SUMMARY

The main purpose of this paper was to analyse the influence of a Constructivist Didactic Strategy (CDS) on creativity and learning in Cellular Biology. A sample size of n=54 subjects was used. They were teacher students at the Libertador Experimental Pedagogical University (Barquisimeto city campus, Venezuela), both sexes. Intact group in the classroom was used in two phases: the first one was developed during 1997 with 29 students; while the second was conducted in 1998 with 25 subjects. A qualitative approach, as research method, was utilized focusing mainly on action research, looking for a critical and reflective conclusion. The emphasis of this research was on the study of the interactions between the CDS uses by the teacher and the students group working on creative activities as a learning tool. Data were collected mainly by participative observation, surveys, group discussions, pictures and videos. As a result the creativity improved with the students participation in many types of activities. They were able to create fairy tales, rap songs, folk songs, poems, dramatizations, conceptual maps, brain maps, marionettes shows, didactic plays and others. The students always related the scientific knowledge with every day life in a dynamic and humoristic manner. These activities helped to improve the Cellular Biology learning process in a very singular way. It is concluded that CDS seems to influence students’ creativity in the classroom and this result transfers to learning process.

 

KEYWORDS: Constructivist didactic strategy, creativity in the classroom, learning process.

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The present study is based in the search of a transformation in the procedures and pedagogic strategies of the traditional teaching of the Cellular Biology to arrive to others that improve the creativity and the learning of the students.

The traditional learning, in most of the opportunities, works like transfer process. At the present time, the professors and the students face a great challenge: to build original knowledge that is pertinent with the social environment.

This investigation allows to rehearse a strategy that optimises the global process of learning in the classroom and its relationship with the student's daily life, that which will propitiate the construction of original concepts that in combination with other learning theories, diminish the encyclopaedism of the programs and the repetition of contents, pointed out in the traditional teaching as problems that impede the change.

The traditional teaching has been analysed in the report presented by the Commission For the Project of the Educational Reformation in which are defined the main characteristics of all the educational problems of the country. Next, they only make an appointment some dilemmas very related with the present research, which can be summarized as it continues: (a) the educational and pedagogic praxis has been excessively schooling and encyclopaedic; the teaching processes and learning are excessively centred in the educator, for they transform it the hours of classes in routine and passive for the student; (b) the pedagogic practice is poor, repetitive, memoristic and it contributes to the deterioration of the quality of the education, it stimulates the school absenteeism and it discredits to the teacher; (c) this practice uses very little the recent technology to improve and to modernize the teaching; (d) the education is not pertinent, because it doesn't provide socially useful knowledge to understand, to act and to change the reality, to use that learned in the daily life; therefore, the student doesn't demonstrate enthusiasm for the school.

Porlán in another more recent study has detected problems in the development of the didactics of the sciences. In spite of the discoveries in the investigations of the didactics, the traditional and encyclopaedic focuses still prevail that exercise an enormous disparity among the real meanings of the students and the supposed learning that they should have acquired with the received teaching. They stand out the following deficiencies in the teaching of the sciences: (a) the evaluation is conceived as a selective activity and penalizing that it usually centres in the quantification of learning memorized mechanically by the students; (b) the students are considered as passive receivers of information, as if they didn't have experiences and own meanings regarding the natural phenomenon; (c) the contents are separated from the didactic methodology and of the evaluation, as if these didn't present interdependence relationships; and (d) it has not been possible to extend with effectiveness and efficiency the constructivist pattern of teaching of the sciences.

Therefore, significant changes should be propitiated that allow combining the traditional teaching, for another in which the knowledge is built. To design strategies and didactic models that facilitate the learning for discovery that it allow to carry out innovative and creative activities that could stimulates the reasoning, the understanding and application of contents, and plan the contact with multiple ways of information and technology, that which develops in the students the power of building their own ability to face and to understand in a more scientific way the daily world. This way of seeing the learning is the one that proposes the constructivism, for such a reason the necessity arises of investigating the adaptation of the constructivist focus in the teaching of the Cellular Biology.

