WEBVTT 00:00:11.056 --> 00:00:13.676 My name is Sheryl Sorby. 00:00:13.996 --> 00:00:18.236 My title is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering 00:00:18.236 --> 00:00:20.306 at Michigan Technological University. 00:00:20.306 --> 00:00:26.556 Spatial skills are those parts of your brain that enable you to visualize what something looks 00:00:26.556 --> 00:00:31.486 like if you rotate it in space or, if you're standing someplace, 00:00:31.566 --> 00:00:35.576 what something looks like over there or imagine the path you're going to go 00:00:35.576 --> 00:00:37.746 down as you're traveling somewhere. 00:00:38.486 --> 00:00:46.256 Spatial skills are part of your-what Gardner calls your Intelligences-are your spatial skills 00:00:46.756 --> 00:00:52.576 and they enable you to maneuver within your-the world around you, basically. 00:00:53.096 --> 00:01:01.706 The spatial skills are very important, but they're sometimes neglected in the education 00:01:01.706 --> 00:01:03.056 of the students as they come through. 00:01:03.146 --> 00:01:08.666 Engineering is one of the fields where spatial skills are the most important, 00:01:08.706 --> 00:01:13.366 because engineers are typically designing things that have never been before. 00:01:13.766 --> 00:01:18.596 And so in order to design something, you have to think in your mind what this will look like. 00:01:18.976 --> 00:01:20.886 And if you don't have well-developed spatial skills, 00:01:20.886 --> 00:01:23.786 then you can't figure out what something should look like. 00:01:23.786 --> 00:01:28.286 So, for example, a civil engineer is designing a bridge. 00:01:28.536 --> 00:01:32.056 Well, they have to be able to imagine how far this is going, 00:01:32.056 --> 00:01:35.436 what the approaches are going to look like so that you don't have a big bump 00:01:35.486 --> 00:01:37.496 when you go on and when you get off. 00:01:37.876 --> 00:01:42.516 And they have to imagine how much clearance you're going to need for trucks. 00:01:42.516 --> 00:01:47.046 All of those things are related to the space around that bridge. 00:01:47.046 --> 00:01:49.496 And the engineer has to think about all of those things. 00:01:49.496 --> 00:01:54.166 There are a lot of studies out there that look at gender differences and spatial skills. 00:01:54.226 --> 00:02:01.406 And what we've found is that at the university level and certainly maybe 00:02:01.406 --> 00:02:05.306 at the high school level, the gender differences on rotation are pronounced. 00:02:05.706 --> 00:02:09.436 The gender differences on tasks like imagining what something looks 00:02:09.436 --> 00:02:12.386 like as it's folded up is not as pronounced. 00:02:12.386 --> 00:02:16.926 And, in fact, in some cases, we've found that the female students outperform the male students. 00:02:16.926 --> 00:02:21.066 So it's mostly in the area of rotation, mental rotation. 00:02:21.766 --> 00:02:26.616 And the reason that that's important is that mental rotation is also the most important skill 00:02:26.686 --> 00:02:29.376 for success in engineering and, say, technology. 00:02:29.776 --> 00:02:36.966 And so even though girls usually have well-developed spatial skills in some areas, 00:02:36.966 --> 00:02:39.286 they might not have well-developed rotational skill. 00:02:39.286 --> 00:02:41.196 So mental rotation is the ability 00:02:41.196 --> 00:02:44.726 to imagine what something would look like if you rotate it in space. 00:02:44.796 --> 00:02:47.226 Or if you yourself rotated around it. 00:02:47.306 --> 00:02:52.936 So if I was going to stand at one angle of this chair and I would be able 00:02:52.936 --> 00:02:57.206 to imagine what it would look like if I was standing from another angle. 00:02:57.256 --> 00:03:01.206 Or if somebody were to take this chair and rotate it in space, 00:03:01.206 --> 00:03:04.146 I would image what it looks like from that direction. 00:03:04.226 --> 00:03:11.896 Now, most students-and including women and men-can imagine very well what something looks 00:03:11.896 --> 00:03:13.576 like if it's an object they're familiar with. 00:03:13.576 --> 00:03:17.856 So if I asked you, "What does this chair look like if I rotate in space?" 00:03:17.856 --> 00:03:20.526 No one would have a problem with that, because they know what a chair is 00:03:20.526 --> 00:03:23.136 and they know what a chair looks like from all different vantage points. 00:03:23.636 --> 00:03:27.646 But if it's a part or a system that's unfamiliar to you, 00:03:27.646 --> 00:03:30.626 which is the case if you're designing something new in engineering, 00:03:32.066 --> 00:03:34.506 and you try to imagine rotating that in space, 00:03:34.506 --> 00:03:37.946 that's where you have difficulty-if it's an unfamiliar object. 00:03:38.146 --> 00:03:41.876 The gender difference persists across several age levels. 