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Immersive and Collaborative learning: An educational resource for mathematical training in medicine

Abstract:

Advances in molecular biology and medicine are generating new technologies and opportunities, where mathematics is a science that has a fundamental role, especially to enhance and contribute to human health through research. This science helps to develop different future scenarios; such as an epidemic, dissemination of a virus, clinical analysis, diagnostic tests, pharmacokinetics, among others, demonstrating that health science professionals are constantly using and interpreting mathematical data collected. However, the teaching of this science has been limited to passive learning, where the student is only a recipient of information, generating low academic performance and increased student dropout. Based on this, an immersive and collaborative learning methodology is proposed for the teaching of mathematics in students of the first medical year at the Universidad Tecnica Particular de Loja. The methodology involves distributing students into two experimental and control groups. The first group contains 48 students and the control group 72 students. The experimental group used clinical cases, mathematical models, TIC's and augmented reality applications to provide solutions to medical issues. The other group learned mathematics in a traditional way. As a result, teachers perceive a more active participation (>50%) by the experimental group based on their academic averages and the results of the survey; the latter results indicated that a medium-high average feels motivated to learn mathematics and to know its applicability in bioscience.