The teachers of the Section of Physiology of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences are developing the project funded by the Universitat de Barcelona “Physioactive: active and collaborative learning in Physiology and Pathophysiology” (DIGAPREN 2023DIG-UB/007) for the subjects Physiology and Pathophysiology I, II, and III in the Pharmacy degree program. The Physiology and Pathophysiology III subject includes the respiratory, urinary, endocrine, and reproductive systems, as well as thermoregulation. In this subject, the students attend face-to-face classes, seminars that include clinical cases, and practical sessions at the laboratory about the different organic systems. With the support of the Physioactive project, a practical session on biological rhythms has been designed in the Hybrid Active Learning Classroom (HALC), where students can work collaboratively. For the 2024-2025 academic year, 36 sessions have been organized to accommodate the 358 enrolled students.

The session began with an ad hoc video that introduces the existence and characteristics of biological rhythms. With the guidance of the teacher, students answered several questions on the topic. In a second part of the session, the teacher explained to the students the cosinor method, which is useful for determining the significance of the biological rhythms. Subsequently, students were distributed into groups of 2-4 members, and each group studied a specific biological rhythm using a dossier that includes questions to solve with the adequate bibliography. During the 2024-2025 course, the biological rhythms studied included body temperature, and the secretion of hormones such as aldosterone, cortisol, and luteotropin. Each group of students worked on its assigned topic and prepared an oral presentation, which was shared with the rest of the groups. The strategy followed the jigsaw methodology, which promotes collaborative learning by ensuring that each group not only understands and masters its topic but also explains it to their peers. Sessions concluded with a collective activity gathering all groups, fostering discussion and allowing the teacher to assess the knowledge acquired during the session. Additionally, the learning assessment from this session was included in the practical evaluation performed after all the practical sessions.

In the evaluation, the students obtained a score of 7.52 ± 2.87 (mean ± SD, n=337) out of 10 in the questions about the application of the cosinor method, and of 7.18 ± 2.82 in the questions about the several biological rhythms. Respect to the total score including all the practical sessions, they achieved a score of 8.37 ± 1.02. It has to be considered that the evaluation of the new practical session included the contents from all the biological rhythms studied.

On the day of the final exam, the students were asked about the use of classrooms like the HALC to plan learning activities and a 77.5 % considered it favorably. The integration of the biological rhythms’ session, designed with a jigsaw methodology, has enabled students to deepen their understanding of physiological and pathophysiological processes while enhancing their teamwork and communication skills. The high level of satisfaction with the use of innovative learning spaces reinforces the value of integrating active methodologies into Physiology education.

Keywords: Teaching methodologies, practical sessions, survey, collaborative learning.