Integrating Social Robot in a Jigsaw Cooperative Activity: Insights from an International Workshop with Students from Universities in Germany and Israel

Abstract

A Jigsaw activity represents an educational approach providing students opportunities to exercise collaborative learning targeting topics from across domains and levels including those addressing innovative technologies. This paper presents our efforts targeting a Jigsaw workshop addressing educational activities enhanced by Social Robots (SR). SR includes AI-enabled features becoming accessible through software affording to develop motivating and engaging cooperative learning processes. In light of these trends, we present a Jigsaw learning activity we conducted and supported by a Social Robot (SR). We conducted the activity as part of a mutual effort exercised by the authors of this paper in the framework of an Erasmus+ project in Social Robotics involving German and Israeli higher education Institutions. We examined this activity while focusing on various aspects corresponding to its interrelated phases and the educational interactions exercised by students. Results reveal a high potential for applying Jigsaw learning activities in groups of international students. The positive effects seem to be enhanced by choosing to focus the collaboration on an innovative learning environment such as social robots, designing the activity to maximize creativity, autonomy, and ownership, and addressing authentic application contexts to enhance the quality of the educational experience.