the learning process, are proving to be more effective and interesting when it comes to acquiring knowledge. Thus we decided to develop an innovative technique for teaching Human Endocrine Physiology, called “Endocrine Circuit.” The circuit consisted of eight stations in which students were asked to organize a scheme with cards to answer a specific question about a gland or tissue with endocrine relevance. The effectiveness of the developed activity was validated through a pretest-posttest design, in which the students had to answer a 10-question test. We found out that, after the Endocrine Circuit application, students showed an improvement in the percentage of correct answers for 7 out of 10 questions contained in the questionnaire ( P ≤ 0.05). In addition, the activity showed positive outcomes regarding student’s engagement in this study, besides showing to be more efficient than the Brazilian traditional theoretical classes.