Abstract:

Introduction:
Evidence suggests that cooperative learning and peer-assessment fosters students’ ability to work with others and may lead to better cognitive outcomes and higher achievement. The course of Microbiology in the Faculty of Dental Medicine of University of Porto has been incorporating several innovative initiatives that promote dental students’ active participation in the learning/teaching process. This work describes a peer-review video-based Microbiology learning activity and presents some preliminary results regarding its implementation and students motivation.

Methods:
Students were asked to make short films (3min) regarding a given set of Microbiology relevant themes. Each of the proposed videos was subjected to peer-review and teacher classification using the following criteria: knowledge transmission; scientific accuracy; creativity and originality. Additionally, a survey was performed for assessing student’s motivation regarding the experience.

Results:
All videos were made available publicly through web-based video sharing engine. It was observed a high motivation ratio among all students in several motivation classifiers collected with the survey. Also, the students recognized that this teaching strategy was efficient for their learning process. Most of the students felt that, in some way, the video construction process crossed with their interests and hobbies.

Conclusion:
The video-based Microbiology teaching activity seems to be closer to students’ interest and to easily trigger their motivation for the learning process.

Keywords:

Microbiology, video, peer-review, teaching methodolgy.