Abstract

PANTOJA CASTRO, Julio César  and  COVARRUBIAS PAPAHIU, Patricia. Teaching Biology in high school with support of the problem-based learning strategies. Perfiles educativos [online]. 2013, vol.35, n.139, pp.93-109. ISSN 0185-2698.

Based on the constructivist foundations of education, the problem-based learning offers an excellent option to thwart the problems entailed by the traditional teaching of sciences. This research presents an implementation of the problem-based learning strategies that shows the importance of promoting thinking abilities that are necessary for the significant learning of Biology contents in high school. The authors worked with high school seniors of the Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades(UNAM, Mexico), and particularly in a situation-problem that required their analysis and solution based on the principles of natural selection, and the support of diverse didactic strategies. The authors made use of a quasi-experimental design with statistical and qualitative analysis of the gathered data. The results show that problem-based learning is a good pedagogical option to reach significant learning of the Biology contents or as a complementary teaching strategy that boosts more traditional teaching strategies.

Keywords : Problem-based learning; Teaching strategies; High school; Biology; Teaching of Biology; Natural selection.