What does teaching of spatial visualisation skills incur: an exploration through the visualise-predict-check heuristic

A major challenge in the field of spatial reasoning is the translation of decades of accumulated research findings from the domain of psychology and mathematics education into the school mathematics curriculum. This study aimed to operationalise a heuristic termed visualise-predict-check (VPC) for the teaching of spatial visualisation and explore the affordances for enabling teachers to foster spatial reasoning. We conducted moment-by-moment and fine-grained analysis of teaching-learning transactions of two teachers who implemented a lesson devised on the basis of the VPC heuristic. The data sources included video-taped recordings and classroom observations. The VPC heuristic provided teaching trajectories to explicitly prompt students to engage in spatial visualisation while learning mathematics and in so doing the class routine was remarkably spatially elevated. However, subtle disparities in the implementation of the lesson lead to differences in students’ engagement. The more deliberate VPC fostered students’ spatial thinking whereas the limited application of VPC tended to inhibit opportunities for reasoning spatially. VPC offers much potential to enhance spatial skills both in classroom routine teaching and in specialised interventions. © 2020, Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, Inc.