Friday, December 9, 2011

Moving through space and beginning math

Zander watching a squirrel. A clear wall or plane - the glass window - divides the short distance between the cat  and the squirrel.
This visual-spatial game interface can be used to teach many things, but it was first of all designed to teach math. 

For instance, a beginning math student could be told to go ten feet straight ahead, then turn right and go 3 feet, in an L shape.  At the beginning, they are just learning shapes, lengths, and angles.  The answer to the problem is an L-shape or a final spot they land on.

If they solve the problem while on land or an online game, they will begin to think of math as related to everyday space, which it is!) and begin to associate math with navigating through space.   Spatial abilities and visualization skills and abilities are related to math and science success, so the more you can get people to think that way, the better. There's been a good bit of research about this.

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