Abstract:

Technologies are part of the daily lives of young people, especially those who were born in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the so-called "Generation Z", and it is imperative to reflect on what their needs are, how they learn, the role of technologies and the type of pedagogies to adopt.
After the generalized lockdown imposed by the Covid19 pandemic, millions of students and teachers faced new challenges as they progressively come back to their face-to-face school activities. Despite all the constraints caused by the pandemic, this is an opportunity to move towards an innovative and transformative educational model for the future, which must avoid sending us back to the negative aspects of past educational practices.
During the lockdown, with emergency remote teaching (ERT) being put into practice, the teachers involved in this study were faced with the need to adapt activities and didactic materials to be used remotely. This included the promotion of asynchronous tasks/activities, which could be developed autonomously by students.
Technologies have multiple benefits in the field of Education, such as improving student performance and motivation. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are tools that may be used to innovate the way Biochemistry is taught and they may facilitate students' learning. Being aware of these benefits, one of the authors of this work decided to adapt and introduce part of the activities and teaching materials prepared for the ERT, in the face-to-face teaching of her lecture classes after lockdown, more specifically with the use of videos for content development and using an active learning methodology, in which students use their mobile phone or personal laptop to do research and perform mini-assessment tests.
To understand how these changes were perceived by the students, a quantitative survey was conducted. The participants in the study are undergraduate students from a Portuguese higher education institution enrolled in the curricular units of Metabolic Biochemistry and Biochemistry I, from the 2nd year, 1st semester of Marine Biology and Biotechnology and Biotechnology degrees, respectively.
The didactic approach adopted by the teacher and the activities developed made the learning process more interesting and promoted a more positive attitude towards Biochemistry.

Keywords:

Digital technologies, ICTs, higher education, generation Z.