Pre-Service Teachers’ 3D Visualization Strategies

Abstract

This study examines primary and early childhood pre-service teachers' strategies on a written task that promotes 3D geometric thinking and visualization processes. Visualization and conceptualisation of 3D objects are complex cognitive processes, and both require the development of students' abilities to decode and encode spatial information. The analysis of 289 pre-service teachers' written responses resulted in identifying students' difficulties in decoding and encoding visual information. The visual information dominated student thinking, and they found it hard to identify relationships between the 2D representation and the 3D mental construction of the solids. Most made incorrect claims regarding relative volumes. Neither spatial visualisation nor formuladriven computation provided adequate engagement with the task. Visualization and conceptualisation of 3D objects are complex cognitive processes, and pre-service teachers need to engage with a variety of learning activities to help them develop their abilities to decode and encode spatial information and, it is hoped, develop their 3D geometric thinking. However, from a learning approach perspective, the results indicate a dominant surface learning approach; this may arise from prior inadequate learning. The best lesson the student may get, therefore, from this task is not the mastery of a mathematical computation, but awareness of the importance of teaching design and aligned teaching methods.

The potential of mobile augmented reality as a didactic and pedagogical source in learning geometry 3D

“…This representation combines the structure of a three-dimensional visual object with the resultant stimulus proximal to a two-dimensional image (Cooper, 1990). Furthermore, this difficulty was experienced because constructing the visualization and conceptualization of 3D objects is a complex cognitive process and requires developing the ability to decode and encode spatial information (Markopoulos, Chaseling, Petta, Lake & Boyd, 2015). In fact, there are many ways to measure students' ability to determine the arrangement of 3D geometric objects.…”

Epistemological Obstacle in 3D Geometry Thinking: Representation, Spatial Structuring, and Measurement

“…The recognition of 3D objects is related to the internal representation mode that combines the visual structure that arises from 2D geometric shapes (Cooper, 1990). This is understandable because the process of visualizing and conceptualizing 3D objects is a complex cognitive process, and both require the development of students' abilities to decode and encode spatial information (Markopoulos, Chaseling, Petta, Lake, & Boyd, 2015). Furthermore, it takes the ability to coordinate the line segments are in the cuboid and integrate them to build a coherent mental model of the line segments (Battista & Clements, 1996).…”

Visualización y simetría en la formación de maestros de Educación Infantil

“…Detrás de los planteamientos de este trabajo está la idea de que la visualización y conceptualización de objetos tridimensionales es un proceso cognitivo complejo (Battista, 2007), y requiere que los futuros docentes reconozcan como se desarrollan las habilidades espaciales de los niños y como codificar y decodificar informaciones espaciales (Markopoulos et al, 2015), para construir determinados conceptos, propiedades o situaciones (Alsina et al, 2009).…”