Teaching energy metabolism using scientific articles: Implementation of a virtual learning environment for medical...

This work describes the use of a virtual learning environment (VLE) applied to the biochemistry class for undergraduate, first-year medical students at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The course focused on the integration of energy metabolism, exploring metabolic adaptations in different physiological or pathological states such as starvation, diabetes, and exercise. The VLE was designed to combine online activities with traditional course content and presented guided inquiry-based activities to assist in the use of original scientific articles as educational resources. Based on the analysis of a semi-open questionnaire, the results provided evidence that the VLE encouraged students' engagement in activities and improved feedback. The results also suggested that guided inquiry-based activities were an effective way to stimulate students to critically read relevant scientific articles and to acquire skills to build and contextualize their knowledge through content association. In addition, most of the students involved in this experience considered the use of these resources important to become familiar with scientific language and to learn how to obtain up-to-date scientific information during their professional life.