Teachers regularly use gestures—meaningful movements of the hands (Alibali, 2005)—when conveying STEM content to their students. Researchers have found that gestures can be particularly useful as a scaffold for student learning of mathematical equivalence (i.e. Goldin-Meadow, Kim, & Singer, 1999; Novack et al., 2014; Singer & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). Mathematical equivalence is a fundamental math concept taught early in elementary school that many students struggle with fully understanding (McNeil, 2008). Though there is evidence that supports gesture-use when teaching mathematical equivalence in a laboratory setting, there is a lack of evidence supporting its use in a classroom setting. In this study we examined if teacher’s gesture-use would be beneficial to students’ mathematical equivalence understanding in second grade classrooms. Further, we investigated whether gesture-use would affect learning outcomes differently within English Language Learning (ELL) students. Participants (n=119) were from seven classes and approximately half of the sample was of ELL status. Results did not support the use of gestures being more effective than the “business as usual” control; however, there was not a significant difference between the learning outcomes of ELL students and their non-ELL counterparts. This study highlights the necessity for further research on the use of gestures (and their impact) in the classroom setting.

Spatial skills, the set of cognitive skills that are responsible for our understanding of objects in real and imagined spaces, have been identified as a potential gate-keeper for STEM success. Because of the recent emphasis on improving education to prepare for the increasing demand for workers in STEM fields, there is a rising interest in bolstering students’ spatial skills to address this challenge. Given the evidence that teachers’ skills and attitudes toward a domain can affect their pedagogical practice within that domain and in turn affect their students’ learning and achievement, some researchers have focused their attention on understanding how to best support teachers. This study seeks to understand how specifically elementary school teachers’ spatial cognition and spatial affect impact their preference for implementing pedagogical devices that would promote the development of their students’ spatial thinking skills. It is imperative to study this particular sample of teachers because of the well-established presence of spatial reasoning in childhood and in the elementary school curriculum. Eighty elementary school teachers completed measures of spatial skills, spatial anxiety, spatial habits of mind, preferences for spatial pedagogy, general anxiety, and general reasoning. Results indicate that elementary school teachers' spatial skills were negatively associated with their spatial anxiety, and teachers who display higher levels of spatial skills reported greater preferences for using spatial pedagogy in hypothetical teaching situations. These findings have implications for teacher professional development related to supporting students’ spatial skills during science and math instruction in elementary school.