Part I Commentary 3: Proposing a pedagogical framework for the teaching and learning of spatial skills: A commentary on three chapters.

Education, generally, and mathematics education specifically, have long-held associations with the field of psychology. Schoenfeld (1987) and Mayer (1992) both described the connections between the two fields and indeed, many educational theories of development evolved from psychology. To this point, one of the longest running groups in mathematics education derived from the field of cognitive psychology, namely, The International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (IGPME). IGPME was established in 1976 under the guidance of Efraim Fischbein, a cognitive psychologist. Initially, the focus was, as the name suggested, on the developmental and psychological complexities of learning various mathematical concepts and processes. However, over the years, the organization has broadened to include new ways of thinking about mathematics learning that go beyond the purely cognitive aspect. In fact, very few cognitive psychologists attend the annual conference these days. Although the direct insights and engagement of cognitive psychology researchers are not commonplace, some overlap remains.