Thinking in 3-D

A vod presentation by Annenberg Media, Learner.org,  shows a lesson called “Building Viewpoints.” Seventh-graders learn about spatial sense and geometry from a blueprint of 
ancient buildings. They then create their own three-dimensional models and draw them from different viewpoints.

One questioning strategy Ms. Hardaway uses is to follow the students’ lead and ask a probing questioning to build on the story being shared. “Can anyone tell me what this is a picture of?” After one student commented that they are blueprints, she continued along the same path of questioning, “What are blueprints used for?” This formed a natural segue to the objective to build and draw a 3-D model from the left, right, front and back. A second questioning strategy helped students to consider how their views were alike or different from each other. A comparative-based question such as comparing all four views falls within the analysis stage of Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning.

The content of this activity is important in middle grade because it builds on a visual and special sense of geometric problem solving. Students were actively engaged in sculpting 3-D figures and translating this information into 2-D drawings. Leading up to an activity that will involve analyzing a 3-D model and transferring their new knowledge into 3-D drawings. This newly acquired prior knowledge will be useful to apply to future projects.


When constructing 3-D buildings from manipulatives, tactile learners are engaged as they move it, feel it, turn it around and flip it upside down. Through small group sharing, I would enrich this activity with writing a conclusion paragraph to restate the main idea, include supporting details, and build on higher-order questioning. Bloom’s Taxonomy continues to open minds by moving into a stage of synthesis. At this stage, students may contrast, categorize and discriminate the various views observed. Evaluation can encourage students to reconstruct, reorganize, summarize and validate their ideas as they explore their understanding along an investigative path.