00:03:42.836 --> 00:03:50.026 There are a lot of reasons why people think that the boys have better developed spatial skills 00:03:50.026 --> 00:03:53.136 than the girls, or rotational skills than the girls. 00:03:53.296 --> 00:04:01.286 Things that-playing with Legos and Tinkertoys and those kinds of activities have been shown 00:04:01.286 --> 00:04:10.406 to help people develop their spatial skills, and if you look at the- the girls tend to play 00:04:10.406 --> 00:04:12.366 with those toys less than the boys, 00:04:12.366 --> 00:04:16.426 and so they have less ability to develop their 3-D spatial skills. 00:04:16.426 --> 00:04:21.656 If you've ever looked at the pattern for a Lego, it shows you. 00:04:21.736 --> 00:04:24.656 You need these pieces and they all fit together in this way. 00:04:25.096 --> 00:04:29.556 And just practicing that and doing that helps you develop your 3-D spatial skills. 00:04:29.556 --> 00:04:31.656 And if girls haven't done those kinds of things, 00:04:32.056 --> 00:04:34.746 they haven't then developed their 3-D rotational skills. 00:04:34.856 --> 00:04:40.896 I think that this spatial skills training should be taking place in the middle school grades 00:04:41.256 --> 00:04:46.556 or in high school certainly, if not-I think it could even be started 00:04:46.556 --> 00:04:48.686 in the elementary grades, easily. 00:04:49.366 --> 00:04:51.856 And I think that students have responded. 00:04:51.856 --> 00:04:56.816 We've done some testing with students in middle school and high school, 00:04:56.816 --> 00:05:01.386 and they have been able to show significant improvements in their spatial skills 00:05:01.856 --> 00:05:03.326 through some training and practice. 00:05:03.776 --> 00:05:07.256 Spatial skills is part of the math national standards. 00:05:08.326 --> 00:05:12.396 It's not always tested in the high stakes tests in the states. 00:05:12.816 --> 00:05:19.276 It's not always tested on the ACT or SAT, but certainly it should be incorporated, 00:05:19.276 --> 00:05:24.526 perhaps in a high school geometry class or maybe even a high school algebra class. 00:05:24.926 --> 00:05:33.126 Another area that you could use-another area in the K-12 curriculum that could benefit 00:05:33.126 --> 00:05:36.216 from some spatial skills training is in technology classes, 00:05:36.346 --> 00:05:42.086 because engineers and technologists typically communicate with one another through drawings. 00:05:42.086 --> 00:05:47.746 So if you can't communicate through drawings, then you're kind of at a disadvantage in talking 00:05:47.746 --> 00:05:49.526 to other people about your designs. 00:05:49.526 --> 00:05:51.666 There's research out there that shows a strong link 00:05:51.726 --> 00:05:56.336 between well-developed spatial skills and math performance. 00:05:56.716 --> 00:06:03.166 So, for example, at my university we've found that students who have high spatial skills, 00:06:03.196 --> 00:06:07.336 typically have high ACT skills-ACT math scores. 00:06:07.936 --> 00:06:15.646 And so the link has been well established between math, I think, and spatial skills. 00:06:15.646 --> 00:06:18.516 And so if you help students improve their spatial skills, 00:06:19.266 --> 00:06:24.316 perhaps then you're helping them be more successful in their later on math courses. 00:06:24.946 --> 00:06:31.296 At our university, we've also found though that there could be a link between the spatial skills 00:06:31.296 --> 00:06:33.806 and things like computer science, physics. 00:06:34.186 --> 00:06:37.736 Other people have found links between spatial skills and chemistry performance. 00:06:38.066 --> 00:06:45.376 And so there's a lot of other courses that could benefit from some spatial skills training. 00:06:45.456 --> 00:06:49.326 And most of those are science, math, technology, engineering, those kids of courses. 00:06:49.936 --> 00:06:54.526 You know, if we look at our university students for the girls-or the women, 00:06:54.526 --> 00:07:02.906 I should say-the retention rate is about 50 percent for the women who have weak spatial skills 00:07:03.006 --> 00:07:09.626 and did not develop them, versus about 80 percent for the girls who actually went 00:07:09.726 --> 00:07:12.456 through some spatial skills training and improved their spatial skills. 00:07:12.996 --> 00:07:19.326 And I'm not sure if it was all their spatial skills training or they felt more confident 00:07:19.326 --> 00:07:22.386 because when they got to their next classes, the next class, 00:07:22.386 --> 00:07:25.326 they understood what they were looking at. 00:07:25.326 --> 00:07:30.776 Again, engineering professors tend to communicate always by drawing pictures. 00:07:31.096 --> 00:07:32.606 If you don't understand the pictures, 00:07:32.606 --> 00:07:35.356 you're not going to understand what the professor's talking about. 00:07:35.796 --> 00:07:42.316 And so what we found is helping these students improve their spatial skills, 00:07:42.496 --> 00:07:45.306 improved their success rate in engineering. 