A taxonomy of spatial thinking skills - a review...

Gersmehl and Gersmehl (2006) and Downs and DeSouza (2006) have differing views of what spatial thinking is. The former taking the view, as indicated in the title of the article, that a definition, or list (or taxonomy) of key spatial skills, is tied to the neurological functioning and development of the brain. Whilst the latter proposes a definition based on knowing about, or developing knowledge about, three key concepts “space – for example, the relationship among units of measurement… representation – for example, the relationship among views… [and] reasoning – for example, different ways of thinking about… distances… or making decisions”. Whichever definition, or ‘blueprint’, is adopted, both agree that once this is in place and accepted, spatial thinking will enhance teaching and learning across a range of subject areas, not least, and arguably most importantly, geography.

Gersmehl and Gersmehl’s (2006) “‘taxonomy’ of spatial thinking skills” can also been seen as a response to something which I too have noticed during my ten year classroom teaching career, that young people today have access to a “staggering quantity of geospatial information” (Gersmehl and Gersmehl’s (2006)). It is possible to argue that there is a need for educators (arguably particularly those in geography classrooms) to enable young people to learn what geospatial data is useful and what is not, and with so much data in ‘techno-savvy’ students hands (iPhones, tablets, mobile technologies, etc.) they need guidance and training in how to use it effectively.

This requires teaching which enables the acquisition of knowledge, understanding and skills; an approach which, arguably, is largely pushed to the background in favour of teaching (or training) students to pass exams. As Gersmehl and Gersmehl’s (2006) put it: “what gets tested is what gets taught” – which is understandable when educational success is principally judged upon meeting targets, levels of progress and league tables based upon examination results. Therefore, in an environment where new ideas are only included in the curriculum if they can demonstrably aid students passing a ‘test’, and given there is a “lack of a clearly articulated consensus about the nature of spatial thinking” (Gersmehl and Gersmehl’s (2006)) it is easy to understand why spatial thinking hasn’t yet received the curriculum space it deserves. What’s more “…[because] geography has not yet produced a coherent list of spatial thinking skills or a convincing set of reasons why students should be tested on their mastery of [them]” (Gersmehl and Gersmehl’s (2006)) the reasons for teaching it are even more problematic. We cannot yet adequately or fundamentally answer ‘what is spatial thinking?’ nor ‘why is spatial thinking needed?’

Hence, it was to address these fundamental problems of identifying what spatial thinking is and includes, and to attempt to ensure spatial thinking’s place in the geography curriculum, that Gersmehl and Gersmehl proposed their taxonomy. They could see that teaching spatial thinking was capable of being substantively embedded into, and supportive of, the set of key skills students develop through learning geography and use in analysing maps. Furthermore, with the National Curriculum seemingly moving towards more factual based learning and testing being more ‘memory dependent’ of those learned facts, rather than the themes and issues approach which has prevailed for the last 20 or so years, there is a good, if not golden, opportunity to introduce spatial thinking into geographic education.

Gersmehl and Gersmehl (2006) finally warn us that “[s]patial thinking is an important part of geography, but it is not all of geography!” Like this, teachers need to be careful that an increase in prominence of spatial thinking does not replace other equally important aspects of geography; indeed spatial thinking should, perhaps, be something that it intertwined with and embedded into topics and enquiries already taught in the classroom.

Extracts from a review article published in 2014.
Link to article - http://www.geography.org.uk/journals/Journals.asp?articleID=1204