Digital games for spatial reasoning in the early years: building the foundations for STEM Learning

Ha Dang, Eleanor Forwood, Sankha Peiris, Sian Seeley, Prabhat Rai, Marilyn Fleer, Jonathan Li

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference PaperResearchpeer-review

Abstract

CONTEXT The importance of STEM knowledge and skills, today and into the future, is critical, and the urgency to address the current skill shortage and gender disparity is pressing. Spatial reasoning skills, the ability to visualise and manipulate objects and their environment in one’s mind, have been shown to be foundational to mathematics skills; development of these from early childhood is critical to predisposing individuals for later success and interest in STEM fields, particularly Engineering. There are very few studies involving pre-school children in home settings, hence there is a gap in the understanding of the early experiences that contribute to their spatial learning, especially for girls. 
PURPOSE The purpose of this paper is to present three newly created digital resources, which will form part of a suite of resources in a study to understand how parents and caregivers can promote and support preschool children’s visual spatial skills development in home settings.
APPROACH The digital resources are built using combined principles from spatial reasoning literature, Vygotsky’s cultural-historical conception of child development, and the Conceptual Playworlds model of play-based learning. We anticipate that this approach will lead to a take up of spatial games that evoke children’s imagination and creativity, better engaging them and supporting the development of their visual spatial skills.
ACTUAL AND ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES We have created three new apps: an Augmented Reality app that illustrates spatial relations, and two game apps to help familiarise children with mental rotation and shape recognition. We believe these apps will provide spatial learning affordances for preschool children in the home and possibly other play-based settings. Their contribution to children’s spatial learning and home practices will be examined in the near future as part of the study. 
CONCLUSION Game development has tended to follow an “ages and stages” approach. Different to this conception of development, is our cultural-historical view of development where the focus is on how the child enters into, shapes and is shaped by the games, for realising spatial knowledge and reasoning. Our games will be used as part of a suite of resources to explore how parents and caregivers can help facilitate spatial learning. This new understanding is an important contribution towards efforts to lift STEM participation, especially for girls, through early intervention.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication31st Annual Conference of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE 2020)
Subtitle of host publicationDisrupting Business as Usual in Engineering Education
EditorsTom Goldfin, Anne Gardne
Place of PublicationBarton ACT Australia
PublisherEngineers Australia
Pages463–470
Number of pages8
ISBN (Print)9781925627541
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020
EventAustralian Association for Environmental Education (AAEE) Conference 2020: Disrupting Business as Usual in Engineering Education - virtual, virtual conference, Australia
Duration: 6 Dec 20209 Dec 2020
Conference number: 31st
https://www.aaee2020.com.au/

Conference

ConferenceAustralian Association for Environmental Education (AAEE) Conference 2020
Abbreviated titleAAEE 2020
Country/TerritoryAustralia
Cityvirtual conference
Period6/12/209/12/20
Internet address

Keywords

  • spatial reasoning
  • preschool children
  • games

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