Design of a Spatial Visualization App for Increased Student Engagement

Hand sketching of isometrics and orthographic projections is an important skill for concept generation and team brainstorming.In addition, hand sketching skills increase spatial visualization abilities, which have been correlated with increased GPAs in math and science.In an effort to teach freehand hand sketching and spatial visualization skills in an engaging and cost effective manner, two applications that use iPad touchscreen technology have been developed.The Spatial Visualization Trainer (SVT), targeting high school and undergraduate students, and Spatial Kids, targeting K-8 students, allow users to learn spatial visualization skills independently.A unique feature of these applications is that hand sketches are graded automatically.Once a student submits a sketch, they receive an indication if their work is correct (within a tolerance threshold).When students have an error in their sketching solution, they are given the option to redo the sketch or take a peek at the solution.To evaluate the effectiveness of the App, a course was taught in Spring 2014.54 students completed the course using the SVT software on iPads during class with a teacher present, and took a pre-and post-assessment test to gauge improvement.Of the 13 students who began the class with a low pre-test score (<70%), one subgroup increased their posttest score by 43% while the other sub-group had virtually no improvement and actually had an average score decrease of -4%.The primary difference between these two groups was that the students who did not see improvement peeked at the solution with minimal effort to challenge themselves and try on their own.Accordingly, the App has been redesigned with the focus of increasing student engagement and student persistence.This paper introduces four main modifications that were made: 1) the development of assignments that start simple and get more complex, 2) an intermediate option to receive a hint (animation) before peeking at the solutions, 3) a point system (stars) to encourage students to try without taking hints or peeking, and 4) the use of a few assessment questions at the end of each lesson where the hint and peek options are disabled.This paper describes the SVT and Spatial Kids applications, the enhancements to the feedback provided to the students in order to promote engagement, and future directions.