Abstract
We report on an exploratory study conducted at a graduate school in Sweden with a humanoid robot, Baxter. First, we describe a list of potentially useful capabilities for a robot teaching assistant derived from brainstorming and interviews with faculty members, teachers, and students. These capabilities consist of reading educational materials out loud, greeting, alerting, allowing remote operation, providing clarifications, and moving to carry out physical tasks. Secondly, we present feedback on how the robot’s capabilities, demonstrated in part with the Wizard of Oz approach, were perceived, and iteratively adapted over the course of several lectures, using the Engagement Profile tool. Thirdly, we discuss observations regarding the capabilities and the development process. Our findings suggest that using a social robot as a teaching assistant is promising using the chosen capabilities and Engagement Profile tool. We find that enhancing the robot’s autonomous capabilities and further investigating the role of embodiment are some important topics to be considered in future work.
Highlights
University courses are designed based on requirements of students and teachers, to engage students and encourage them to learn actively
Our findings suggest that using a social robot as a teaching assistant is promising using the chosen capabilities and Engagement Profile tool
To investigate how a robotic teaching assistant can be used at the university level, we performed an experiment at the Department of Intelligent Systems and Digital Design (ISDD) at Halmstad
Summary
University courses are designed based on requirements of students and teachers, to engage students and encourage them to learn actively. Online collaborative learning theory has been proposed, which facilitates social collaborations via transformational digital technologies [1]. Digital technologies have been described as not just an aide for teaching, but rather as something which has changed how students learn and our concept of learning [2]. Multimodal designs, such technologies can facilitate different learning styles (e.g., being intelligible to both “serialists” and “holists”), engaging students via visual, auditory, or kinesthetic stimuli [3]. The promise of robotic technologies for engaging students is being increasingly recognized, with the result that we are in the midst of a “robotics revolution” in education, in which robots are being used more and more in classrooms around the world targeting various age groups and disciplines [4]
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