Epistemological Base of the Constructivism

It is important to clarify that the constructivism is not the miracle that all the educational institutes and schools wait, to cure all the wrongs of the education. Lucio says that not for fashion or news of last hour that runs for the study centres the average constructivist it should be assumed like magic; or as if it was the secret formula that will finally solve all the problems of the classroom. According to him, until the moments, the constructivism is a philosophical current that offers many pedagogic, quite interesting alternatives that it is worthwhile to practice in the classroom, with the purpose of sustaining the search of a cash learning process and production of necessary knowledge; according to the national and regional demands of the country.

Some epistemological premises of the constructivism are the following: (a) the knowledge is not transmitted, it is built; (b) the knowledge pre-existent, impacts the learning process, to the modified being or corrected, to produce new knowledge; (c) the understanding is strengthened when it is innovated, since it is touching to discover and to create, therefore it is increased the attention and the mental concentration; (d) to build useful knowledge; it is required of arduous work and continuous effort. Have to revise and to correct, the built knowledge.

Neurobiological and Cognitive Bases

Quartz and Sejnowski argue that the brain is an organ representational in constant activity that recognizes neural codes or representations that come from the information of the means, which are transformed by mental operations.

The neural constructivism explains the mental development as a progressive increment in complex representations, which is measured in the cellular environment, for the representational changes of the structures of the cerebral neurons that intervene in the learning process. In accordance with this authors, the constructive learning increases according to the increment and the complexity of the connections, of the following structures: (a) synaptic numbers; (b) dendritic arborisation; (c) axonal arborisation.

Axons and dendrites arborisation is the increment of the ramifications in these structures when the learning process is operated. Also, the constructivist learning operates on the individual dendrites that present a progressive expansion, just as elasticity or flexibility, and don't have more than enough the complete cell. In turn they happen, in the dendrites, events of geometric designs that form kind of a map representational of the cortex. This map organizes the cortex in a principle of mental architecture. In other words; as the knowledge is built, the learning increases; and they increase, in turn, the dendrites and the synapses in the cortex. It is a direct and proportional relationship. For this reason students learn with the whole brain.

Relationship among the Construction of the Knowledge and the Processes of Thought

In accordance with Sánchez all mental process is formed by four components, which are: (a) the structural one that determines the mental operations and its nexuses; (b) the functional one that is related with the operators that act on the content to generate the product; (c) the conceptual one, has to do with the elaboration of the mental construct and (d) the operational one that specifies the steps required to apply the thought operations that integrate the process.

On the other hand, according to the premise that affirms, the abilities of the thought of a person can be developed by means of teaching procedures and learning, then, through the application of didactic strategies based on the constructivists principles it can be developed the four defined thought component to activate the abilities of the mind of the students that participate in the activities. Therefore, a very narrow relationship exists between thought processes and the construction of the knowledge in the sense that they are carried out all the components of the process. Consequently, it can be concluded the following:

Most important aspects on a Transmittionist Didactic Strategy. Traditional Classroom

(a) Most of the time there is an oral-expositive teacher participation; (b) exact repetition of the subject contents; (c) fear and anguish in the test of question time; (d) the neuronal structural changes are not significative; (e) thinking processes develop only in a superficial and on a structural cognitive level; (f) most of the time only audition and vision are stimulated; (g) short time memory that lasts until students write a test.

Most important aspects on a Constructivist Didactic Strategy. Happy Classroom

(a) Academic knowledge is related to every day life and approached with creativity and innovative activities; (b) evaluations are negotiated; (c) students have active participation in the construction of knowledge; (d) the central point is to elaborate original concepts, in an enjoyable and enthusiastic way; (e) the neuronal structure changes are very significative, because of increased dendritic ramification and the amount of synapses; (f) thinking processes develop at a deep cognitive level: structural, functional, conceptual and operational; (g) all the senses are stimulated plus imagination and global creativity, and (h) long time memory.
 

Nature of the Investigation

The present study is of qualitative order-, framed inside the action research focus, supported by the critical and reflexive theory of the education

Methods

The events of the autoreflective spiral of Carr and Kemmis have been combined, with some of the steps of Elliott, adapted to the dynamics of the investigation. The hairspring was adjusted to follow successive cycles of diagnosis, planning, observation-action, reflection and re-planning. Data was recollected mainly by: pictures, annotation, participated observations, audio recordings and videos.

