Gamification as a teaching strategy of Unified Health System for medical students

Abstract

In front of the Covid-19 pandemic scenario, practical classes were replaced by alternative activities, remotely. The use of active methodologies, also in this context, is a reality that is are spreading and becoming increasingly used, opposing to the traditional teaching method. Those methodologies are based uppon student’s activism during the knowledge construction process, as well as the principle of student protagonism and the execution of an exclusively mediating role for the teacher. Within these active methodologies, there’s gamification which is based on relaxed and recreational activities as a process in which the student can acquire new knowledge. Through an experience report, this article aims to describe the use of gamification as teaching strategy about the Unified Health System for medical students, in the scenario bred by the Covid-19 pandemic.  It was carried out based on the experience of students in the fourth period of the Community Interaction discipline of the Medicine course at the Universidade Regional de Blumenau in the first semester of 2020. At the end of the experience, students were able to review some concepts and learn even more about the Brazilian public health system, in addition to learning about other ways of learning. Therefore, the article approaches the introduction of gamification, as also highlights the benefits of using student-centered methodologies in a university context mediated by technologies.