While molecular visualization has been recognized as a threshold concept in biology education, the explicit assessment of students' visual literacy skills is rare. To facilitate the evaluation of this fundamental ability, a series of NSF-IUSE-sponsored workshops brought together a community of faculty engaged in creating instruments to assess…

Learning often improves when active learning techniques are used in place of traditional lectures. For many of these techniques, however, students are expected to apply concepts that they have already grasped. A challenge, therefore, is how to incorporate active learning into the classroom of courses with heavy content, such as molecular-based…

Visualization is an essential skill for all students and biochemists studying and researching the molecular and cellular biosciences. In this study, we discuss the nature and importance of visualization in biochemistry education and argue that students should be explicitly taught visual literacy and the skills for using visualization tools as…