Spatial Thinking and Stem Education: Drawing and Mapping with New Technologies
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Transcript of Spatial Thinking and Stem Education: Drawing and Mapping with New Technologies
Spatial Thinking and STEM Education: Drawing and Mapping with New Technologies
David H. Uttal, Ken Forbus, and Robert Kolvoord
SILC Northwestern University
Spatial Thinking and STEM Education
• Emerging science education standards stress – Problem-solving – Modeling – Understanding and representing data
• Spatial thinking is critical to this transformation in how science and mathematics is taught and learned.
Two efforts within SILC to … • Understand • Promote • Assess
Spatial approaches to STEM education
1) CogSketch 2) The Geospatial Semester
Computer tutors and learning environments need spatial capabilities
• Intelligent tutoring systems have provided valuable benefits for education (e.g., Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center)
• But not in spatially rich subjects (e.g., geology, engineering)
• Sketch understanding software could change this
Ultimate goal: Software that
understands sketches as you would
Research Goals
1) A cognitive science research instrument. – A computational model of spatial reasoning and learning – A tool for gathering data in laboratory and classroom
studies
2) A platform for sketch-based intelligent educational software – Depends critically on research in artificial intelligence and
cognitive science (e.g., analogy and spatial representation)
Sketching and Communication
• People talk when they sketch with each other – Sketching is a social activity
• CogSketch provides a way around the “recognition problem”
• Focus instead on human-like visual, spatial & conceptual representations & reasoning – Relationships between objects – Relationships within objects (e.g. shape)
Interacting with CogSketch
• Draw ink, clicking finish when an object is done
• Label objects via menus – Zero recognition errors
• Knowledge base provides concepts for labeling – 58,000 concepts provide breadth – Technical details hidden from users via UI
Worksheets as Assessment Tool
• Partnership with Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center (PSLC)
• Toward spatially-based formative assessment
Design Buddy: Setting and Problem Engineering Design and Communication Course
at Northwestern University
Problem: Students have trouble using sketches to communicate
Does this make sense?
Sketch + language-like
explanation of design
Feedback
CogSketch Summary • Sketch understanding is a central problem in spatial
learning • CogSketch is useful for cognitive science research • CogSketch is promising for education
Promoting Spatial Problem Solving in Science Education
• The Geospatial Semester • Robert Kolvoord, James
Madison University
GIS = Geographic Information System
Course Design
• The Spatial Semesters:
– First semester students work through a training manual to become familiar with the software.
– Second semester students complete a personally designed project using the skills they have learned.
Is it working? • How do we tell? • Many converging measures
– Rubric – Quality of final projects – SILC measures of spatial language – Transfer problems (e.g., “The sheriff problem”)
Spatial Language Increases across the Semester
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Spa?al Mo?on Causality
Prop
or%o
n of Dis%n
ct
Words Spo
ken
Ra%o of dis%nct words for each category
Int One Int Three Int Four
Conclusions • Spatial thinking is critically important to science
practice and education • Drawing and mapping promote the kind of
science reasoning that NSF, National Academies, and most teachers advocate
• And shed light on the nature of spatial reasoning • Informs basic research • Draw on basic science, map out implications for
learning