Abstract
Scientific visualization is a particular type of information representation that involves the use of static and dynamic visual and graphical media. To develop fluency with scientific visualization, one needs to develop the ability to interpret, analyze, and construct meaning from appropriate visual representations. Results from the cognitive sciences and discipline-based education research indicate that visual images help us learn and reason. We present vignettes from a variety of higher education perspectives in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines that illustrate the use of scientific visualizations in different settings. In particular, the cases illustrate how faculty recognized that a lack of media literacy was impairing student success and then responded by embedding the teaching of those skills into course content. In this chapter, we move from basic interpretation of x–y line graphs in mathematics, physics, and chemistry courses to learning biology from animated simulations and student-generated digital videos to explain neuroscience concepts. Practitioners reading this chapter will gain instructional insight into the challenges students encounter when learning and strategies that faculty can employ to overcome those challenges.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
American Chemical Society (ACS). (1930). Visual aids in chemical education. Journal of Chemical Education, 7(4), 828–833.
Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco: Wiley.
Beck, C. W., & Blumer, L. S. (2012). Inquiry-based ecology laboratory courses improve student confidence and scientific reasoning skills. Ecosphere, 3(12), art112.
Beichner, R. J. (1994). Testing student interpretation of kinematics graphs. American Journal of Physics, 62(8), 750–762.
Beichner R. (2008). The SCALE-UP project: A student-centered active learning environment for undergraduate programs. Evidence on promising practices in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education workshop 2. Symposium convened by the Board on Science Education, Washington, D.C.
Brainfacts.org.(n. d.)http://www.brainfacts.org/. Accessed (2014 December 15)
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.) (2000). How people learn. Washington DC: The National Academies Press.
Brown, P. C., & Roediger, H. L. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge: Belknap.
Brownell, S. E., & Tanner, K. D. (2012). Barriers to faculty pedagogical change: Lack of training, time, incentives, and tensions with professional identity? CBE Life Sciences Education, 11(4), 339–346.
Carlson, M., Jacobs, S., Coe, E., Larsen, S., & Hsu, E. (2002). Applying covariational reasoning while modeling dynamic events: A framework and a study. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 33(5), 352–378.
Chaudhury, S. R. (2005). Learning science through visualizations. Announcer, American Association of Physics Teachers, 34(4), 77.
Davis, E. R. (1929). More about problems and graphs. Journal of Chemical Education, 6(5), 943.
DeMeo, S. (2005). Mass relationships in a chemical reaction: Incorporating additional graphing exercises into the introductory chemistry laboratory. Journal of Chemical Education, 82(8), 1219.
Duke, N. K., Bennett-Armistead, V. S., & Roberts, E. M. (2003). Bridging the gap between learning to read and reading to learn. In D. Barone & L. M. Morrow (Eds.), Literacy and young children: Research-based practices, (pp. 226–242). New York: Guilford.
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U S A, 111(23), 8410–8415.
Fulton, K. (2012). Upside down and inside out: Flip your classroom to improve student learning. Learning & Leading with Technology, 39(8), 12–17.
Gillis, R. V., & MacDougall, G. (2007). Reading to learn science as an active process. The Science Teacher, 74(5), 45–50.
Gormally, C., Brickman, P., & Lutz, M. (2012). Developing a test of scientific literacy skills (TOSLS): Measuring undergraduates’ evaluation of scientific information and arguments. CBE Life Sciences Education, 11(4), 364–377.
Graham, M. J., Frederick, J., Byars-Winston, A., Hunter, A. B., & Handelsman, J. (2013). Increasing persistence of college students in STEM. Science, 341(6153), 1455–1456.
Greene, H., & Crespi, C. (2012). The value of student created videos in the college classroom—An exploratory study in marketing and accounting. International Journal of Arts & Sciences, 5, 273–283.
Handelsman, J., Miller, S., & Pfund, C. (2007). Scientific teaching. New York: Freeman.
Hoshall, E. M. (1934). Chemical drawing. IV. Charts, graphs, and diagrams. Journal of Chemical Education, 11(4), 235.
Jenkinson, J., & McGill, G. (2012). Visualizing protein interactions and dynamics: Evolving a visual language for molecular animation. CBE Life Sciences Education, 11(1), 103–110.
