Educational Robotics and Computational Thinking Development in Preschool

Gerosa, A.; Koleszar, Víctor; Gómez-Sena, Leonel; Tejera, Gonzalo; Carboni, Alejandra

doi:10.1109/laclo49268.2019.00046

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Children were randomly assigned to either experimental condition or control conditions. Our experimental condition consisted of an ER intervention with RoboTito ( Bakała et al, 2019 ; Gerosa et al, 2019 ), a robot designed to be programmable through the arrangement of objects in its environment and has been successfully used by young children. Children in the experimental condition took part in an 11-session educational robotics intervention designed to promote CT. We implemented an active control group, meaning children assigned to the control condition got to play with the same robot but did not program its movements through manipulating its environment.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…ER sessions were implemented in groups of 5–7 children and lasted 25–30 min each ( Gerosa et al, 2019 ). A spare classroom within the school was used to carry out the activities, and their frequency averaged at 1.5 sessions per week.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, researchers in the intersection of computing education and developmental psychology have studied the association between CT and young children's cognitive development (Gerosa et al, 2021;Tsarava et al, 2022) in an attempt to define CT empirically through studying its relation with well-established cognitive abilities at different points in development. These findings suggest there is an association between CT skills and early math skills at an early age, specifically during preschool education.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Educational Robotics Intervention to Foster Computational Thinking in Preschoolers: Effects of Children’s Task Engagement

et al. 2022

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Computational thinking (CT) is a broadly used term in education to refer to the cognitive processes underlying the application of computer science concepts and strategies of problem-solving. Recent literature has pointed out the value of children acquiring computational thinking skills (i.e., understanding and applying concepts, such as conditionals, iteration, or generalization), especially while learning STEM subjects. Robotics has been used as a tool to introduce computational thinking and STEM knowledge to children. As physical objects, robots have been proposed as developmentally appropriate for the early childhood setting, promoting motivation and allowing young learners to represent abstract ideas in a concrete setting. This study presents a novel educational robotics (ER) intervention using RoboTito, a robot programmable through tangible elements in its environment designed for kindergarteners. We used a quasi-experimental design with an active control group. In addition, we conducted a structured observation of the filmed material of the sessions to gather data on children’s attention and motivation throughout the activities. Fifty-one children (male = 33; mean age = 66 months, SD = 5.49 months) attending level 5 (kindergarten) at a Uruguayan public school participated in the study. Children in our experimental condition participated in an intervention programming RoboTito using tangible elements, while children in our control condition played with the robot through sensory-motor activities using a remote control and did not engage in programming. Motivational and attentional factors were assessed through video-recorded sessions of the ER activities. Four trained observers blind to the experimental conditions participated in the coding. Children’s interactions were assessed in four categories: task engagement, distractibility, oral participation, and objective fulfillment. Our results suggest children’s task engagement mediated their gains in CT after the intervention; post-hoc Tukey contrasts revealed non-significant pre-test to post-test gains for the control and low engagement groups, and significant for the high engagement group. Overall, we conclude task engagement played a central role in children’s learning gains and our robotics intervention was successful in promoting CT for engaged children. We discuss the practical implications of our results for early childhood education and developmentally appropriate ER targeted for young learners.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Educational Robotics Intervention to Foster Computational Thinking in Preschoolers: Effects of Children’s Task Engagement

et al. 2022

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“…Also, a qualitative method, in addition to the quantitative method, would be added so that more information can be gathered on the relationship between technology affordance, acceptance, and readiness among primary school teachers in integrating IR 4. (Papadakis et al, 2017), KIBO (Bers & Donohue, 2019), RoboTito (Gerosa et al, 2019), andBee-bot (Di Lieto et al, 2017).…”

Section: Limitations Of the Study And Implications For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Survey on Acceptance and Readiness to Use Robot Teaching Technology Among Primary School Science Teachers

