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Towards a Formal Definition of Educational Robotics

Conference Paper · July 2018

DOI: 10.15203/3187-22-1-08

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 Towards a Formal Definition of Educational Robotics
Julian M. Angel-Fernandez1 and Markus Vincze2

Abstract— There is an increasing number of articles, web

pages, robotic kits and other materials that are using the term
educational robotics (ER) to refer the use of robots in education.
However, the current definition of the field is still vague and
open to any interpretation, which makes it possible for people
to use without taking any consideration on the real objective of
Educational Robotics. As a consequence the increment on the
use of the term Educational Robotics is meaningless if the term
is misused. Therefore a concrete and precise definition of what
Educational Robotics is required to support the development of
it. This paper presents a first attempt to develop a formal and
concrete definition of Educational Robotics, which describes
all components that constitutes the field and how they are
related within them. The components here presented are the Fig. 1. Total number of articles per year retrieved from Web of Science
results of the work done in the European project Educational using the following queries: a) ”Education* AND Robot*”, which retrieves
Robotics for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics articles that contains any word derived from education and robot words,
(ER4STEM), which aims to realize a creative and critical use such as educational, robots, robotics, just to mention a few. Other words
of Educational Robots to maintain children’s curiosity in the could be between these words and the order in which they appear does not
matter. b) ”Educational Robotics”, which retrieve articles that contains the
world. This definition will help others to determine if something exact match of the words without other words in the middle.
is or not is educational robotics.

