Educational Robotics

Abstract

The aim of this work is two-fold. On the one hand, the authors wish to provide relevant information to educators willing to develop an educational robotics (ER) curriculum. They thus provide the current state of the art in the field of ER and the various approaches reported in the literature. They also provide examples of how computational thinking (CT) can be applied in ER and main theories behind ER: constructivism, constructionism, and inquiry-based learning. As ER requires problem-solving abilities, they discuss the link between CT and metacognition, which is considered one of the required educational improvements of the 21st century (also related to the role of gender in STEM methodologies). On the other hand, they wish to present their methodology to teach coding and ER (coding robots through exploring their affordances – CREA), how it was designed, and its main outcomes. It aims at teaching programming and robotics to children in primary school, focusing not on only the performance of the students, but also the cultivation of collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking.