Child-identified problems and their robotic solutions

Abstract

Research on early childhood robotics education often focuses narrowly on teaching young children STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) concepts and skills. In this qualitative case study, our research team examined what happened when we worked with young children (age 7) and combined the technologies of robotics education with an inquiry approach, that is, an opportunity for students to collaboratively identify a problem arising from their own lived experiences and build a robot to solve it. We found that the process of children’s problem identification was dialogic, not only with peers and teachers but also with materials, as they defined and refined problems based on interactions with peers and objects. As this study was conducted at an economically disadvantaged public school in the Southern United States, we argue that early childhood robotics education has a great potential to engage young children in STEM learning in a personally meaningful manner and that an instructional approach fostering children’s inquiry and project-based learning through their problem finding and problem posing is effective in making STEM accessible to students from diverse backgrounds.

Educational Robotics for Developing Computational Thinking in Young Learners: A Systematic Review

“…Among the 22 studies, 18 studies (82%) took place in formal education settings, including pre-kindergarten to elementary school classrooms (i.e., Angeli & Valanides, 2020;Bers et al, 2014Bers et al, , 2019Cherniak et al, 2019;Chevalier et al, 2020;Chiazzese et al, 2019;Fanchamps et al, 2021;García-Valcárcel-Muñoz-Repiso & Caballero-González, 2019;Hsiao et al, 2022;Kazakoff & Bers, 2012;Kopcha et al, 2021;Moore et al, 2020;Nam et al, 2019;Noh & Lee, 2020;Sáez-López et al, 2019;Shen et al, 2022;Taylor & Baek, 2019). Four studies took place in informal education settings, such as summer camps/programs and after-school programs (i.e., Luo et al, 2020;Newton et al, 2020;Pugnali et al, 2017).…”

“…The shortest robotics activity lasted for 80 min (two 40-min sessions), as found in the Angeli and Valanides (2020) study. The four studies having the relatively short robotics activities (5 h or fewer) all had very young participants from pre-K to 2nd graders (i.e., Angeli & Valanides, 2020;Bers et al, 2019;Cherniak et al, 2019;Moore et al, 2020).…”

“…The reviewed studies as a collection examined a range of learning and instructional approaches to develop CT through robotics in young leaners, with collaborative learning, project-based learning (PBL), and embodied learning being the three most frequently adopted approaches. Noticeably, recognizing the benefits and importance of collaboration, 15 studies adopted group work or incorporated collaborative strategies in the robotics activities for CT development with various levels of elaboration and justification on the use of the instructional approaches (i.e., Angeli & Valanides, 2020;Bers et al, 2019;Cherniak et al, 2019;Chevalier et al, 2020;Chiazzese et al, 2019;Fanchamps et al, 2021;García-Valcárcel-Muñoz-Repiso & Caballero-González, 2019;Kopcha et al, 2021;Moore et al, 2020;Nam et al, 2019;Newton et al, 2020;Noh & Lee, 2020;Pugnali et al, 2017;Taylor & Baek, 2019). For example, Chevalier et al (2020) grouped 3 rd and 4 th graders into small groups of two to three students to undertake the robot lawnmower mission.…”

“…Taylor and Baek (2019) examined grouping strategies and reported that assigning group roles had a significantly positive effect on 4 th and 5 th graders' CT development while gender composition of the groups had no effects on CT development. While many reviewed studies engaged learners in robotics projects as learning tasks, only five reviewed studies specifically cited PBL as an instructional approach that can enhance robotics activities and CT development (i.e., Cherniak et al, 2019;Chiazzese et al, 2019;Fanchamps et al, 2021;Sáez-López et al, 2019). PBL engages students in the inquiry process of researching relevant information, and creating and testing solutions to a posted question (Blumenfeld et al, 1991).…”

How Do Elementary Childhood Education Teachers Perceive Robotic Education in Kindergarten? A Qualitative Study

“…As there are limited studies on using robots in kindergarten for educational purposes, there exists a huge potential for STEM fields interest of students and in promoting project-based learning (Cherniak, Lee, Cho, & Jung, 2019). With robotic education children can learn basic programming skills and robotics (Sullivan & Bers, 2016), improve programming skills and enhance abilities in planning and controlling complex tasks (Di Lieto et al, 2017), enhance sequencing skills (Kazakoff & Bers, 2014), and an increase in the interest of girls in engineering can be possible (Sullivan & Bers, 2019).…”