The educational process must be dynamic, with constant updating of course programmatic content, in order to adapt it to students' expectations. The objective of this article is to present a method that has been applied in two discussion classes of the Soil Fertility course offered in the Agronomy and Forestry undergraduate programs at ESALQ/USP. The group study method was used in order to discuss the results of an experiment carried out in greenhouse at the Soil Science Department, to evaluate the dry matter production of plant tops of corn cultivated for 35 days in samples of fifteen soils collected from a 0 to 20 cm layer in the region of Piracicaba, SP. As a basis for discussion, a list of questions was prepared, to be answered by each group of students in the first class. In the second class the discussion included all groups. During the discussion the teacher observed the students' behavior, correcting the reasoning of several and occasionally providing general information. By the end of class, some concepts were obtained indirectly. The majority of students approved the method for the reason that they felt they were active agents in the learning process. This model has been successfully applied in the Soil Fertility discussion classes for the last three years. This approach is recommended for teaching other subjects in Soil Fertility and also for other courses in the agronomy program.
education; didactic