=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1557/paper1
|storemode=property
|title=Teaching Spatial Thinking from Interdisciplinary Perspective Workshop
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1557/paper1.pdf
|volume=Vol-1557
|authors=Heather Burte,Tomi Kauppinen,Mary Hegarty
}}
==Teaching Spatial Thinking from Interdisciplinary Perspective Workshop==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1557/paper1.pdf
Teaching Spatial Thinking from Interdisciplinary
Perspectives Workshop
Heather Burte1, Tomi Kauppinen2, Mary Hegarty3
1
Tufts University, USA
2Aalto University, Finland
3University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
heather.burte@tufts.edu, tomi.kauppinen@aalto.fi, mary.hegarty@psych.ucsb.edu
Abstract. The Teaching Spatial Thinking from Interdisciplinary Perspectives
(TSTIP) workshop was held at COSIT 2015 in New Mexico, NM. The
objective of the workshop was to bring together researchers from a diverse set
of fields to address the issue of how to best promote teaching spatial thinking
topics from interdisciplinary perspectives. The TSTIP workshop was one
project that came out of the TSTIP Initiative, which seeks to promote teaching
spatial thinking topics from interdisciplinary perspectives. This short paper
introduces the TSTIP Initiative and its projects.
1 Introduction to the TSTIP Initiative
Spatial thinking is thinking or reasoning that involves the location and movement of
objects and/or ourselves, either mentally or physically, in space. Spatial thinking
includes a wide range of concepts, tools, and processes (National Research Council,
2006). Unfortunately, spatial thinking is often taken for granted in our everyday lives
because it’s all around us – it’s so ubiquitous to our experience in the world.
Just as spatial thinking can be found throughout our everyday lives, so it can also be
found throughout academic disciplines and fields. Science, technology, engineering,
and math (STEM) fields all require spatial thinking, and creative fields, such as,
architecture and art, also require spatial thinking. Spatial thinking can be found within
these fields by looking for the use of spatial properties (e.g., location, distance,
direction, shape, motion, composition, and transformation) in completing a task or
solving a problem. Using the idea of spatial properties, we can see that spatial
thinking can be found throughout STEM fields: Chemists use spatial thinking to
understand the three-dimensional structure of atoms; while, Engineers use spatial
thinking to calculate the forces placed upon a vehicle during a collision, and so on.
But that spatial thinking is also found throughout the creative fields: Architects use
spatial thinking when trying to maximize space utilization through the arrangement of
walls, hallways, and staircases. Artists must consider how individual elements will
contribute to the overall composition of their artwork.
1
Spatial thinking is not just important within separate disciplines; spatial thinking
spans and connects numerous disciplines. For example, a psychologist might research
how individuals use spatial thinking strategies to find their way in a neighborhood. A
cartographer might research how best to convey the spatial properties of an
environment on a map. But if the psychologist and the cartographer never interact and
never learn about each other’s work, then how can we be sure that the spatial
properties of the map can interact with the spatial thinking abilities of its readers?
Since many disciplines and perspectives both draw upon spatial thinking and also
contribute to our understanding of spatial thinking, research around spatial thinking is
inherently interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary research requires interdisciplinary
courses, at the undergraduate and graduate levels, to teach students how to investigate
spatial thinking from multiple perspectives. However, developing course material
outside of one's discipline can be particularly challenging for educators, and these
challenges can restrict the perspectives taught within a single course. How can we
bridge the gap across disciplines to research, study, and learn about spatial thinking?
The Teaching Spatial Thinking from Interdisciplinary Perspectives (TSTIP)
initiative was developed to address this issue of how to best promote teaching spatial
thinking topics from interdisciplinary perspectives. The TSTIP initiative’s goal was to
connect researchers and educators in fields related to spatial thinking, and gather or
develop educational materials that could assist educators with teaching spatial
thinking from interdisciplinary perspectives. This essential in the era of online
learning where readily available materials are blended with intensive face-to-face
sessions (i.e. flipped class room). Towards this end, three projects were developed
and implemented: 1) crowd-sourcing educational materials; 2) developing in-person
workshops and/or symposiums; and 3) establishing an educational resource
repository. Each of these projects will be discussed in turn.
