Internationally, there has been increasing emphasis on the teaching of the academic literacies, particularly reading and writing, in higher education institutions. However, recent research is highlighting the need for more explicit teaching of multimodal forms of communication, such as the visual literacies, in undergraduate courses in a wide…

National guidelines such as the "Standards for the 21st Century Learner" (American Association of School Librarians, 2007) and the "Common Core State Standards" (Common Core State Standards, 2010) recognize the importance of using a wide range of informational texts, including comic books and graphic novels to teach content, in…

This study explores what students understand about enzyme-substrate interactions, using multiple representations of the phenomenon. In this paper we describe our use of the 3 Phase-Single Interview Technique with multiple representations to generate cognitive dissonance within students in order to uncover misconceptions of enzyme-substrate…

Biochemistry instructors are inundated with various representations from which to choose to depict biochemical phenomena. Because of the immense amount of visual know-how needed to be an expert biochemist in the 21st century, there have been calls for instructors to develop biochemistry students' visual literacy. However, visual literacy has…

This case study presents a cocurricular initiative at the Margery Somers Foster Center at Rutgers University Libraries in New Brunswick, NJ. The initiative resulted in an interview workshop for the course Knowledge and Power, a "mission course" of the Douglass Residential College. This discussion-based workshop uses visual and multimedia…

Multimodal learning materials are frequently met in education assuming enhanced learning outcomes. This study examined whether contrasts in such materials are likely to support reading comprehension for all readers. Young adults (n = 46) met either text-only or text+picture material. Participants (19 with low phonological awareness [PA] and 27…

The ability to interpret information from any source, and increasingly visual sources, is a vital skill for all graduates in contemporary culture. The development of the skills to read visual texts and communicate that understanding requires a certain level of critical thinking and reflection, skills which can only be developed over time, through…