Lines, roamers, and squares: Oh my! using floor robots to enhance Hispanic students’ understanding of programming

Teaching programming and coding skills in K-12 classrooms is becoming a part of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs across the United States. Often, these opportunities are available through extra-curricular activities such as Robotics club, math club, STEM club, etc. Increasing STEM opportunities for students who are English language learners, culturally and linguistically diverse learners, and/or students from underserved backgrounds is vital. In a pilot study prior to a larger, grant-funded study on the effects of metacognitive strategy instruction on elementary students’ academic performance, the principal investigator (PI) developed an activity with a corresponding assessment instrument. The PI initially incorporated floor-robots into an activity in two fifth grade science classrooms. Pre/post survey analysis provided encouraging results. To follow up on the initial results, the PI and co-principal investigators (co-PIs) introduced floor-robots into eight additional fourth and fifth grade science classrooms over an additional school year, as well as in an after-school setting, to determine how floor-robots might be used effectively to engage elementary students in STEM learning. The investigators introduced over 257 elementary students to three types of floor-robots, and this provided students with opportunities to have hands-on access to programming and coding robots for specific purposes. Of the 257 students who interacted with the floor-robots, approximately 103 were provided with pre/post surveys on Roamer®, one of the floor-robots. Additional data analysis provided surprising and encouraging results.

[1]  Fabiane Barreto Vavassori Benitti,et al.  Exploring the educational potential of robotics in schools: A systematic review , 2012, Comput. Educ..

[2]  D. Moore,et al.  Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension‐fostering and Comprehension‐monitoring Activities with Ten Primary School Girls , 1988 .

[3]  Alba A. Ortiz,et al.  The Role of Bilingual Education Teachers in Preventing Inappropriate Referrals of ELLs to Special Education: Implications for Response to Intervention , 2011 .

[4]  S. Baron-Cohen,et al.  Mechanical, behavioural and Intentional understanding of picture stories in autistic children , 1986 .

[5]  Kathleen Flynn,et al.  English Language Learners: A Growing Population , 2005 .

[6]  Susan McKenney,et al.  Educational design research , 2014 .

[7]  Diana Linn,et al.  English Language Learner Disproportionality in Special Education: Implications for the Scholar-Practitioner , 2011 .

[8]  Ann E. Schlosser,et al.  The Evolution of the Digital Divide: How Gaps in Internet Access May Impact Electronic Commerce , 2006, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[9]  Tanja Karp,et al.  Exciting Young Students In Grades K-8 About STEM Through An Afterschool Robotics Challenge , 2013 .

[10]  Mark Gura,et al.  Lego Robotics: STEM Sport of the Mind. , 2012 .

[11]  E. Matson,et al.  Building Interest in Math and Science for Rural and Underserved Elementary School Children Using Robots , 2004 .

[12]  Elizabeth R. Kazakoff,et al.  The Effect of a Classroom-Based Intensive Robotics and Programming Workshop on Sequencing Ability in Early Childhood , 2013 .

[13]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension-Fostering and Comprehension-Monitoring Activities , 1984 .