Thank you for watching our video and sharing your interest in spatial reasoning. Your examples of spatial reasoning using objects in children's environment (e.g., moon, shadow) is interesting. I would love to learn more.

We have engaged in an iterative process of articulating the learning progression for spatial reasoning. We began with an extensive literature review and then narrowed in on two key components of the learning progression that then branch into more skills with finer grain size. As we finalize these progressions, I'm happy to share them with you. 

We weren't specifically looking at spatial reasoning in our research.  We did however, notice some challenges the students had, particularly related to where the moon appears in a slightly different place each day at the same time, then "disappears" for a time, reappearing on the other side of the sky.  They were challenged with completing the sequence spatially, though they were able to do so related to the shape/phase of the moon.  Of course, this involves modeling, which in most cases is not something early elementary learners can do.  We are curious about the specifics of what you are doing to encourage spatial reasoning in the young learners you work with in your study.

Thank you for watching our video and engaging with us.

We have identified two key aspects of spatial reasoning for children in grades K-2: (1) students' reasoning spatially within objects by understanding that objects have properties and can be transformed in space, and (2) students' reasoning spatially between objects by understanding that objects have locations in space that are relative to other objects. 

We designed a number of tasks that are currently under development to evaluate if they are truly eliciting the desired reasoning skills. We are excited to share these as the research unfolds. 

This is a very interesting comment.  It makes me think about our work on developing a learning progression for the mathematical concept of function.  I can't help but think that these aspects of spatial reasoning are related to the foundational levels on the learning progression for the concept of function that we've been working to validate. 

Thank you for watching and commenting on our video. 

Thanks for watching our video. I appreciate your feedback, Candace! 

Thank you for asking such an insightful question. Yes, we found multiple areas of convergence and divergence as we applied the findings to reconciling the learning progression and better understanding the item models. Because we were engaging with the stakeholders in different ways, the information we gained from each group was not in direct conflict or alignment. However, as we were trying to understand the details of the development of students' thinking, the sequence or progression of understanding, and the ways in which the concepts intertwine, we gathered different insights from each group. To date, we have identified the areas of divergence (in particular) and will be looking toward our next study to help us better understand these findings.

An area that surprised us was related to differences we observed in the relative importance of some concepts across stakeholders. For example, researchers identified some aspects of both constructs as essential for specific grades, but when gathering data about the frequency and importance of the skill from educators, there were discrepancies. We view these as important findings to inform both research and practice. 

This is such an interesting observation, and one that resonates with work we've done with professors across science disciplines and high school teachers. The two groups brought different perspectives/opinions/depth of knowledge about their particular science discipline, which informed their ideas about what was important for students to know, be able to do, and why. NGSS can provide the criteria for determining the importance of particular concepts for the purposes of your current project, or is this something that can wait for a future study? If not, do you think you'll navigate these decisions?  

Thank you for your question. We appreciate the work you do to support teachers and students! We understand the challenges of finding time to administer assessments. In fact, we have a Teacher Advisory Panel who has been providing meaningful input on the role their current assessments play in their decision making, their needs from a new assessment (like ours), and the feasibility and usability of our items.

Currently, our interviews last about 30 minutes and cover different sections of the learning progression for each construct. By the end of the project, our goal is to have classroom assessment resources that can be administered in 10-15 minute interviews. 

Thanks again and please keep in touch.

Super. Let's chat about that soon!

Thanks for watching our video and meaningfully engaging in our research. Yes, we are designing the assessments aligned to learning progressions (one for numeric relational reasoning and one for spatial reasoning). As you said, because the assessments measure students' incremental development along the progression, our intention is to stop the assessment at a certain point. In our previous work with older children (grades 2-8), we designed similar assessments and implemented a stopping rule after a specific threshold was reached. We are hoping similar methods can be employed for younger children. 

Thank you again for your question.  

Thank you for your suggestion. We will look into this resource. 

Thanks for watching our video, Aurora. I appreciate our feedback. 

Thanks for stopping by and commenting on our work, Lindy. 

Thank you for watching our video and engaging with us in discussion. We conducted a total of 48 cognitive interviews with students in grades K-2 for spatial reasoning and 64 for numeric relational reasoning. We are using the cognitive interview data to empirically evaluate the learning progression by gathering evidence to better understanding students' reasoning and thinking around these constructs. We are also using the information to better understand how students elicit their reasoning given the tasks we designed. Thank you again for watching our video.  

Thank you for your question, Deni. Given the population we are working with (students in grades K-2), we are designing this assessment to be an individually administered interview as opposed to multiple choice. We may have some multi-select items that are followed up by probing questions to better understand the student's reasoning behind their selection. These responses will contribute to understanding students' conceptualizations. Thanks again for watching our video and engaging in a discussion with us!