Bridging the educational research‐teaching practice gap

Abstract

External representations (ERs), such as diagrams, animations, and dynamic models are vital tools for communicating and constructing knowledge in biochemistry. To build a meaningful understanding of structure, function, and process, it is essential that students become visually literate by mastering key cognitive skills that are essential for interpreting and visualizing ERs. In this article, first we describe a model of seven factors influencing students' ability to learn from ERs. Second, we use this model and relevant literature to identify eight cognitive skills central to visual literacy in biochemistry. Third, we present simple examples of tasks as a foundation for designing more sophisticated and complex items for assessing and developing students' visual literacy. We conclude that visual literacy is fundamental to the development of sound conceptual understanding and it is crucial to develop visual skills in parallel with meaningful learning outcomes in all biochemistry curricula.

Assessment of students' external representations of mmCIF entries and their biochemical knowledge

“…A few studies have addressed peptide bonds. Although students were not assessed, two authors suggest that instructors do not specifically explain external representations. They proposed a series of three questions in regards to a three‐dimensional image of two peptides represented as a ball and stick model: 1) What do the balls and sticks represent?…”

“…Graphics are used to convert raw data into visual images or external representations . External representations include categories such as physical and molecular models, pictures, graphs, and static, dynamic, and animated visuals . The external representations used by students in bioinformatics included the following: physical models and computer‐generated images to demonstrate amino acid structure and connectivity; figures and graphs from primary literature, amino acid alignments from BLAST to determine homology; dynamic models as they manipulated their protein in ICM‐Pro; and animated visuals as their drug was docked into the active site of their protein. …”

Identification of Threshold Concepts for Biochemistry

“…However, for the purposes of this project, the developing consensus is that it will be more powerful to weave the teaching of visual literacy into as many activities as possible. The literature on visualization in biochemistry will be considered in production of any teaching materials (Schönborn and Anderson, 2006, 2009, 2010; Towns et al. , 2012).…”

The theoretical cognitive process of visualization for science education

“…Visual models such as diagrams and animations are then used to represent these phenomena at a larger scale so as to assist students with construction of content knowledge (Dori and Barak 2001). However, Schönborn and Anderson (2010) argue that students and teachers need to develop visualization skills in order to work effectively with visual models. There is however a dearth of research regarding the nature of visualizations skills and visual literacy for science education.…”

“…To this end, Schönborn and Anderson (2009) present factors that affect students’ ability to interpret visual models in biochemistry. They further present cognitive skills that encompass visual literacy in biochemistry (Schönborn and Anderson 2010). However there remains a gap in literature regarding the nature of visual literacy based on the cognitive process of visualization (Mnguni 2007).…”