Rao¹,

Jalil²

2021

ASS

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Interest in educational robotics has grown in recent years, and many efforts have been undertaken across the globe to include robots into school instruction from kindergarten to high school, mostly in science and technology subjects. The current study is to determine teachers' technological acceptance and readiness to implement robotic technology in the teaching and learning process. A descriptive research design was employed which utilized a survey method. This survey was conducted among primary school teachers of Science, Mathematics, Design and Technology, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Malaysia. According to the findings, teachers' acceptance of robot technology in the classroom is at a modest 3.77 (SD = 0.598) while the readiness score is 3.67 (SD = 0.611). The findings indicated that school teachers are only moderately prepared to employ robotic technology in classrooms. Respondents also argued that the high cost of robotic technology is a significant barrier to incorporate robotic technology into teaching and learning. The practicality of this paper is the provision of insights for exploring adoption possibilities and barriers in auguring robots into primary school classrooms. This indicates that the higher the level of teachers’ acceptance, the higher teachers’ readiness in robotic technology. Respondents argued that the high cost of robotic technology is a significant barrier to incorporating robotic technology into teaching and learning.

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“…Ao final da pesquisa, após análise dos resultados, os autores sugerem que a integração de aulas introdutórias de computação e robótica em sala de aula com alunos de baixo nível socioeconômico pode ajudá-los a alcançar níveis semelhantes de interesses e atitudes de engenharias em relação a alunos com maior renda familiar. Dessa forma, essas habilidades e competências adquiridas corroboram e se enquadram em um termo bastante difundido na área da ciência da computação, denominado Pensamento Computacional, isto é, uma maneira de resolver problemas comuns do dia a dia de maneira sistemática baseada em um processo que se inicia desde a análise do problema e organização dos pensamentos, representação de dados através de abstrações que podem ser representadas em modelos ou simulações, e por fim, automatização de problemas de maneira eficiente visando criar uma forma de padronizar algumas soluções para problemas diversos [3] [4].…”

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UpRobotics: Robótica Educacional Utilizando Linguagem Visual Baseada em Blocos

Marinho¹,

Monteiro²,

Barreto³

2020

Anais Estendidos Do X Simpósio Brasileiro De Engenharia De Sistemas Computacionais (SBESC Estendido 2020)

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A tecnologia é um recurso fundamental que traz impacto em todos os setores da vida cotidiana. Dessa forma, há hipóteses que apontam para uma demanda crescente por profissionais com habilidades e competências na área de computação, tanto no setor industrial quanto científico. No entanto, ainda há uma carência latente no que tange ao desenvolvimento do pensamento computacional no ensino básico, particularmente em sociedades com baixo nível socioeconômico. Existem diversas razões que vão muito além de recursos limitados, ou falta de interesse dos alunos, que inclui a dificuldade de entendimento e abstração dessas tecnologias, tanto por parte dos educadores, quanto dos alunos. Desta forma, este artigo propõe um método para exercitar o pensamento computacional utilizando a Matemática de maneira conjunta com duas estratégias bem sucedidas: a robótica educacional e a utilização de linguagem visual baseada em blocos gráficos arrastáveis. O UpRobotics é o artefato principal desta pesquisa, uma ferramenta voltada ao público escolar infantil, capaz de explorar conhecimentos científicos dos alunos, tanto matemáticos quanto computacionais, capacitando-os para manipular um braço robótico usando uma linguagem visual baseada em blocos.

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Educational Robotics and Computational Thinking Development in Preschool

Cited by 11 publications

References 23 publications

Educational Robotics Intervention to Foster Computational Thinking in Preschoolers: Effects of Children’s Task Engagement

Educational Robotics Intervention to Foster Computational Thinking in Preschoolers: Effects of Children’s Task Engagement

A Survey on Acceptance and Readiness to Use Robot Teaching Technology Among Primary School Science Teachers

UpRobotics: Robótica Educacional Utilizando Linguagem Visual Baseada em Blocos

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