Building an Inclusive Community of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Educators to Develop Competencies for Facilitating Biomolecular Visual Literacy

Juniata College, Huntingdon PA

Investigators

Abstract

Understanding the structure of biomolecules is a critical component of understanding their function; this information is important in fields such as personalized medicine, agricultural production, and biofuels development. Molecular visualization, or the ability to understand three-dimensionality from two-dimensional representation, is a useful element in this building this understanding, yet few instructors teach or assess the skills needed to interpret two-dimensional images. This project will develop strategies and approaches to help students gain these important skills. In particular, the project will build a community of biochemistry and molecular biology educators who will help develop a set of competencies defining specific tasks that students will be expected to perform to develop their molecular visualization skills. Specifically, during the one-year term of this project, a series of national and regional workshops will be organized to develop a community of educators who are dedicated to the task of producing reliable and valid molecular visualization concept inventories. This group will develop a framework of goals and objectives for understanding four fundamental themes in molecular visualization - Monomer Recognition, Topology and Connectivity, Alternate Renderings, and Molecular Interactions. The group will also develop and populate a website with the competencies arising from the workshops. This project will expand a framework established following an education symposium at the 2013 American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology meeting to include competencies that will ultimately lead to constructing concept inventories in molecular visualization. This project will focus on four fundamental themes: Monomer Recognition, Topology and Connectivity, Alternate Renderings, and Molecular Interactions. Understanding these four themes will build a foundation that allows students to comprehend the structure-function relationship inherent in biomolecules. Regional workshops will bring together educators to identify and reach a consensus on competencies within these four themes. These competencies will be added to the molecular visualization framework housed at http://cbm.msoe.edu/crest/molviz/ for public use. This project has already begun to transform the way many biochemistry and molecular biology instructors use molecular representations in their classroom. For example, several instructors understand the need to assess their students' comprehension of the representations of a particular model before they used the model to draw higher level inferences (e.g. function). In articulating consensus-based learning goals and objectives and identifying competencies, this project will identify the foundations upon which concept inventories will be developed in future years. Importantly, this effort will be built around workshops that establish a community of practice for the explicit instruction of molecular visualization skills.