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Preschoolers’ Spatial Orientation Learning
This project provides direct student learning opportunities to foster preschoolers’ spatial learning and STEM identity, particularly for underrepresented and underserved groups, by developing and researching a preschool mathematics curriculum supplement that leverages digital touch-screen tablets and Augmented Reality technologies. Spatial thinking, which includes spatial orientation, is often ignored in formal education settings during the early years. This is a significant curricular limitation, given that recent evidence links spatial thinking to readiness for kindergarten, readiness in mathematics, and it “may create a cascade of effects” on later mathematics skills. To help start this upward cascade, our team developed and tested a preschool classroom module and connected family resources that include hands-on activities, an existing tablet-based individual game, and an Augmented Reality app based on spatial orientation learning goals. The intervention included a Teacher’s Guide to support educators and Family Guide to support caregivers in implementing in school and home environments. Our project used a a design-based research approach, to iteratively develop and test the intervention directly with preschool children (4-5-year-olds) from predominantly low-income and underserved backgrounds. These studies measured cognitive (e.g., spatial orientation learning) and social (STEM Identities) outcomes from an intervention that leverages “cutting-edge” AR technology in both
Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching
Augmented Reality (AR) integrates the real world with virtual content that is student-centered and playfully interactive. The project developed and tested an intervention that includes: a new AR app and an existing tablet game, spatial orientation activities for preschool classrooms that integrate learning opportunities with the apps, hands-on activities, and books; a digital teacher’s guide and professional development resources; and a family guide for caregivers to foster preschoolers’ spatial learning at home.
Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.
Research suggests that children naturally begin developing spatial skills by preschool, yet spatial skills receive minimal curricular focus and there is a dearth of relevant classroom and home activities for this age group. Well-designed early learning experiences are thus ripe opportunities to cultivate children’s emerging spatial skills and AR is a novel approach therein. The broader goals are to improve spatial skills that prepare preschoolers for mathematics in K-12 schooling and engagement in STEM careers.
Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education
There is growing consensus that high-quality STEM education is critical for young children, particularly as a way to promote equity (Clements et al., 2020). Our innovative approach seeks to build on the research that preschool mathematics knowledge is a strong predictor of children’s later academic success, that spatial learning has a unique contribution to make in later STEM engagement, and that developmentally appropriate preschool mathematics experiences hold exceptional promise to address educational inequities.
![Preschool Spatial Orientation Teacher's Guide](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2024-04/FOWA%20TeachersGuide.png?itok=nrjYWStq)
Discipline(s)
Mathematical sciences
Target Gradespan(s)
Early Childhood (PK)
Target Participant(s)
Youth / students
Educators
Parents / caregivers / families
Project Setting(s)
Formal Education
Informal Education
Category
Developing and Testing Innovations (DTI)