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(Re)(con)figuring Space: Three Children’s Geometric Reasonings

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Contemporary Research and Perspectives on Early Childhood Mathematics Education

Part of the book series: ICME-13 Monographs ((ICME13Mo))

Abstract

Despite decades of research revealing the importance of and need for developing students’ spatial reasoning skills, geometry receives the least attention in North American K-12 mathematics classrooms. This chapter focuses on three grade one children as they worked on a spatial-geometric task. The study as part of a larger research project inquired into the actual forms, activities and processes that constituted the children’s reasonings and geometry during the three episodes. The findings contribute to current early years research by further explicating the body’s role in the children’s spatial-geometric reasonings, the impact of these on their conceptions, and how geometry emerged as an ongoing creative process of (re)(con)figuring space. Key implications are considered regarding young children’s spatial-geometric reasoning in the mathematics classroom.

This study was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I am most grateful to the research team, teachers, students, and assistants who took part in this work.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Throughout the larger research project from which these episodes are taken, there was no particular mode that the children were expected to demonstrate their thinking. However, making mathematical ideas and thinking available to others and for the class’ further exploration was certainly modeled, discussed, and encouraged in all lessons. As such, a variety of materials were on hand for students to use if they wished.

  2. 2.

    This shift in attention carried through to the next drawing(s) and conversations with Sophia and April where the students, also on their own, chose to focus on the side of the object.

  3. 3.

    In contrast to the concept of interaction, transaction implies the irreducibility of the children’s agency as well as the material and spatial-geometrical structures that emerge.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Victoria, PO Box 1700 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 2Y2, Canada

    Jennifer S. Thom

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  1. Jennifer S. Thom
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Correspondence to Jennifer S. Thom .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Iliada Elia

  2. Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Joanne Mulligan

  3. Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Ann Anderson

  4. Department of Mathematics, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Anna Baccaglini-Frank

  5. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Education Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Christiane Benz

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Thom, J.S. (2018). (Re)(con)figuring Space: Three Children’s Geometric Reasonings. In: Elia, I., Mulligan, J., Anderson, A., Baccaglini-Frank, A., Benz, C. (eds) Contemporary Research and Perspectives on Early Childhood Mathematics Education. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73432-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73432-3_8

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