Undergraduate education at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) has mainly emphasized passive learning, with lecturers acting as central players, despiste a large body of evidence supporting that active and student-centered approaches are more effective for deeper learning and student engagement.

This pilot study focuses on implementing Active Learning (AL) in a Genetics course for the Biology Bachelor's degree program at the Facultad de Ciencias, UNAM. The course addresses complex topics such as eukaryotic gene regulation (EGR). Teaching EGR is challenging, but AL offers tools to enhance comprehension and application of these concepts.

The objective of the AL activity was to enable students to understand the levels of EGR and to identify and develop a model of the regulation involved in sex-determination pathway of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.

Three activities were designed to achieve these goals:
(1) a Kahoot quiz to assess baseline knowledge;
(2) an interactive activity to explore the levels of gene regulation; and
(3) a group exercise to analyze the sex-determination pathway and develop a model explaining the activation and inhibition of the transformer gene.

The results demonstrated the potential of AL in enhancing foundational knowledge and the ability to apply complex concepts. While the first activity revealed gaps in students' basic understanding of transcription and translation, 72% of students showed significant improvement between the second and third activities. However, challenges were noted among teams with lower performance in the third activity, particularly in creating the gene regulation model, highlighting the need for further instructional support.

This study underscores the effectiveness of AL in reinforcing classroom instruction, promoting active engagement, and fostering the generation of new knowledge. The success of this approach provides a valuable framework for improving genetics education at UNAM, especially in teaching the transformer gene regulation within the sex-determination pathway.

Keywords: Active Learning Experience, Eukaryotic Gene Regulation, Genetics, Teaching.