Steve CoxonEditorial assistant,

Journal for the Education of the GiftedPh.D. Student,

The College of William and Mary’sCenter for Gifted Education

• http://stevecoxon.com • http://cfge.wm.edu/

• coxonsteve@hotmail.com

Activities to Challenge the Spatially Gifted

What is spatial ability?

Spatial ability is a construct that characterizes a human difference in “the ability to generate, retain, retrieve, and transform well-structured visual images”

(Lohman, 1994, p. 1000, as quoted in Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009).

Why does spatial ability matter?

• High spatial ability is predictive of STEM success (Webb, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2007)

• Innovations from STEM fields improve our quality of life and are responsible for the majority of economic growth in the U.S. (National Academy of Education, 2009),

• There is an ever-increasing need for highly-educated people capable of STEM innovation (Shea, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2001; Snow, 1999; Webb, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2007).

Why does spatial ability matter?

• While employers expect to hire 2.5 million STEM workers between 2004 and 2014 (Terrell, 2007), there is a national shortage of students graduating from institutions of higher education with degrees in many important STEM fields (American Competitiveness Initiative, 2006).

• People in STEM fields earned about 70% more than the U. S. average in 2005 (Terrell, 2007),

Need for Challenging theSpatially Gifted

• Students with spatial gifts are neglected in school curricula and instruction and thus are rarely challenged in their talent area (Silverman, 2005; Webb, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2007).

Need for Challenging theSpatially Gifted

• Students with spatial gifts tend to be undereducated and underemployed as adults compared to students with similar gifts in mathematical and verbal areas (Mann, 2006).

• Spatially gifted students tend to have lower educational aspirations and less motivation to perform than gifted math students (Webb, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2007).

Typical school subjects involving spatial ability

• Geometry

• Geography

• Physics

• Chemistry

Some occupations involving spatial ability

• The visual and performing arts• Design (from graphic to industrial)• Engineering• Surgery• Dentistry• Computer science• Surveying and cartography• Mechanics• Architecture• Physical sciences• Robotics(Shea, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2001; Snow, 1999; Wai, et al.,

2009; Webb, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2007)

Today’s Menu

Craft stick and binder clip towers

Google Maps

LEGO WeDo robotics

• Take fifteen minutes to build the tallest freestanding tower that you can.

• You have 30 sticks and 15 small binder clips. You may not use any other items.

• You may not break sticks or dismantle clips.

• Two to three feet is a good start.

What processes did this building activity require?

Google Maps

LEGO WeDo

LEGO WeDo

• Aimed at 6-9-year-olds to engineer and program

• Comes with step-by-step directions for a number of models, but, like other LEGO products, has unlimited room for creative building

• Can be tied in with other subjects, especially science

• Similar to NXT, but significantly scaled down for a younger user

• One motor, two sensors: tilt and motion• Now a part of the Junior FIRST LEGO League

WeDo demonstration

Resources• http://www.childrensengineering.com/ (based in

Richmond, hosts an annual conference in February)

• http://www.legoeducation.us/sharedimages/resources/WeDo%20User's%20Guide.pdf (a free, 41 page teacher’s guide to LEGO WeDo)

• http://maps.google.com/ • http://www.esri.com/industries/k-12/index.html

(GIS for schools)• http://makezine.com/ and http://

www.instructables.com/ (two Great sites for building just about anything)

* http://www.academicearth.org/ (free, online video classes from leading universities)

“Ninety-nine percent of the discoveries are made by one percent of the scientists.”

-Julius Axelrod (as cited in NAS, 2005, p. ix)