Spatial Geometry in Secondary School Education: Training Spatial Abilities and Identifying Students' Problems in Spatial Geometry
Abstract
The article addresses the teaching of spatial geometry in secondary schools with the implications to geometric courses at the university. We will focus especially on geometric topics which are taught in the Czech Republic, i.e. solid geometry, cross section of solids, transformations of two- and three-dimensional shapes in three-dimensional space and many more.
We will show several examples of typical geometric tasks from secondary school education and advanced topics from geometric courses at the university. Experiences gained from lecturing geometric courses (at Charles University, Czech Republic) intended for student newcomers to university show serious gap in students' spatial abilities.
We will identify some of concrete students' problems in spatial geometry and introduce several approaches, newly suggested exercises and activities for the both secondary school and university students which could mitigate these gaps. Our activities in the classrooms are supported with dynamic system GeoGebra which is widely used in education process all over the world.