Gagnier et al. (2026) examine whether embedding spatial thinking practices into elementary science instruction can enhance teachers’ and students’ spatial skills. Rather than relying on stand-alone spatial training, the study evaluates a spatially-enhanced (SE) science curriculum that integrates five spatial strategies—gesture, spatial comparison, spatial language, sketching, and explicit visualization instruction—into daily classroom teaching. The intervention was implemented across an academic year with 35 third-grade teachers and 572 students from a large urban U.S. school district serving predominantly historically underrepresented populations.
Using a randomized design, teachers and students were assigned to one of three conditions: business-as-usual instruction, an NGSS-aligned curriculum (NGSS: Next Generation Science Standards), or an NGSS-aligned curriculum with embedded spatial enhancements. The NGSS-aligned curriculum emphasized core disciplinary ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts specified in NGSS, but did not include explicit instruction targeting spatial thinking. By contrast, the spatially-enhanced condition incorporated the same NGSS-aligned content while systematically embedding the five spatial strategies into instructional activities.
Pre- and post-assessments of spatial skills were administered to both teachers and students. Hierarchical linear regression results indicate that teachers exposed to the spatially-enhanced curriculum demonstrated significantly stronger gains in overall spatial reasoning, particularly in spatial visualization, compared with their counterparts in the other conditions. In contrast, student gains in spatial skills were more modest and did not consistently reach statistical significance.
The findings highlight teachers as a critical leverage point for spatially-enhanced instruction. By integrating spatial thinking into everyday science teaching and professional learning, the study demonstrates a feasible, curriculum-embedded approach to strengthening teachers’ spatial competencies. While student outcomes appear more sensitive to implementation and contextual factors, the research underscores the promise of spatially-enhanced curricula as a scalable pathway for enriching STEM instruction in elementary education.
Source (Open Access): Gagnier, K. M., Holochwost, S. J., Tomazin, L., Alsayegh, S., Fatahi, N., Gold, B., & Fisher, K. R. (2025). Spatially-enhanced science instruction in elementary school: Impacts on teachers’ and students’ spatial skills. Learning and Instruction, 102248.