Sensor-enabled Geometric Blocks for Research in Early-childhood Education

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This REESE Pathways project aims to develop and evaluate a novel procedural and methodological approach for assessing cognitive and fine-motor skills in children through sensor-embedded geometric blocks. Cognitive problem-solving, fine-motor control, and working memory skills are closely linked to fundamental STEM reasoning and learning abilities. Employing a set of sensor-integrated geometric blocks and an interactive graphical user interface, the blocks will function as an automated, objective, and multimodal assessment and educational tool for researchers, clinicians, educators, and parents, while also being engaging for children.Three types of blocks will be developed: assembly, shape matching, and shape memory. The three types address children's abilities of conceptual reasoning, problem-solving, and working memory, in addition to fine-motor control and visual-motor integration. Initial evaluation will focus on testing safety, durability, and usability of the developed technology. Reliability and validity evaluation will later be conducted on young children, aged 4 to 6. This project will provide advanced instrumentation for related research areas by enabling collection from multiple real-time data sources that are objective, simultaneous, and cumulative in a variety of different environmental settings. It will bring a direct impact on early education for preschoolers and school-aged children by providing a tangible interface for learning fundamental STEM content in various formal and informal educational settings. Furthermore, it can be easily transformed into various tests for measuring intelligence, achievement, learning capability, motor proficiency, spatial memory, and attention, while addressing individual differences and special needs, particularly for underrepresented groups. The blocks may also be extended to interventional and therapeutic applications for persons with cognitive or motor disabilities.