00:07:45.306 --> 00:07:50.146 It didn't necessarily improve all their grades, but it improved their willingness to stick it 00:07:50.146 --> 00:07:55.626 out and become engineers and become successful in the technological field later on. 00:07:56.006 --> 00:08:01.366 The biggest reason to help girls develop their spatial skills is just their feeling 00:08:01.366 --> 00:08:06.806 of confidence when they get into their follow on technology, math courses. 00:08:07.586 --> 00:08:12.596 I always tell the story about when I was a freshman at the university, 00:08:12.986 --> 00:08:15.396 majoring in engineering, you know. 00:08:15.396 --> 00:08:20.356 I had 97 percent on the chemistry test; I had 95 percent on the calculus test, 00:08:20.356 --> 00:08:24.966 and I took my first engineering graphics course, which is very spatially oriented, 00:08:25.516 --> 00:08:29.986 and it was the first time in my entire life I had struggled with a subject. 00:08:30.526 --> 00:08:35.905 I couldn't figure out why this line was there, why this line was dashed, this line was solid, 00:08:35.905 --> 00:08:37.716 and why was this-why did this look like this? 00:08:38.226 --> 00:08:43.206 It was very discouraging for me, especially because most of the male students 00:08:43.206 --> 00:08:46.516 in my class were like, "Oh, this is really easy. 00:08:46.516 --> 00:08:48.106 This is the easiest class I'm taking." 00:08:48.106 --> 00:08:49.786 And for me it was the most difficult. 00:08:50.316 --> 00:08:55.946 And so I think just to feel confident that you can go out and do these problems, 00:08:56.386 --> 00:08:58.806 you need to have well-developed spatial skills. 00:08:58.806 --> 00:09:02.226 And that's part of the reason that I got into this area. 00:09:02.806 --> 00:09:10.236 When I was teaching graphics later in life, I noticed that a lot of the young women 00:09:10.236 --> 00:09:12.876 in my class would be very discouraged. 00:09:13.056 --> 00:09:14.836 They'd say, "I can't understand this." 00:09:14.836 --> 00:09:16.876 They were all excellent students in high school, 00:09:17.366 --> 00:09:20.356 and they got to their graphics class, and they couldn't understand it. 00:09:20.356 --> 00:09:26.026 And so their first response was always, "I need to change majors and drop out of engineering." 00:09:26.726 --> 00:09:31.406 And I was always working with them saying, "No, no, no, no-you can do this. 00:09:31.526 --> 00:09:33.126 I did it. You can do this." 00:09:33.266 --> 00:09:39.076 And so I think that, just from a self confidence point of view, 00:09:39.156 --> 00:09:44.026 having girls with well-developed spatial skills is really important to their success, 00:09:44.026 --> 00:09:48.216 especially in engineering and technology and the other science fields. 00:09:48.836 --> 00:09:52.896 There have been a lot of studies through the years about spatial skills 00:09:52.896 --> 00:09:57.596 and their link to success in different careers. 00:09:57.856 --> 00:10:06.266 And there's a lot of, you know, medicine, dental work, computer science, engineering, 00:10:06.336 --> 00:10:09.846 technology, mathematics, physics-all 00:10:09.846 --> 00:10:13.386 of these fields require well-developed spatial skills, you know. 00:10:13.386 --> 00:10:20.776 I met with somebody doing research on-he was doing research on laparoscopic instruments. 00:10:20.776 --> 00:10:23.826 Those are the cameras that the doctors put inside of you now 00:10:23.826 --> 00:10:26.026 so they don't have to do surgery and open you up. 00:10:26.616 --> 00:10:31.336 And if you think about it, you have to have very well-developed spatial skills to operate 00:10:31.856 --> 00:10:34.106 that to know which way you're going to turn. 00:10:34.386 --> 00:10:38.996 If you get to the stomach, "Do I turn right or do I turn left to see what I want to see." 00:10:39.546 --> 00:10:46.446 And he found that he was trying to train doctors how to use this equipment, 00:10:46.656 --> 00:10:53.016 which is actually very advanced and it's helped medicine by leaps and bounds. 00:10:53.016 --> 00:10:57.626 And he found that the people with well-developed spatial skills learned how 00:10:57.626 --> 00:11:02.726 to use this equipment better than the people with poorly developed spatial skills. 00:11:02.776 --> 00:11:06.046 And so, even though maybe in a general case, 00:11:06.046 --> 00:11:09.686 a doctor doesn't need well-developed spatial skills, in some cases they do. 00:11:09.686 --> 00:11:14.006 And in fact, if they're looking at an xray, you want them to know what they're looking at. 00:11:14.006 --> 00:11:17.156 And so spatial skills are important, not just for engineering, 00:11:17.216 --> 00:11:20.006 but for all kinds of technical fields. 00:11:20.296 --> 00:11:29.826 And I think they've not been formally taught in a systematic way across the country. 00:11:30.296 --> 00:11:33.296 And that's, I think, one of the things that needs to change.