The author of this thesis believes that Geography Education and School Cartography have both great importance for the development of spatial thinking among students in K-12. This dimension of intelligence is crucial for citizenship and for the practice of many professional and daily activities. Considering such a framework, the main goal of this research is to assess the contribution of Geography Education and School Cartography in Brazilian middle school to enhance student's capacity to think spatially in situations that encompass spatial representations, specially cartographic ones, in geographical contexts. To answer this question we decided to betake the field research known as "spatial thinking", developed mostly in the U.S. during the last two decades. As a consequence we adopted the definition of spatial thinking that was presented in the report of the National Research Council (2006), which has become the main reference in the field: "Spatial thinking-one form of thinking-is based on a constructive amalgam of three elements: concepts of space, tools of representation, and processes of reasoning" (NRC, 2006, ix). Our methodology was based on two interconnected paths. We analyzed the three most adopted Geography textbooks collections for the four years of Brazilian middle school (6 th to 9 th grades) with the purpose of assessing in which extent the exercises in those books are capable of fostering student's spatial thinking. In order to stablish a comparison with Brazilian textbooks we also assessed a French textbook collection destined to the same grade levels. To perform such an assessment, we used the Taxonomy of Spatial Thinking (Jo and Bednarz, 2009) designed for this particular purpose and replied by Scholz et al. (2014). The study identified not only the ratio of questions demanding spatial thinking but also the processes of reasoning involved. The second methodological path was based on the use of the Spatial Thinking Ability Test (STAT), designed by Lee and Bednarz (2012). We have administered the STAT to 268 students of six different Brazilian schools, all of them in the end of the 9 th grade. After organizing all the data, we compared the Brazilian results with those of two international studies where the same test was administered: one school in the United States (LEE and BEDNARZ, 2012) and three schools in Ruanda (TOMASZEWSKI et al., 2014). Our analysis included both the global results of students overall performance in the test and their accomplishments regarding the eight modes of thinking spatially defined by the authors of the STAT. Our final conclusions were the results of the comparison between the outcomes obtained from our two methodological paths.
Apesar dos mapas e globos serem percebidos por muitos como um símbolo da Geografia, são conhecidos os problemas e desafios que envolvem a dupla Educação Geográfica-Cartografia Escolar. Estamos entre aqueles que defendem a perspectiva de que a articulação entre a Educação Geográfica e a Cartografia Escolar possui grande relevância para o desenvolvimento do pensamento espacial dos estudantes da escola básica e que essa dimensão da inteligência é essencial para a cidadania consciente e para o exercício das mais diversas atividades profissionais e cotidianas. Para fundamentar essa posição, recorremos ao campo de pesquisas do pensamento espacial (spatial thinking), desenvolvido principalmente nos Estados Unidos no decorrer das últimas décadas. Dessa forma, adotamos a definição apresentada no relatório do National Research Council (2006) e que se tornou a referência nessa seara de investigação: “Pensamento espacial – um tipo de pensamento – é baseado na amálgama de três elementos: conceitos espaciais, instrumentos de representação e processos de raciocínio” (NRC, 2006, ix). Neste artigo, apresentamos, de maneira sinótica, os significados e articulações que envolvem esses três elementos e também alguns fundamentos para justificar a nossa defesa da pertinência desse campo científico como capaz de agregar potência teórica e metodológica à Cartografia Escolar brasileira. PALAVRAS-CHAVE Educação Geográfica. Cartografia Escolar. Pensamento Espacial. CARTOGRAPHIC LANGUAGE AS A SCAFFOLD FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPATIAL THINKING OF STUDENTS ABSTRACT Despite the fact that maps and globes are popularly known as symbols of geography, there are old and persistent problems and challenges that remain strong, concerning school cartography in geography education. We are among those who defend that Geography Education and School Cartography have both great importance for the development of spatial thinking among students in K-12 and that this dimension of intelligence is crucial for citizenship and for the practice of many professional and daily activities. To support this perspective we decided to betake the field research known as “spatial thinking”, developed mostly in the United States during the last two decades. As a consequence we adopted the definition that was presented in the report of the National Research Council (2006), which has become the main reference in the field: “Spatial thinking—one form of thinking— is based on a constructive amalgam of three elements: concepts of space, tools of representation, and processes of reasoning” (NRC, 2006, ix). In this paper we briefly present the meanings and connections between those three elements and also some foundations to justify our position that this scientific field is capable of adding theoretical and methodological power to Brazilian school cartography. KEYWORDS Geography Education. School Cartography. Spatial Thinking. ISSN: 2236-3904REVISTA BRASILEIRA DE EDUCAÇÃO EM GEOGRAFIA - RBEGwww.revistaedugeo.com.br - revistaedugeo@revistaedugeo.com.br
Neste artigo apresentamos uma breve análise a algumas conclusões resultantes do exame cuidadoso das atividades didáticas presentes nas três coleções de livros didáticos de geografia mais utilizadas pelos alunos brasileiros que estudam na etapa da escolarização entre o 6º e o 9º anos do ensino fundamental. Nossa análise está fundamentada no campo teórico do pensamento espacial (spatial thinking), campo de estudos interdisciplinares que transita entre as áreas de interesse de diversas disciplinas, com certo destaque para a psicologia cognitiva, a matemática e a geografia, entre muitos outros. Usamos como referência metodológica a taxonomia do pensamento espacial desenvolvida por Jo e Bednarz (2009) e replicada por Scholz, Huynh, Brysch, e Scholz (2014). Essencialmente, trata-se de avaliar os exercícios e atividades presentes nos livros didáticos com o objetivo de aferir o percentual daqueles que, efetivamente, demandam o uso do pensamento espacial e averiguar quais os processos de raciocínio que estão envolvidos.
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