Building the Spatial Operational Capacity (SOC) of the Primary School child through rich learning experiences: A Geometry curriculum for Gauteng Province in South Africa.

Dirk Wessels. Department of Further Teacher Education,

University of South Africa. PO Box 392, Pretoria 0003. Email: wessedcj@unisa.ac.za

Retha van Niekerk. Advtech Group, Crawford Schools Headoffice, PO Box 2369, Randburg 2125. South Africa. Email:

rethavn@iafrica.com

The changes in South African curriculum design, called curriculum 2005 (Revised version: Curriculum 21) has major implications for mathematics (number and space) teaching and learning in the primary school of South Africa. A new program for spatial development has been designed. This program agrees with Freudenthal namely that geometry education should be about the way in which children (at the lowest level) grasp the space in that they live and move. Geometry, as a logical system, should never be introduced to the child at too early an age. If so, it tends to be a fruitless exercise.

The way in which the young learner investigates this space can be organized by educationists in different ways. This paper is an attempt to give a guideline or theoretical framework through the introduction of the SOC (Spatial Operational Capacity) model, of how space should be organizedd in the curricula for young learners. This model does not only propose the spatial content that needs to be addressed but also a specific teaching methodology as well as a suitable assessment tool to evaluate the process of spatial development.

The curriculum guidelines that have been proposed in the form of Progress Maps were designed with the SOC model as theoretical framework. Three content areas were chosen on which the model was superimposed namely, Shape, Vision and Location. This view implies that the spatial development of the learner is not strictly limited to the development of their understanding of shape, but also of their positioning in space as well as their ability to look and see things in space. Levels 1-6 as indicated in the progress maps, were designed to show order and growth in the spatial thought process. The design of these levels is based on the Van Hiele thought levels for the development of spatial knowledge of the young child.

An additional aspect of geometry that is addressed by the SOC model is the availability of dynamic computer software namely Geometer’s Sketchpad. The utilisation and introduction of computer software that utilises the dynamic aspects of transformations, are crucial components in assisting understanding in the development of spatial knowledge of young children.

Aspects of this model have been tried out, for the past seven years, with multilingual/multicultural children between the ages of 5 and 13 years. The research approach that was followed made use of a Developmental Research Methodology where teaching, learning and assessment are viewed as interrelated components of the total development of spatial knowledge.

The assessment that was and should be used in assessing the spatial knowledge of young children can be called didactical assessment. This means that the purpose of the assessment as well as the content, the methods applied and the instruments used are all of a didactical nature (see Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen)