Table 1 Central ideas present in responses to the feedback questionnaire and their respective representative comments

PPMs construction and the SIP helped students to learn.

“…it is not only the model, the final product, that teaches, but the whole process by which the students undergo till get to finish the complete model…”.

The strategy fostered the development of skills, such as teamwork.

“I underwent two symposiums. They extremely encourage creativity, allowing to explore the domain of the theoretical content, and proportion an improvement in the teamwork capacity”.

PPMs and the SIP resulted in secondary benefits, such as possible publications.

“…the presentation to the public, which shows itself extremely interesting, and for the secondary benefits, once with my two models I won an Academic Excellence Award and got a possible publication”.

Students liked presenting models in the SIP.

“It is a really challenging proposal, to create a model of practical class. The results are generally great and the day of the presentation is very interesting”.

PPMs and the SIP were a heavy workload during the semester

“…these symposiums became a heavy burden considering the tight timetables of our course, though the symposium is dynamic, interesting and very instructive”.

During the SIP, there was not enough time for all students to see the presentation of other groups.

“…I studied a lot and learned in an efficient way at least the issue I was presenting… I can’t say the same about the other presented works, because we had very little time to visit the other groups”.