Robots and Romeo and Juliet: Studying Teacher Integration of Robotics Into Middle School Curricula
Abstract
To increase opportunities for more students to engage in technology innovation, the Creative Robotics project supports robotics integration into disciplinary classrooms. The project provides professional development and resources to teachers in non-technical subjects (e.g., health, science, English), while enabling them to develop their own instructional strategies for integrating the Arts & Bots approach. A study of pedagogical and instructional approaches of 15 teachers during the project’s first year suggests that teachers used Arts & Bots as a tool to support student learning to: (1) facilitate translation of abstract disciplinary concepts into concrete exemplars; (2) increase exposure to disciplinary material; or (3) increase familiarity with technology. This research underscores the importance of integrated curricula that consider disciplinary needs and technological affordances.
Arts & Bots, CREATE Lab, Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment
BibTeX
@conference{Bernstein-2016-103468,author = {Debra Bernstein and Karen Mutch-Jones and Emily Hamner and Jennifer Cross},
title = {Robots and Romeo and Juliet: Studying Teacher Integration of Robotics Into Middle School Curricula},
booktitle = {Proceedings of American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting},
year = {2016},
month = {April},
}