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Building tools to assess and teach visual literacy in biotechnology
Building tools to assess and teach visual literacy in biotechnology
In this NSF-funded project, we will develop, validate, and disseminate a Visual Literacy Toolkit to strengthen undergraduate students' interpretation and understanding of visual representations commonly used in biotechnology and molecular biology.
The project will identify common visual literacy challenges in biotechnology and molecular biology, develop a reliable assessment tool, and create instructional materials that directly address documented student learning needs.
What is visual literacy?
What is visual literacy?
Visual literacy is the set of context-specific knowledge and skills used to interpret and create visual representations. For example, you would use visual literacy to interpret this abstract set of circles as a representation of a recombinant plasmid.
Visual literacy is necessary for learning molecular biology and biotechnology, where visual models represent the subject matter that is too small to be seen.
A student-made drawing of DNA collected during our research interviews.
Expanding on our prior visual literacy research
Expanding on our prior visual literacy research
We previously found that students may need additional instructional supports for interpreting visual representations of DNA, genes, and chromosomes.
Uminski, Newman & Wright (2025) Probing visual literacy skills reveals unexpected student conceptions of chromosomes. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.24-07-0176
Uminski, Wright & Newman (2025). Sketchy understandings: Drawings reveal where students may need additional support to understand scale and abstraction in common representations of DNA. https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.00070-25
Uminski, Newman & Wright (2025). The illusion of clarity in familiar genetics diagrams. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2025.10.010
The Visual Literacy Toolkit will help provide those instructional supports with ready-to-use lessons, activities, and instructional materials designed to teach and reinforce visual literacy skills in molecular biology and biotechnology.
Get in contact!
Get in contact!
Kate Wright - lkwsbi@rit.edu
Dina Newman - dina.newman@rit.edu
Crystal Uminski - crystaluminski@towson.edu
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