Scenario of the Investigation

The scenario of the present investigation corresponds to all the classroom activities, of two groups of Biology teacher students, of the Cellular Biology course. The investigation has been carried out in two serial semesters, the first period corresponding to the lapse I-97 and the second, corresponding to the lapse I-98. Both periods have been determined as experience of the group 97 (E-97) and experience of the group 98 (E-98). The group E-97, it is constituted by 29 students and the group E-98, for 25, therefore the sample corresponds 54 fellows.

Constructivist Didactic Strategy

The CDS is dynamic and recurrent, because it can begin with anyone of its stages, you can execute completely or a part of it. The mediator takes charge of giving the instructions for relaxation activities and to propitiate a favourable psicoafective environment for the execution of the techniques, as well as the mediator is the expert in the matter and the one in charge of the evaluations. The following outline presents a model that integrates the CDS: (a) previous knowledge; (b) creativity in the classroom; (c) confrontation and construction of new concepts and (d) cyclical and negotiated evaluation.

 

RESULTS

Diagnosis

In accordance with the revision of the interviews and participative conversations carried out by the researcher one can deduce that the strategies used in the previous course, year 1996, in its majority was oral expositive, type masterful class. This result confirms the position presented previously, with regard to the necessity of contrasting the constructivist methodology versus the traditional transmittionist methodology. With this fact the urgency is evidenced of combining the didactic strategies in Cellular Biology, with other strategies of the students' bigger participation in the classroom activities.

It is necessary to clarify that the oral expositive methodology also has its advantages and the intention of the present work, it is not to discard it completely, but combining it with other activities outlined in the CDS that improve the creativity and the learning of the students.

It is of standing out then that, the CDS proposes activities to be executed by the students in all the classroom encounters and emphasis is made in relating the whole time the contents with the daily life and the labour reality of the future Biology teachers.

Creativity

The CDS planned work presently, transformed each classroom activity in an original, innovative experience, dynamics, only and amusing. In the operative plan of the groups E-97 and E-98, such activities were planned as: creativity in the classroom. The results can be summarized like it continues:

After the relaxation and discussed being the previous knowledge, the students, prepared the activities to present, which are revised previously on the part of the mediator of the subject. Teams present the activities; they are always accompanied with music, a lot of enthusiasm and originality. There have been recorded some activities that the students have taken place to present the instructional contents of a non memoristical way, amusing and related with the daily chore, as for example: dramatizations, stories, rap and folk songs, verses, news, brain maps, cooking recipes, directed didactic games, fairy tales, among others. In order to help learning the student were stimulated to do a research project and a briefcase of up to date article

It is of standing out that the activities presented in the classroom can be excellent, good and regular, some teams take effort in presenting authentic, original activities, with infinities of ideas, categories and with a lot of art, while other teams only conform to, sometimes, to present faulty activities, without much colourful, not very dynamic, being a hole that has to fill the mediator. As well as most of the teams take pains to integrate the knowledge of several means of information, of to investigate to depth the content and to place the biggest quantity in specific terminology of the subject, making an effective combination between the daily language and the scientist. However, the teams that present faulty activities are provided another opportunity to improve the activity with investigation and consultant ships, as well as this outlined in the recurrent evaluation.

Learning

As it was studied in the previous section, the processes and learning mechanisms should be developed through multiple and varied activities, which mobilize different levels of mental organizations. The learning is developed with a concept change that happens when the previous knowledge enters in conflict with the new knowledge that the student discovers. For such an end, the CDS develops several classroom activities, so that the students are able to elaborate a new concept. One of these activities is to diagnose the previous knowledge that then is confronted, in the discussions of the creative classroom, with the scientific knowledge that the students and the mediator bring to the classroom. Or, the mediator allows the student to confront the developed previous knowledge, with the new concept built later on by him in the assays. This metacognitive technique, offers the student a road of understanding its own learning and the state of its evolution.