2 Crowd-Sourced Educational Materials
We set out to crowd-source a list of educational materials, readings, and resources
– all related to how different disciplines conceptualized spatial cognition and/or
spatial thinking – and to use these resources to develop an online repository for
educators. To this end, we invited experts from a range of disciplines to provide their
syllabi and/or reading lists for undergraduate and graduate courses, or introductory
readings for graduate students. These experts were contacted via email and email lists
for spatial cognition and spatial thinking researchers. We received 25 syllabi and
reading lists from 12 individuals within a varied set of disciplines. Unfortunately,
there were large gaps materials provided, such as, missing entire disciplines and
perspectives related to spatial thinking. In the end, our crowd-sourcing efforts did not
provide enough materials to establish the development of the online repository.
2
3 In-Person Workshops and Symposiums
In order to garner awareness of and interest in the TSTIP initiative, we decided to
develop workshops and/or symposiums co-located with major conferences. The goal
of these workshops and symposiums would be to gather researchers and educators
from a wide range of perspectives and disciplines that involve spatial thinking. They
could share their expertise in a spatial thinking field, and acquire new perspectives on
spatial thinking from experts in other fields. At the end of the workshop or
symposium, all the participants would leave with new perspectives, resources, tools,
and connections that would aid them with teaching undergraduate and graduate
courses in spatial thinking.
Workshop Participants. These workshops would be relevant for: 1) Junior faculty
or researcher, such as post-docs and graduate students, who might teach a course in
spatial thinking in the near future. 2) Experienced faculty, who might already teach a
course in spatial thinking, but who are interested in expanding the perspectives from
which they teach their spatial thinking course(s). 3) Educators of undergraduate
and/or graduate courses in spatial thinking.
Workshop Topics & Discussion. At the workshops, experts would share how
spatial thinking is approached within their field, such as: major topics and findings,
recommended readings and educational resources, and future directions within their
field. These presentations will be given from the perspective of assisting a workshop
attendee, who is unfamiliar with the invited speaker’s field, with gaining familiarity
with the field so that the workshop attendee can teach a course that includes
perspectives from the invited speakers’ field.
Collecting Education Resources for a Repository. During the workshop,
educational resources (e.g., spatial thinking topics within each discipline, educational
resources/tools/recommendations, and/or recommended readings) would be collected
from workshop attendees and made available in a repository. After the workshop, the
educational resource repository will be made freely available online so that educators
can use the materials to develop their own interdisciplinary spatial thinking courses.
4 Educational Resource Repository
Developing an online repository was a priority for the TSTIP initiative because it
would allow educators from various fields to both contribute to and benefit from
educational resources for teaching spatial thinking topics. In order to provide the
greatest range of educator resources, the repository was conceptualized as a hierarchy
of disciplines, spatial thinking topics, and then educational resources.
In addition to a list of disciplines related to spatial thinking, we wanted to provide
an overview of each discipline’s approach to spatial thinking. Within each discipline
would be a list and overview of spatial topics. Within in spatial topic would be
3
educational resources, such as, recommended academic papers and books, as well as
educational readings, activities, homework assignments, discussion topics, etc. These
materials could be specific to one field, or could be interdisciplinary in nature, but all
materials should be accessible to educators outside the field of interest. This way, any
educator could use the materials to incorporate perspectives about spatial thinking that
were outside of their area of expertise. Interdisciplinary educational resources should
be cross-listed under multiple disciplines and/or topics, as necessary.
