ED3662 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Satellite Navigation, Tangram, Google Maps
Tutorial Five: 2D Shapes
Why spatial reasoning and geometry in the early years
- Spatial thinking plays a fundamental role in our lives
o Ranging from the everyday activities we take for granted (eg. Navigating a new city,
assembling furniture, remembering the location of objects, etc)
o The more specialised skills required for higher education and various professions
▪ Architecture
▪ Dentistry
▪ Medicine
▪ Art and design
- Recent research
o Spatial thinking is strongly related to entrance and success in science, technology,
engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines
- Yet, despite its importance, spatial thinking is often underemphasised in early educational settings
(Clements and Samara, 2011)
- Fortunately, spatial thinking can be improved through education and targeted interventions
o Puzzle play
o Tetris
o Guided block building (Uttal, et al., 2012)
Properties of the Van Hiele Model
- There are four characteristics of these levels of thought
o The van Hiele levels of geometric reasoning are sequential. Students must pass
through all prior levels to arrive at any specific level.
▪ Cannot skip a level
o These levels are not age dependent in the way Piaget described development.
▪ Any age = any level
▪ Based on your competence
o Geometric experiences have the greatest influence on advancement through the
levels.
o Instruction and language at a level higher than the level of the student may rote
learning with little understanding and inhibit further learning
- (Van de Walle, Karp & Bay-Williams, 2013)
Van Hiele Levels of Geometric Understanding (EXAM)
- These are not relative levels, not absolute ones (Freudenthal, 1991)
- Can be used to find and develop appropriate tasks (Dorier et al., 2003)
- If students learn geometry by solely memorizing definitions, they will not be able to
perform in higher level task and may make decision incorrectly based on their own
prototypes (Gal and Law, 2008
- Concrete materials
o Physical experience, especially the physical manipulation of geometric shapes,
are necessary in order for students to gain a firm understanding of geometric
relationships and that manipulative teaching and learning aids have much to
offer (Tchoshanov, 2011)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Why spatial reasoning and geometry in the early years. Spatial thinking plays a fundamental role in our lives. Recent research: spatial thinking is strongly related to entrance and success in science, technology, engineering, and math (stem) disciplines. Yet, despite its importance, spatial thinking is often underemphasised in early educational settings (clements and samara, 2011) Fortunately, spatial thinking can be improved through education and targeted interventions: puzzle play, tetris, guided block building (uttal, et al. , 2012) There are four characteristics of these levels of thought: the van hiele levels of geometric reasoning are sequential. Instruction and language at a level higher than the level of the student may rote learning with little understanding and inhibit further learning (van de walle, karp & bay-williams, 2013) These are not relative levels, not absolute ones (freudenthal, 1991) Can be used to find and develop appropriate tasks (dorier et al. , 2003)
