DEVELOPING SPATIAL AWARENESS
What is spatial awareness?
The definition of visual-spatial relations is the ability to visually perceive two or more objects in relation to each other and to yourself. Spatial reasoning is how we understand how things (including ourselves) move and interact in relation to the physical space around them. It also involves understanding the relationships of objects as they change position.
Spatial reasoning is not a single ability, skill, or process. It incorporates numerous concepts, processes, as well as tools to represent and communicate ideas about space and spatial relationships. These skills include perspective taking, visualizing, locating, orienting, dimension shifting, path-finding, sliding, rotating, reflecting, diagramming, modelling, symmetrizing, composing, decomposing, scaling, map-making, and designing.
Why are spatial skills important?
- Spatial skills are essential for life. They are necessary for example to efficiently pack the trunk of a car, cut equal sized slices of pieces, use a mall map, correctly build something using a diagram, riding a bike, and for jobs such as air traffic controller and engineer.
- Spatial skills play a critical role in the development of mathematics and reading. Research suggests that spatial thinking skills and geometric reasoning play a critical role in the development of problem-solving skills, mathematical learning, and reading comprehension.
- Geometric and spatial reasoning form the foundation for understanding higher-order mathematics thinking skills. Geometric and spatial thinking support the development of numerical abilities such as understanding quantity, numeral identification, counting, place value, and arithmetic concepts and skills.
Spatial awareness is thinking about objects in different spatially oriented ways.
Examples of spatial awareness include:
- being able to do mental rotations in your head
- visualizing objects from different perspectives
- coordinating how different space is used in relation to other space
- representing one object to mean another object or place (e.g. mapping)
- understanding how items are arranged in space and in relation to one another
- organizing the space within a cupboard
What everyday tasks do your students participate in that require spatial understanding?
Eye-hand coordination is being able to coordinate vision with body movement.
What everyday tasks do your students participate in that require eye-hand coordination?
Figure-ground perception is being able to distinguish foreground from background.
What everyday tasks do your students participate in that require figure-ground perception?
Position in space is being able to relate an object in space to oneself or other objects.
What everyday tasks do your students participate in that require position in space?
Perception of spatial relationships is being able to see two or more objects in relation to oneself or each other.
What everyday tasks do your students participate in that require perception of spatial relationships?
Visual discrimination is being able to identify the similarities and differences between or among objects.
What everyday tasks do your students participate in that require visual discrimination?
Visual memory is being able to recall objects no longer in view and relate them to other objects.
What everyday tasks do your students participate in that require visual memory?
How to Play Kim’s Game
http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Kims-Game
What the teachers said…
1 idea I want to explore further:
- spatial awareness
- visual memory
- hands on problem solving
- putting a wider variety of types of activities so that they hit more of these areas
- visual discrimination activities
- spatial awareness
- visual perception
- add more movement activities to teach spatial awareness
- I want to inquire more about Kim’s game
- visual memory
- visual perception
2 ideas or resources that I will try with my students:
- more active games
- spacial awareness activities
- visual discrimination and memory games
- finding the missing object
- physical activities
- more visual memory and figure-ground activities
- visual memory games (showing students items and then covering them and then ask for recall
- using bottle recycling as a way to improve spatial awareness
- Kim’s game
- yoga
- pictures with hidden pictures inside the picture (e.g. elephant)
- more games for visual perception
- incorporate more memory-based activities
- more I Spy games
- more physical activities that build or facilitate spatial awareness
- more memory and spatial awareness games
- more find and search video games for the SmartBoard
- more duplication of patterns for stacking cups
3 ideas that resonated with me:
- spatial awareness, visual perception, visual memory
- targeted teaching needed in position in space
- awareness of the different parts to spatial awareness
- add more movement activities to support spatial awareness
- there is a lot more to spatial awareness than I remember
- I need to assess my students and see where their strengths and weakness are and I need to have more open communication with me EA’s about this area
- visual discrimination, visual memory and perception of spatial relationships
- a number of my classroom activities include these areas. I now have a better understanding of what to look for and focus on. There are a variety of activities to try.
- spatial skills are important and have many components
- need to be more cognizant when planning activities and ensure that I build these sorts of things in
- I need to focus more on specific brain exercises
- learning more about the spatial awareness that my students need, visual memory, visual perception
- using video games
- using the Wii to play Super Mario for eye-hand coordination with some students
- build a greater awareness of the space that we occupy
- I need to assess for strengths and weaknesses
- find games and activities that are fun that develop spatial awareness
- drawing cartoons step-by-step
- add more movement activities to support spatial awareness
