Educational Robotics as Mindtools

2019

Educational robotics (ER) is a subset of educational technology that includes robotic kits and social robots utilized with a goal to facilitate teaching and learning. Scientific publications on educational robotics are commonly anticipated by references to constructivism and constructionism. However, in philosophy, social sciences and cognitive science, constructivism is not a unified framework but a conglomerate of at least six different branches with diverse ontological, epistemological and pragmatic positions. This thesis takes a form of a critical survey where my aim was to map and to evaluate what constructivism means in and for educational robotics research. To meet this goal, I collected and studied 57 ER publications dated 2000-2018. Following an extended introduction into constructivist debates in philosophy and cognitive science, and the discussion how these influenced contemporary educational paradigms in the first and second chapters of the thesis, in the third chapter I proceed to lay out the insights I gathered during my survey of educational robotics literature. As expected, interpretations ranged from less theoretically informed where constructivism is reduced to any instances of hands-on manipulations of robotic technology, to more informed where constructivism is interpreted through the lens of subject-centered constructivist strands (Piaget-derived cognitive constructivism and its spin-off constructionism). In the latter group, notions associated with authentic education paradigm, such as collaboration, personalization, exploratory learning, and others, are addressed either as pedagogical strategies or as objects of research on their own terms. Though fewer in numbers, the field is also represented by studies that integrate concepts from social constructivism with the overall authentic education orientation. Here, Vygotskian concepts such as zone of proximal development, more knowledgeable other and scaffolding are commonly referred to. The thesis concludes with a broader discussion and my suggestions for future research. Given that to date there exists no thorough overview of constructivist influences on the field of educational robotics, I hope my work can function both as an introduction into the field of educational robotics through the prism of constructivism, and as a useful reference for future empirical studies. v Zusammenfassung Bildungsrobotik (ER) ist eine Untergruppe der Bildungstechnologie, die Roboterbaukästen und soziale Roboter einsetzt, um Lehren und Lernen zu vereinfachen. Wissenschaftliche Publikationen im Bereich der Bildungsrobotik beziehen sich häufig auf Konstruktivismus und Konstruktionismus. Konstruktivismus stellt jedoch weder in der Philosophie noch in den Sozial-oder Kognitionswissenschaften einen einheitlichen, theoretischer Rahmen sondern vielmehr eine Ansammlung von mindestens sechs verschiedenen Zweigen dar, welche sich in ihren ontologischen, epistemologischen und pragmatischen Positionen unterscheiden. Diese Masterarbeit ist eine kritische Untersuchung der Forschung zu Bildungsrobotik, um die Bedeutung von Konstruktivismus innerhalb von und für diese auszuarbeiten und zu evaluieren. Hierfür wurden 57 ER Publikationen zwischen 2000 und 2018 gesammelt und in Hinblick auf ihr Verständnis von Konstruktivismus analysiert. Nach einer detaillierten Einführung in die Konstruktivismusdebatte in Philosophie und Kognitionswissenschaften sowie einer Diskussionüber den Einfluss dieser Debatte auf zeitgenössische Bildungsparadigmen in Kapitel eins und zwei, werden im dritten Kapitel die Erkenntnisse zusammengefasst, die in der Auseinandersetzung mit der Literatur zur Bildungsrobotik gewonnen wurden. Wie erwartet bewegten sich Interpretationen von Konstruktivismus zwischen theorie-schwächeren Auslegungen, in denen Konstruktivismus auf jegliche Fälle praktischer Manipulation der Robotiktechnologie reduziert wurde, und theoretisch-fundierteren Auslegungen, in denen Konstruktivismus durch Subjekt-orientierte, konstruktivistische Stränge, insbesondere dem von Piaget abgeleiteten, kognitiven Konstruktivismus und dessen Ableger Konstruktionismus, interpretiert wurde. In Publikationen, die ein informierteres Verständnis von Konstruktivismus aufwiesen, wurden Begrifflichkeiten aus dem Paradigma des authentischen Lernens, wie Zusammenarbeit, Personalisierung und aktiventdeckendes Lernen, entweder als pädagogische Strategien oder als eigenständige Forschungsobjekte behandelt. Das Forschungsfeld beinhaltete zudem, wenn auch seltener, Studien, die Konzepte aus dem sozialen Konstruktivismus mit einer allgemeinen Orientierung der authentischen Bildung verbanden. Solche Studien bezogen sich häufig auf Konzepte Wygotskis wie etwa der Zone der nächsten Entwicklung, der Rolle der kompetenteren Anderen (more knowledgeable other) und Scaffolding. Die Arbeit schliet mit vi einer allgemeineren Diskussion sowie Vorschlägen für zukünftige Forschung im Bereich der Bildungsrobotik ab. In Anbetracht der Tatsache, dass bislang eine ausführlicheÜbersichtüber die Einflüsse von Konstruktivismus auf den Bereich der Bildungsrobotik fehlt, erfüllt diese Arbeit hoffentlich zwei Nutzen: Sie soll zum einen als Einführung in die Bildungsrobotik aus einer konstruktivistischen Perspektive, zum anderen als nützliche Referenz für zukünftige empirische Forschung in diesem Bereich dienen können. vii