Kearny, M., & Schuck, S. (2005). Students in the director's seat: Teaching and learning with students-generated video. In P. Kommers & D. Richards (Eds.), Proceedings from 2005: World conference on educational multimedia, hypermedia, and telecommunications (pp. 2864–2871). Norfolk: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.
Kozma, R., & Russell, J. (2005). Students becoming chemists: Developing representational competence. In J. K. Gilbert (Ed.), Visualization in science education. Dordrecht: Springer.
Mayer, R. E., & Alexander, P. A. (Eds.). (2011). Handbook of research on learning and instruction. New York: Routlge.
NAMLE. (2014). Media literacy defined. In namle.net. http://namle.net/publications/media-literacy-definitions/. Accessed (2015 February 23)
Pellegrino, J. W. & Hilton, M. L. (Eds.). (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Pe'rez-Echeverria, M.-P., Postigo, Y., & Marin-Oller, C. (2014). Students’ handling of graphs at the university level. In B. M. Bruzuela & B. E. Gravel (Eds.), ‟Show me what you know”: Exploring student representations across stem disciplines (pp. 71–85). New York: Teachers College Press
Picone, C., Rhode, J., Hyatt, L., & Parshall, T. (2007). Assessing gains in undergraduate students’ abilities to analyze graphical data. Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology, 5, 1–54.
Reed, S. K. (2010). Thinking visually. New York: Psychology.
Rocke, A. J. (2010). Image and reality: Kekule, Kopp, and the scientific imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Roth, W.-M. (2002). Reading graphs: Contributions to an integrative concept of literacy. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 34(1), 1–24.
Schönborn, K. J., & Anderson, T. R. (2006). The importance of visual literacy in the education of biochemists. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 34(2), 94–102.
Singer, S. R., Nielsen, N. R., & Schweingruber, H. A. (Eds). (2012). Discipline-based education research: Understanding and improving learning in undergraduate science and engineering. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Speth, E. B., Momsen, J. L., Moyerbrailean, G. A., Ebert-May, D., Long, T. M., Wyse, S., & Linton, D. (2010). 1, 2, 3, 4: Infusing quantitative literacy into introductory biology. CBE Life Sciences Education, 9(3), 323–332.
Summers, M. F., & Hrabowski, F. A. (2006). Preparing minority scientists and engineers. Science, 311(5769), 1870–1871.
Sweller, J. (1994). Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design. Learning and instruction, 4(4), 295–312.
Testa, I., Monroy, G., & Sassi, E. (2002). Students’s reading images in kinematics: The case of real-time graphs. International Journal of Science Education, 24(3), 235–256.
Toto, J., & Booth, K. (2008). Effects and implications of mini-lectures on learning in first-semester general chemistry. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 9(3), 259–266.
Uttal, D. H., & O'Doherty, K. (2008). Comprehending and learning from ‟visualizations”: A developmental perspective. In J. K. Gilbert, M. Reiner, & M. Nakhleh (Eds.), Models and modeling in science education: Vol. 3. Visualization: theory and practice in science education. The Netherlands: Springer.
Viel, A. & Liu, R. A. (n. d.) Inner life of the cell. http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/. Accessed (2014 December 15).
Watkins, J., & Mazur, E. (2013). Retaining students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. Journal of College Science Teaching, 42(5), 36–41.
Wieman, C. (2004). Why not try a scientific approach to science education. Change,(Sept–Oct) 9–15.
Willmott, C. (2014). Teaching bioethics via the production of student-generated videos. Journal of Biological Education. doi:10.1080/00219266.2014.897640. (1–12)
Acknowledgment
Eleanor Vandegrift acknowledges support of HHMI Science Education Award 52006956 and her colleagues from the University of Oregon Library Interactive Media Group and Science Literacy Program for their work on Graphicacy. Amy Mulnix acknowledges support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. S. Raj Chaudhury acknowledges the contribution of Paul Springfield in creating some graphics for the chapter.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chaudhury, S., Mandeltort, L., Mulnix, A., Vandegrift, E., Yates, J. (2015). Using Scientific Visualization to Enhance the Teaching and Learning of Core Concepts. In: Baylen, D., D'Alba, A. (eds) Essentials of Teaching and Integrating Visual and Media Literacy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05837-5_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05837-5_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-05836-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05837-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)