University of Minnesota Rochester’s Center for Learning Innovation (CLI) is a prime example of the University’s dedication to transforming the future of learning — a core goal in its strategic plan, Elevate Extraordinary 2030.

The CLI faculty research learning methods through teaching their courses, with the aim of personalizing education and continuously improving the campus’s health care curriculum. They then share their research with other institutions across the world to transform higher education.

Using visual models to advance learning

One of the CLI’s faculty members, Associate Professor Cassidy Terrell, is doing just that through developing students’ visual literacy skills to better understand biochemistry, the study of chemical processes within living organisms. Some of the topics students study include enzymes, drug design, metabolism, DNA and disease mechanisms.

“Most of what students will learn in STEM they can’t hold in their hands,” says Terrell. “Most of what they understand in terms of STEM and science is in their imagination, so I started incorporating 3D printed and virtual models into my course designs.”

Through this, Terrell’s latest research looks at how students develop neural networks, or the way they organize visual representations in their brains, concerning biomedicine to measure learning.

By using physical models, metabolic maps (showing the linked series of chemical reactions within a cell) and others, Terrell hopes that helping students organize dense biochemistry teachings in terms of pictures, instead of solely words, will improve learning.

“Experts' knowledge is highly organized, so when they go to learn something new in their fields, it's easy for them to understand and incorporate this knowledge into their already existing, organized knowledge,” she says.

To further test the effectiveness of visual models in learning, her students had to create their own piece of artwork that described a newly FDA-approved drug rather than writing a standard paper.

Advocating for women in STEM

Terrell is particularly passionate about teaching women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

“What’s important for me as a woman in STEM is that I’m showing my female students that this is possible and you belong here because I belong here,” she says.

This is particularly impactful because research has shown that women routinely rate themselves as less smart in STEM than their male peers in the same classroom, even though there is no data to support it, Terrell explains.

“For me, it’s important that my students know that when they do biochemistry and research with me, they are a scientist,” says Terrell. “It doesn’t matter what gender you identify as. I want to help them overcome that piece of imposter syndrome they might feel.”

Ultimately, Terrell’s work within her classroom not only advances important research, but also instills confidence in her students.

“I’m going to prove to my students that they’re smart and capable, and give them evidence as to why,” she says.

Learn more about the CLI.