I. INTRODUCTION
as ER but in the explanation of their activity, they suggest
Robotics is a technology that has been mentioned by
that students are product designers that have to conceptualize
diverse researchers as a technology with significant poten-
a robot from scratch, without the time to implement it.
tial to impact education [1]–[4]. This is reflected in the
Then, robots are active during the activity but rather they
increasing number of articles that uses the words robotics
are use as an idea or concept that could be replaced with
and education, such as is presented in Figure 1-a. Likewise,
other technologies, such as cellphones or washing machines.
the use of Educational Robotics (ER) has increased in the
This does not mean that their approach is not educative but
last decades, as it is presented in (Figure 1-b). Despite this
rather it is not ER. Nevertheless, activities that create false or
increment of ER, there is not a clear definition of what it
unreachable expectations from robotics could be dangerous
is and in many situations it is mention just as a tool used
because current robots could not fulfill them, generating
in education [5]–[7] or as a vehicle to think about teaching,
frustration, which negatively affects the level and quality of
learning and education at large [8]. If ER is a merely tool,
the effort of people put into learning [10].
then several questions arise: what is the role that plays
robots in this ”tool”? Who is responsible to developed further Despite all the benefits that robotics could have in fos-
this ”tool”? Is there any difference between educational tering digital skills (e.g. programming [11]), STEM (e.g.
robotics, educational robots, robots in education and robots Physics [12] and Mathematics [13]) and soft-skills (e.g. Cre-
for education? On the other hand, if it is seen as a vehicle: ativity [14]), its incorrect use may be counterproductive [15]
who has construct the vehicle? how should it look like? how and it could stop its implementation in formal education
is it used? settings (e.g. Schools). Therefore, a concrete definition, that
While these and other questions are still open, it is specifies the meaning of ER to avoid any misuse of it, is
difficult to correctly coordinate and establish borders to mandatory to correctly make ER growth in a structure way.
identify works that can be categorized as ER. Meanwhile This paper presents a first attempt to develop this formal
works that just mention the word robot or not follow proper and concrete definition of ER, which describes components
procedures can be still considered as ER, which can create that constitutes it and how they are related within them. The
false expectations among not experts. For example in the components here presented are the results of the work done
work 5-Step Plan [9], the researchers categorized their work in the European project Educational Robotics for Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (ER4STEM) 1
1 Julian M. Angel-Fernandez is with the Automation and , which is aims to realize a creative and critical use of
Control Institute, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria Educational Robots to maintain children’s curiosity in the
[email protected]
2 Markus Vincze is with the Automation and Control world.
Institute, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria
[email protected] 1 www.er4stem.com
 This paper is organized as follows. Section II presents an plementation of activities, technologies and artifacts, where
overview of the fields that converge in ER and the definition robots play an active role.
of ER is provided. Using this definition of ER as a base, It is important to highlight that this definition covers exist-
Section III describes the ideal activities in ER. Section IV ing categories of the use of robotics in education. Alimisis
introduces the framework developed in ER4STEM. And fi- and Kynigos [4] identified two categories. (1) robotics as
nally conclusion and future work are presented in Section V. learning object focuses on robotic related topics, such as
computer vision and artificial intelligence. (2) Robotics as
II. WHO IS INVOLVED IN EDUCATIONAL learning tool sees robots as a tool to teach other subjects,
ROBOTICS? such as science or math. Eguchi has proposed a third
To understand what ER is, first it is necessary to determine category [5] that sees robots as learning aids, which would
the fields of study involved in ER. Figure 2 presents a be in most of the cases social robots, such as the Robot-Tutor
simplified view of the fields involve and their intercon- in collaborative learning scenarios [18] and Robot-Tutor in
nections. By simplified, it is meant that just general fields teaching languages [19]. Robotic platforms in the first two
are depicted and other fields (e.g. artificial intelligence) are categories are characterized to be cheap, and with limited
omitted, without undervalue their contribution, to increase number of sensors, actuators and computer processing, in
the clarity. Three main fields are presented in the figure. comparison to its industrial counterparts. Also they are not
(1) Education embraces all sub-fields that are related to the limited to traditional programming languages (e.g. Python,
study and improvement of learning experiences of people at C++ and C) but they used novel programming languages
all levels, from early childhood to university. (2) Robotics is to improve the learning experience (e.g. Scratch [20] and
the field that studies, design and improve robots. A tangible tangible programming [21]). Robots in the last category are
result, among others, is robotics platforms that in some cases expensive due to they have to interact in a natural way with
have been used in education, known as robotics in education. humans and behave in a way that is comfortable for humans.
These platforms have been designed and implemented with-
out considering their use in education. Therefore, they pro- A. STAKEHOLDERS
vide a hundred of functionality but there is not much space to
create basic activities with them, which is called in education ER4STEM’s researchers [22] identified as stakeholders in
as black box [16]. (3) Human Computer Interaction (HCI) ER:
is a field that studies the interaction between computer and • Young people are the ones who participate in ER activi-
humans, aiming to improve user experience. This field has ties offered by schools or other organizations. They are
showed the importance of considering humans in the design directly impacted by ER when robots want to be used
of robotics platforms, that has brought as a result the field as an alternative to teach subjects in schools or at early
of Human Robot Interaction (HRI), which is dedicated to age.
understand, design and evaluate robotic platforms to be used • Young people parents may encourage their offspring to
with or by humans [17]. participate in activities or they may not. They would
not be interested to help foster their children’s digital
skills because they are not aware of the importance
of these skills [23], which is an additional difficulty
if investments are going to be made.
• Schools have two different stakeholders. (1) Teachers
have as main responsibility to teach through the use
of different methodologies. Although they are aware of
the importance of ICT skills for teaching and new tech-
nologies [24], they are not all the time confident about
their knowledge in the correct use of the technology in
the classroom. (2) School boards or senior management
decides over budget and established standards.
• Organizations offering educational robotics which
Fig. 2. A simplified view of fields of study that conformed educa- would be non-profit organizations offering ER activities,
tional robotics. Educational Robotics is the intersection between Education, organizations based on profit or mixed versions. These
Robotics and Human Robot Interaction. E means Education, R robotics,
HCI Human Computer Interaction, HRI Human Robot Interaction, R in E can be clubs, projects, initiatives, universities, science
Robots in Education, and ER Educational Robotics. and technology institutes, etc. The activities offered
by these organizations reach a wide audience and can
Based on the previous overview, ER is not just a tool but create a big impact.
