Designing bio-inspired robotics workshops given language limitations

Carrillo-Zapata, Daniel; Lee, Chanelle; Digumarti, Krishna Manaswi; Hauert, Sabine; Boushel, Corra

Abstract

Educational robots are increasingly being used in schools
as learning tools to support the development of skills such as computational thinking because of the growing number of technology-related jobs. Using robots as a tool inside the classroom has been proved to increase motivation, participation and inclination towards STEM subjects
at both primary and secondary levels; however, language has usually not been considered as a mitigating factor. This paper reports our experience delivering nine workshops in English, using Thymio robots, to over two hundred students aged 9-12 across a week in the French cities of Nancy and Metz. Our goal was to test whether students would still
have fun, learn something new and gain an interest in STEM even when the workshop was conducted in a foreign language. Our results indicate that using language that is easy to understand, although foreign, has a strong direct correlation (p~10-3) with having fun and that the latter
positively affects learning and increased interest in STEM.

Citation

Carrillo-Zapata, D., Lee, C., Digumarti, K. M., Hauert, S., & Boushel, C. (2019, April). Designing bio-inspired robotics workshops given language limitations. Paper presented at RiE 2019 : 10th International Conference on Robotics in Education, Vienna, Austria

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: RiE 2019 : 10th International Conference on Robotics in Education
• Conference Location: Vienna, Austria
• Start Date: Apr 10, 2019
• End Date: Apr 12, 2019
• Acceptance Date: Feb 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Mar 13, 2019
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: educational robots, bio-inspired robots, biomimicry, foreign language workshop, Thymio
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/852584
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : RiE 2019 : 10th International Conference on Robotics in Education