Enactivism, spatial reasoning and coding

Date
2015
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer
Abstract
Drawing on an enactivist perspective in order to gain insight into how spatial reasoning develops and can be fostered, this article describes a study of how children engaged in spatial reasoning as they learned to program LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robots. Digital technologies afforded multiple opportunities for accumulating experiences for developing spatial reasoning that are difficult to come by in other contexts. Our video-recorded observations of children (aged 9 to 10) suggest that Bruner’s enactive–iconic–symbolic typology of representations develop simultaneously rather than sequentially – the commonly held assumption. Furthermore, these same video observations provided insight into children’s development of spatial reasoning through computer programming. Our findings have implications for how curriculum is designed and implemented in classrooms.
Description
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40751-015-0010-4. Post-print deposited according to Springer's self-archiving policy: http://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/authors-rights/self-archiving-policy/2124.
Keywords
Enactivism, Spatial reasoning, Computer programming, Robotics, Video-analysis
Citation
Francis, K., Khan, S., & Davis, B. (2015). Enactivism, Spatial Reasoning and Coding. Digital Experiences in Mathematics Education, 1-20.