International Workshop on Spatial Cognition and Learning
Workshop - Freiburg, Germany
September 13 and 14, 2008
This workshop brings together experts in a broad range of fields related to spatial cognition. The first aim is to review the state of the field and write a plan to guide research. Participants are tasked with outlining a broad research agenda for the near and medium term future in two areas of spatial cognition: 1) visualization in STEM education and 2) navigation and applications to robotics as well as to human engineering and design problems.
Spatial cognition is studied in many areas of psychology and findings have potentially broad implications in many areas of education. A second aim of this workshop is to provide a resource to overcome departmental and spatial separation to combine expertise to work on a large important problem. The workshop participants come from two national spatial cognition research centers, one funded by Germany, the Transregional Collaborative Research Center Spatial Cognition - Reasoning, Action, Interaction (SFB/TR8), and the other funded by the National Science Foundation, the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC). The two groups will be joined by members of the other NSF Science of Learning Centers (SLCs), as well as by independent experts from outside these centers.
Workshop Overview
The first day will begin with a talk outlining a broad approach to spatial cognition and then three sessions of 5-minute presentations. These talks could range from presentations of broad theory to focused data. Presentations that provide broad strokes with a dash of data should work well. These talks serve two simultaneous purposes - illustrate what the field knows and what each speaker feels are important questions and it will introduce the speaker to others so that people with overlapping interests can find each other for lunch and dinners. At the end of presentations on each theme, there will be a whole group discussion of the major take away points from the presentations in aggregate. These points will be the first workshop product.
In the morning of the second day groups will visit research labs at the University of Freiburg. We plan to visit the Virtual Reality Lab in the IIG - Institut fuer Informatik und Gesellschaft -- Centre for Cognitive Science (Prof. G. Strube), the Robotics Lab in the Computer Science Department (Prof. W. Burgard, Prof. B. Nebel).
After lunch on the second day there will be smaller breakout discussion groups tasked with identifying critical research questions for future work and opportunities for collaboration. The results of the breakout discussions will be discussed by the whole group. This discussion will develop a synthesis document outlining priority research directions.
Hotels
The hotels are both on Eisenbahnstrasse, which is straight ahead from the main exit of the train station.
Hotel Rheingold is approximately 100 meters (East) from the station
Hotel Victoria (Best Western) is approximately 300 meters (East) from the station
Park Hotel Post is approximately 300 meters (East) from the stationon, opposite Victoria
Agenda
Friday night
Meet in the lobbies of your hotels for small group dinners
Saturday
Location Haus zur Lieben Hand (Löwenstraße 16, Freiburg)
Walking directions from Hotels:
[shortest path]
From the hotels in Eisenbahnstrasse go up Eisenbahnstrasse towards
Rotteckring (i.e., away from the train station).
At Rotteckring turn right, following Rotteckring until you reach the
streetcar tracks.
Turn left into Bertoltstr., following the streetcar tracks for 100 meters.
Turn right into Niemensstrasse (at café Aspekte, it is the first opportunity
to turn right anyway).
After 30 meters turn left, following Niemensstrasse.
After another 100 meters, i.e. at the next opportunity, turn right into
[nobody-knows-the-name-of-this-bit-of-street] and follow it until it hits
Löwenstrasse. "Haus zur Lieben Hand" is right ahead of you.
[simple path]
From the hotels in Eisenbahnstrasse go up Eisenbahnstrasse towards
Rotteckring (i.e., away from the train station).
At Rotteckring turn right, following Rotteckring until you reach the
streetcar tracks.
Turn left into Bertoltstr., following the streetcar tracks for 400 meters to
Bertoltsbrunnen (where all streetcar tracks intersect).
Turn right, following tracks towards a gate named "Martinstor, identified by
the Golden arches of a fast food chain).
Turn right into Löwenstr. (before you actually reach the gate "Martinstor").
You will find the "Haus zur Lieben Hand" on the left hand side, Löwenstrasse
18.
9:00 Welcome and Introductions
9:15-9:45 Building a framework for research in Spatial Cognition
9:45-11 (15 5-minute talks)
11-11:10 Discussion
11:10 - 11:30 Coffee break
11:30-12:45 (15 5-minute talks)
12:45 - 1 Discussion
1-3 lunch
3-4:15 (15 5-minute talks)
4:15-4:45 discussion
4:45-5:15 Coffee break
5:15-6:45 Split into working groups on Navigation and Visualization in Education
7:00 dinner at Haus zur Lieben Hand
Sunday
9:00-12:30 Lab visits
The bus for the lab visit will depart from Eisenbahnstrasse,
the street where the hotels are
12:30-2:00 Lunch
2:00-5:00 Small group work on recommendations for a research program in spatial cognition
5:00-5:30 Coffee break
5:30-6:30 Compile and synthesize recommendations
6:30 Bus to Schloss Reinach (SC08 conference site) for dinner
8-11 dinner
11:00 Transportation back to town for those not staying on for SC08.