At the same time, the activities developed with the CDS, indicate to relate the content with the daily necessities and of the field of the students' work, which it presents the utility from the contents to the students, in the sense that, for example, to investigate, to discuss and to present a certain content from a didactic way to the same time that the knowledge is studied, it provides the student a tool for its future labour, because the students notice the utility of the content and as presenting it in form of didactic strategy, this allows a significant learning. Understanding each other as significant learning, the development of new meanings related with situations of the student's daily life, so that the scientific knowledge is shown pertinent and useful, because it is good to explain phenomenon of the student's immediate reality and its environment goes beyond the academic.

Evaluation

The evaluations inside the mark of strategies constructivists, they should be productive, negotiated and not arbitrary, so that their function of stimulants of the creativity and manufacturers of knowledge complete. It was needed to devise instruments that will qualify the creativity keeping in mind their indicators (originality, fluency and flexibility), the quality of the new concepts, the terminology, the inventions, the domain of contents, the quality of the explanations that the students provide, the learning processes that are carried out in the classroom activities, among others.

The thought processes to which the student reflects to achieve the learning are more excellent than the results, especially if they make sure cognitive processes defined and effective, motivational, with emotional loads of happiness and enthusiasm, the result will be improved.

To begin with the evaluations, before any activity, a type of diagnostic test, oral or written, was applied to explore the previous knowledge. These results were compared with the tests or formal rehearsals that were applied after the class. The students could integrate this way the previous concepts, with the scientists and the new ones, with the purpose of to build the knowledge peculiar of each student and to notice of their own evolution, what allowed them a metacognitive analysis of their own knowledge.

In that same sense, a type of test denominated assay was applied, in which the students synthesize a new concept of the content; original and different to all, with base in that studied, in the investigations, the professor's explanations and the presentations of their partners in the creative classroom. This test also contains resolution of problems of the daily life and the labour field of the students. At the same time it was presented several problems of reflexive and imaginative type, where the students should execute thought processes with a deep cognitive levels. Some questions are related with the studied scientific articles.

This type of questions or problems solving, they are completely different to the traditional ones; they don't induce memorized answers neither repeated. It is evident that the knowledge in a creative, imaginative and original way was used, in which all the answers can have excellence degrees and quality, as for procedures, terminology, originality, depth, complexity of the content and construction of new concepts. Processes that improve the learning of the students notably.

 

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

 

Derived of the discussion outlined previously, of the proposed objectives, of the results of the present study and to continue with the autorreflective spiral, it can be defined several epistemologies premises (P) like an intent of the reflections that it will be able to be improved later on in other investigations settling down:

P1:

• The CDS is related with the creativity and the significant learning in Cellular Biology, in the sense that, when being developed activities to stimulate the creativity, it is connected the students with cognitive processes and of thought that it improve the learning of the contents of the subject. However, the students can learn directly without carrying out creative activities, as the case of the discovery of knowledge when they have contact with the means of information. Next a model is presented that tries to explain the relationship among the CDS, the creativity and the learning.

P2:

• The CDS, in combination with investigation projects and resolution of problems of the daily life of the students, it improves the significant learning, since he/she is given utility and justification to the information and the contents that are employees inside the classroom. One can affirm then that, to use the academic knowledge in the daily life offers immediate meaning to this knowledge and this is integrated in the cognitive structure of the brain, being as memory of long duration, which will be used in an immediate future labour.

P3:

• The recurrent evaluation proposed by the EDC, allows the student to compare the previous knowledge with the new concepts built by themselves and with the concepts of other sources of knowledge, it facilitates that the students perceive the knowledge level in which are, as for errors and successes, as well as it provides them auto correction roads. It allows in turn identifying each student's metacognitive state, because when discussing in team the answers of the performance, they can notice of the knowledge that they have, the one that need and the relationship of that knowledge with the means that surrounds them. At the same time, to build new knowledge improvement the significant learning and the creativity.

P4:

• The most evident transformation that should be provided to the teaching of the Cellular Biology is to combine the CDS with traditional didactic strategies and others that appear in the literature, to allow bigger participation to the student in the construction of its own knowledge and adult stimulate to develop its creative capacity, at the same time that develops the cognitive processes and of thought, this contributes to improve the quality and excellence of the educational future of Biology teachers.