… on Edutainment III, 2009

Many constructivist technologies allow students to improve problemsolving strategies and learning in educational settings, encouraging teamwork and creativeness. Hence, in didactic contexts, the building, design and programming of Lego ® MindStorms™ robots entertain students, stimulating technological and social factors. In this paper, we investigated the knowledge acquisition of a Lego Robotics system in University students, who had to create a robot able to take part in a race and avoid an obstacle placed in an arena. The learners' documentation of each phase of the task (reports, schemes, photos and videos) was analyzed as cognitive fingerprints of subjects' mental activities.

International Journal of Technology and Design Education

With the development of educational robotics, teachers of secondary and high school frequently request clear indications on which type of robot is most effective for strengthening students' mental schemes on the robot. This paper investigates whether using crafts and recycled materials or structured materials to build robots is more effective in terms of pupils' cognition in educational robotics. Some scholarship argues that using crafts and recycled materials to build a robot from scratch is more effective than using structured materials. The design of the educational research applied here, and in which we tested this hypothesis, included two different robotics activities, carried out in Italy with two classes of secondary school. In the first, we asked the students to build a robot from scratch using crafts and recycled materials, while in the other we asked the students to build a robot from structured materials. These two activities were preceded and followed by the completion, by students, of the same questionnaire about knowledge of mechanics, manual skills, conceptualization of robots, and beliefs about the robotization of everyday life machines, which were the learning outcomes identified in this study according to the concept of constructive alignment and outcome-based education. Results show that building a robot from scratch increases pupils' knowledge and manual skills, while building a robot with structured materials increases their awareness of the robotization of machines. Thus, current scholarship's approach is only partially confirmed. To conclude, although pupils' appreciation involves equally both these robotics activities, each of these outlines a specific educational outcome.

1998

This paper explores a new educational application of Piaget's theories of cognitive development i.e. the use, as a teaching tool, of physical robots conceived as artificial organisms. By using simple assembly kits, students at all levels are able to project and construct real robots that simulate the behaviors of animals. The process of constructing

2018

Educational robotics has been considered as a field with a good potential to teach difficult concepts (e.g. friction) in appealing way. As a consequence, the interest in educational robotics has grown in the last decade, which is reflected in increasing number of robotic platforms, kits, and programming interfaces now available. Nevertheless, researches still fail on describe activities that could be used by teachers and other people with no technological fluency, who are scared by the overwhelm amount of information that made them avoid the use of robotics to teach. Moreover, most of the activities developed until now do not consider pedagogical methodologies to inform the design and implementation of them. As a direct consequence of the misinformation about the correct use of pedagogical methodologies and robotics' multidisciplinary, the number of people who master the use of robotics in education is still scant. This paper presents ongoing work on the development of a framewo...