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“A lot of students come in thinking that anatomy is all about memorization,” says CU Professor Ruth Heisler as she clicks through a series of animated slides that illustrate the structure of the brain with gradually increasing detail. “But it doesn’t have to be. If you go about it in the right way, you can see patterns in what you’re learning. A lot of what I do is to help students see and understand those patterns.”

Ruth Heisler has been teaching Basic Anatomy since 1996. While many seasoned professors rely on the same presentations year-after-year, Heisler still spends five to six hours preparing for every lecture, obsessively tweaking the wording of a homework assignment or the layout of a slide to better facilitate learning. And her hard work has clearly made an impact on her students: Heisler is one of twelve talented CU educators to win a 2013 ASSETT Outstanding Teaching Award.

“Professor Heisler is one of the best teachers I’ve had in all my education ever,” said one enthusiastic student. “[She] brought fantastic animations and videos to support her lectures, and made all lecture, pre-homework, and sample questions easily downloadable.” The student praised Heisler’s creative class assignments, her generosity, and her willingness to help students outside of the classroom.

To be clear, Heisler describes herself as “a moderate” who doesn’t always adopt the latest technology trends. She chooses her tools carefully, basing her decisions on the specific needs of her students, and her most successful innovations are often the least complicated. PowerPoint isn’t exactly a new educational tool, but Heisler’s subtly animated slides help her students to digest material step-by-step, focusing on systems within the body instead of overwhelming the students with too many unfamiliar terms all at once.

“My goal is to reduce co