Abstract:

The university teachers use to base their teaching at class by complementing their explanations with several sources such as diagrams and images. They try to avoid slides full of text. However, these slides are not always self-explanatory. For this reason, it is the function of teacher to explain the content appropriately. Thus, the schemes included in the materials provided to students are sometimes difficult to understand without the help of the teacher. Moreover, virtual context also increases the low participation of students which do not ask for further explanations.

All these elements prompted the teaching team to start the project entitled SLIDE-4-U (“Slide-for-you”) funded by the University of Barcelona (2020PID-UB/023). The aim of this project was to involve the student into their own learning process and that of their peers through the explanation in class of the slides, specially designed for this purpose.

During the second semester of the course 20/21, this innovation was applied to the subject “Immunonutrition” from the “Nutrition and Metabolism” inter-university Master’s degree (URV-UB).

For that, the first day of class the students received all the information regarding the development of an online session, that would be focused on the specific topic “Probiotics and Immune system” two weeks later. The teacher prepared some slides containing single specific contents to be explained in the context of the class: an image, a scheme, a flow diagram, etc. The slides and the complementary explanations of the session were uploaded previously to the virtual campus of the subject. Each slide was then assigned to one student who had to interpret the slide and prepare a brief explanation to share with their classmates the day of the presentation.

During the presentation session, which involved up to 20 students, the teacher conducted the progress of the explanations by scheduling the students to explain each slide. Their explanations were complemented or corrected by the teacher, if necessary. This topic together with the rest of the contents of the subject was tested at the end of the classes at the final exam.

All the students gave their explanations very satisfactorily, referring to previous contents, introducing new concepts, suggesting discussion, and demonstrating the autonomous work done in the preparation of the slides. At the end of the presentation session, some minutes were reserved to inquire about the development of the class. The students’ feedback indicated that the peer teaching was a valid tool; they liked the innovation a lot, they found that the activity was interesting and easy to perform, and overall, they considered that the experience was very positive.

The teachers were also very enthusiastic with the class structure and the results obtained. In conclusion, the SLIDE-4-U intervention, also tested before on undergraduate students, seems a positive approach to involve the student in the learning process.

Keywords:

Peer-teaching, slide, class-construction.