Spatial Reasoning in the Geosciences: Introduction & Overview Carol J. Ormand, SERC, Carleton College Eric Riggs, Texas A&M University

Who are these characters at the front of the room?

Workshop Goals Workshop participants will: Understand what we do and don’t know about how students succeed in spatial reasoning Be able to use tools and instruments for formative assessment, to measure student spatial thinking skills Be able to generate teaching activities / apply appropriate strategies to improve student success in spatial reasoning Provide feedback to the research community about emerging priorities for further investigation of spatial skills

Workshop Agenda Thursday: Friday: Introduction: What is spatial thinking? How is it measured? What do we know about developing spatial thinking skills? Module 1: Penetrative thinking Module 2: Mental rotation Friday: Module 3: Contour maps (including topographic maps) Module 4: Assessing spatial thinking (methodology & tools) Resources and next steps

What is Spatial Thinking What is Spatial Thinking? (How can we characterize spatial thinking tasks?) There are a variety ways to categorize spatial thinking tasks….. For example: Kastens and Ishikawa, 2006: Spatial thinking in the geosciences and cognitive sciences: A cross-disciplinary look at the intersection of the two fields Kozhevnikov et al., 2005: Spatial versus object visualizers: A new characterization of visual cognitive style Shipley et al., 2013: Structural geology practice and learning, from the perspective of cognitive science

How are Spatial Skills Measured? SILC tests and instruments page: http://www.silccenter.org/index.php/testsainstruments You’ll see several examples in this workshop.

What Do We Know About Developing Spatial Thinking Skills / Expertise? Spatial skills are malleable There are strategies/tools that help