rather a field where many fields of study converge. Therefore, • Inside Universities there are several stakeholders but
it could be said that: within them the following are considering as important:
Educational Robotics a field of study that aims to improve educational researchers, teacher educators, engineering
learning experience of people through the creation and im- scientists and people involved in outreach programs. In
 many cases there is not much communication between the activity. (2) Activities reported in many cases are not fully
them, which hinder the potential of ER. described, which limit their replicability. The last situation
• Industry is directly affected by people’s skill sets and even occurs among researchers, who not provide a detail
education. The demand in high quality knowledge work- description of their settings such as the ones reported in [27]–
ers in STEM fields is increasing worldwide but young [30]. In most of the cases these workshops, researchers did
people choosing STEM fields are not matching these not include learning outcomes and evidence of learning. In
numbers in demand [25]. There are even initiatives other cases they are implicit but not correctly documented.
started by industry to counter these developments. As a consequence, ER4STEM’s workshops and lessons are
• Educational Policy makers are governmental organiza- treated as similar because both of them must have learning
tions established with the purpose to lead the future of outcomes and evidence of learning. This will let people
education. to implement them in schools. Thus, any activity done in
ER does not have to address all of these stakeholder at ER must be called pedagogical activities with the following
once because covering all their requirements is a difficult characteristics: (1) clear learning outcomes and evidence of
task. Instead, ER must focus, as a first step, on those who learning, which could be formal (e.g. assessment) or informal
have a direct impact on the quality of the activities, which (e.g. write to a friend about what you have done today). (2)
results could be used to support the investment on robotics. Use of one or more pedagogic methodology, which has to
Teachers, researchers, organizers of educational activities and be described for each action in the activity. (3) Description
industry have been identified as those stakeholders [26]. of the activity using an activity template (e.g. ER4STEM’s
They have different requirements from ER based on their activity template [31]).
needs and activities done by them, which are presented in
IV. ER4STEM FRAMEWORK
Table I. All stakeholders do workshops. Teachers, researchers
and organizers do presentation activities. Just teachers and General speaking, it could be say that stakeholders are
researchers do research, and just teachers do lessons in by their own when they have to design and implement a
schools. Regarding stakeholders’ requirements of the activi- pedagogical activity in ER. Therefore, a person must have
ties, it is shown that most of the cases they require a good high knowledge in technology and education to correctly
description of the activity to implement it. Just teachers and implement them. However, few people have all of this
researches need activities that could be compared. On the knowledge. As a consequence, ER4STEM is developing a
other hand just teachers and organizers required activities framework that will guide any stakeholder on the design
that could be sustainable for long periods. The case of or adaptation, implementation and evaluation of pedagogi-
industry is particular because they required activities that let cal activities in ER. This is achieved through the explicit
them promote their technologies. Although these stakeholder connection among pedagogical methodologies, knowledge in
share some activities and their needs could be consider as robotics and other areas, and 21st century skills [32].
complementary, there is not a good collaboration between The ER4STEM’s framework provides four components.
them. (1) An ontology of ER, which provides specific definition
To exemplify the lack of collaboration, lets consider of words used in the field and connection between them. (2)
the case of researchers from all fields that ER converges. Activity blocks, which are piece of activities that have been
In the ideal case, researchers communicate and establish proven to be useful to foster specific skills and could be
common goals that are achieve through continue interaction connected with other blocks to create a pedagogical activity.
within them. This produces ideas for new technologies and (3) Best practices, which are described from a literature
pedagogical approaches that could be used in education, reviewed done for creativity, collaboration, communication,
which is reflected in the creation of workshops and lessons. critical thinking, evidence of learning, mixed gender teams,
These activities are expected to be described in enough multiple entry points, changing and sustaining attitudes to
detail that other people outside the group of work could STEM, and differentiation. (4) Processes for workshops and
implement. This provides several benefits: validate results, conferences for young people, which are based on the macro-
extend research beyond the original environment and use process depicted in Figure 3.
on different settings. Once the activity has been completed, The macro-process is compound by four main macro
researchers analyze the information collected, which brings phases. (1) The first macro phase is divided in two possible
new questions and suggestions for pedagogy and technology. steps, which represents the possibility to design an activity
Using these results as a base, researchers begin again with the from scratch or adapt one from other existing activities.
cycle. However, the reality is other and they do not correctly (2) Implementation macro-phase focuses on considerations
collaborate. involving the settings and the context in which the activity
is going to take place. (3) Evaluation macro-phase focus
III. WHAT ARE THE ACTIVITIES COVERED? on evaluating the implementation. (4) Improvement macro-
ER4STEM’s researchers after a review on the available phase focuses on possible improvements of the activity plan
literature found several weaknesses on how works on ER based on information derived from the implementation in real
are documented [22]. (1) There is not a clear evidence how settings, on reflections from the teachers, the students and the
pedagogical theories were considered during the design of designers. Once the activity has been improved, the cycle
 TABLE I
ACTIVITIES AND NEEDS FOR EACH STAKEHOLDER .

Teachers Researchers Organizers of Educational Industry

Activities
• Workshop • Workshop • Workshop • Workshop
• Presentation • Presentation • Presentation
Activities
• Research • Research
• Lesson
• Pedagogical informed de- • Pedagogical informed de- • Well described activities • Specific set of skills
scription scription
Requirements
• Compare activities and • Compare activities and • Sustainable activities • Promote their technologies
results results
• Well described activities • Well described activities
• Sustainable activities

should be continuing with adapting the activity for future have the following characteristics: clear learning outcomes
groups. and evidence of learning, use of one or more pedagogic
methodology, and description of the activity using an activity
template(e.g. ER4STEM’s activity template [31]). Finally,
it was presented the ER4STEM framework, which aims to
guide any stakeholder on the design or adaptation, imple-
mentation and evaluation of pedagogical activities in ER.
The authors hope that these definitions are used as a
based to define the field of ER and the characteristics of
the activities developed on it. These clear definitions will
help different stakeholders to understand and apply correctly
the knowledge created in the field.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work is funded by the European Commission through
the Horizon 2020 Programme (H2020, Grant agreement
no: 665972). Project Educational Robotics for STEM:
ER4STEM

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