THE TOY AS ANATOMY TEACHING AND LEARNING TOOL

Playing is a rich, complex human experience that in the process of teaching and learning anatomy promotes meaningful learning. Among these activities in anatomical teaching we use the dolls and dolls as a playful tool for students of medicine and pharmacy courses. Nowadays the task of teaching is a big challenge, especially when we compete with the problems of using the telephone in the classroom. In this way we elaborate an active and playful method as a tool for learning the muscular system in the teaching of anatomy. Based on these premises the objective of this work was to investigate if the use of toys (dolls) as a tool in the process of teaching and learning the anatomy of the muscular system promotes learning. An analytical and cross ‐ sectional study was carried out with 74 pupils who used dolls and pins to identify muscles. Then, based on atlas images of human anatomy, the students performed 100 anatomical structure markings with pins with the purpose of identifying the muscles and their action, developing the spatial notions of the muscles that make up the human body. To collect data, a semi‐structured questionnaire on the perception of learning was applied. For statistical analysis, the Mann Whitney test was considered significant when presented at p <0.05. The mean age of the interviewees was 19.34 ± 0.53 for males and 19.22 ± 0.2 for females. A statistically significant difference was observed in pupils' perception of learning before (5.60 ± 0.31) and after (8.08 ± 0.2) the use of toys as an anatomy learning tool. Regarding the preference for traditional teaching and play teaching no statistically significant difference was observed, most of the students reported that they prefer hybrid teaching with a mixture of active and traditional methodology. However, we observed a reasoning and correctness of the muscles in the students who performed the activity of markings with the muscular system. It was verified that the toy was demonstrated as a methodology with great acceptability, promoting significant and playful learning of the muscular system among the students for the study and learning of the human anatomy. Support or Funding Information CNPQ This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .