Educating Spatial Thinking for STEM Success

In recent years there has been new recognition of the importance of spatial thinking in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines, in part because of evidence that spatial ability predicts success and persistence in STEM (Wai, Lubinski & Benbow, 2009), but is not fostered in our educational systems (National Research Council, 2006). Based on this evidence, current approaches aim to increase science achievement by training the types of general spatial skills measured by spatial ability tests. However, although there is considerable evidence that these spatial skills can be trained (Uttal, et al., 2013), there has been little evidence to date that training of general spatial skills transfers to success in STEM disciplines (Stieff & Uttal, 2015). In this symposium, we will take a critical approach to issues of how to educate spatial thinking, both by raising some theoretical questions about the nature of spatial thinking in STEM, and by considering a range of different approaches to enhance the development of spatial thinking at different educational levels (elementary, secondary, and college) and in different STEM disciplines. The participants will discuss a broad range of spatial challenges faced by students in STEM learning, including mastering discipline-specific spatial language, novel visuospatial representations, and the interplay between visualization and analytic reasoning strategies. The four talks will be by researchers that differ in disciplinary expertise, methodologies, and theoretical frameworks. David Uttal, an expert in cognitive and developmental psychology will describe a program that develops 12 th grade students’ spatial skills through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Mike Stieff, an expert in chemistry and learning sciences will describe how he has used theories of representational competence to design laboratory studies and classroom interventions that improved spatial thinking in college-level chemistry by targeting students’ understanding of domain-specific visuospatial representations. Tom Lowrie, an expert in mathematics education and assessment will describe an intervention conducted by elementary school teachers in the Australian school system, which improved students’ spatial reasoning and transferred to mathematics achievement. Stella Vosniadou will describe laboratory studies that provide evidence for a shift from visual-spatial to analytic thinking with expertise in Geometry and Chemistry. She will interpret these results as an instance of conceptual change that raises questions about the relationship of spatial reasoning to STEM problem solving as learning progresses. Mary Hegarty will introduce the topic, moderate the symposium and lead a discussion on lessons learned about the nature of spatial thinking and how it can be best fostered in our educational systems.