1-153 - New Perspectives on the Relation Between Spatial Thinking and STEM Learning

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Spatial skills are highly related to STEM achievement and attainment. The four presentations in this symposium take a developmental perspective on when, and why, spatial thinking affects the learning of specific STEM topics.

The first presentation proposes that spatial skills are a fundamental marker of academic ability, especially in the STEM fields. However, for the most part, spatial skills have not been part of traditional academic assessments. Including spatial skills assessments leads to a broader and more inclusive perspective on giftedness.

The second and third presentation focus on the role of spatial thinking in the learning of a fundamental concept in earth science, the day/night cycle. The two presentations take different, but complementary, perspectives on the spatial challenges that children face. For example, children need to link the perspectives given by the senses (e.g. that the sun seems to travel across the sky during the day) to those known through communication and learning (e.g., that the world is round). The researchers'' findings indicates that spatial perspective taking plays a very important role in learning to coordinate information from different sources. The two presentations explore both traditional and embodied views on spatial perspective taking.

The final presentation focuses on the relation between spatial thinking and mathematics achievement. The results show that the two are correlated, and that spatial thinking improves with training. However, spatial training did not improve mathematics achievement. The authors discuss the need to think carefully about whether spatial thinking is causally related to mathematics achievement.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• David Uttal, Northwestern University

Individual Presentations

• Why Spatial? Spatial Reasoning Skills as Markers of Learning Potential - Presenting Author: Amy Shelton, Johns Hopkins University; Amy Stephens, National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine; Kinnari Atit, Northwestern University; Andrew Moss, Johns Hopkins University

• A Spatial Perspective-Taking Intervention Facilitates Children’s Understanding of Astronomy - Presenting Author: Corinne Bower, The Pennsylvania State University; Lynn Liben, Pennsylvania State University

• Supports for Spatial Cognition Enhance Children’s Space Science Learning - Presenting Author: Benjamin Jee, Worcester State University; Florencia K Anggoro, College of the Holy Cross

• Effects of a Spatial-Skills Curriculum on STEM Outcomes in Middle-School Students - Presenting Author: Lynn Liben, Pennsylvania State University; Margaret Signorella, Penn State University; Corinne Bower, The Pennsylvania State University