Once the repository is fully developed, we wanted to expand the repository to
include interdisciplinary spatial thinking at all levels of education, from grade school
to graduate school. Evidence is mounting that improving spatial thinking in grade
school can increase the number of individuals pursuing careers in STEM fields and
support educational attainment in STEM fields (e.g., Newcombe, 2010). So by
providing educational assessments, readings, activities, etc. around spatial thinking
for children and teenagers, we could potentially contribute to these students pursuing
post-secondary education in STEM fields.
5 TSTIP Workshop at COSIT 2015
Workshop Overview. The "Teaching Spatial Thinking from Interdisciplinary
Perspectives" workshop, located at the COSIT 2015 conference in Santa Fe, New
Mexico, was developed to address the issue of how to best promote teaching spatial
thinking topics from interdisciplinary perspectives. This day long workshop’s goals
were to: 1) Assist educators in developing interdisciplinary courses on spatial
thinking; and, 2) Develop a repository of educational materials that educators could
use to create interdisciplinary courses on spatial thinking. To address these goals, the
workshop was composed of four major elements: invited talks, lightning talks, group
discussions, and educational resources collected for the online repository. Each of
these will be discussed in turn.
Invited speakers from four disciplines – Psychology, Geography/GIScience,
Informatics, and Neuroscience – provided an overview of the major topics, major
findings, recommended educational resources, and future directions of their field,
with respect to spatial thinking.
Workshop participants were invited to submit short papers discussing spatial
thinking from their discipline(s) perspectives. Five of these papers were selected for
lightning talks.
During the workshop, group discussions allowed for individuals from different
fields to discuss spatial thinking and how to best develop interdisciplinary courses on
spatial thinking. These discussions allowed workshop attendees to learn more about
discipline(s) that they were unfamiliar with, and to share educational resources from
their own discipline(s).
4
Before and after the workshop, educational resources (e.g., list of topics and
subtopics within each discipline, educational materials, and recommended readings)
were collected from workshop attendees, included on the workshop website, and will
be placed into an online repository of interdisciplinary educational materials. After
the workshop, this repository will be made freely available online so that educators
could create their own interdisciplinary spatial thinking courses.
There were three main outcomes of the TSTIP workshop: 1) the workshop
proceedings, 2) workshop presentations available online, and, 3) a prospective
partnership for developing the educational repository. Each will be discussed in turn.
Workshop Proceedings. Invited speakers and lightning talk speakers contributed
to the workshop proceedings, of which this paper is the first chapter. Included in the
workshop proceedings are perspectives from architects, mathematicians, computer
scientists, geographers, GIScientists, geoinformatics experts, and psychologists.
Workshop Presentations. Some of the invited speakers and lightning talk
speakers allowed their presentation slides to be shared. The presentations are on the
LinkedScience.org website at http://linkedscience.org/events/spatialthinking2015/
Educational Repository. The TSTIP Initiative is currently investigating the
possibility of collaborating with GEOTHNK to develop the educational repository.
GEOTHNK (http://www.geothnk.eu) is an initiative to bring together European
organizations to develop a framework of novel learning pathways that span the
traditional educational sectors and informal learning spaces by effectively using open
educational resources and practices. GEOTHNK is a part of the Open Discovery
Space (ODS), which is a multilingual platform for sharing online learning resources.
6 Conclusion
Spatial thinking spans and connects numerous disciplines; therefore, the TSTIP
initiative seeks to provide resources for connecting these disciplines in the classroom.
Using crowdsourcing of educational materials, in-person workshops and/or
symposiums, and by developing an educational repository, the TSTIP initiative is
bringing together experts in spatial thinking to provide resources for educators.
References
1. Committee on the Support for the Thinking Spatially. (2006). Learning to think spatially:
GIS as a support system in the K-12 curriculum. National Research Council: The National
Academies Press, Washington DC.
2. Newcombe, N. S. (2010). Picture This: Increasing Math and Science Learning by Improving
Spatial Thinking. American Educator, 34(2), 29-43.
5