Exploring requirements and opportunities for social robots in primary mathematics education

Authors Lamia Elloumi, Marianne Bossema, Simone de Droog, Matthijs Smakman, Stan van Ginkel, Mike E.U. Ligthart, Kees Hoogland, Koen V. Hindriks, Somaya Ben Allouch
Published in 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) 2022
Publication date 2022
Research groups Human Experience & Media Design
Type Lecture

Summary

Social robots have been introduced in different fields such as retail, health care and education. Primary education in the Netherlands (and elsewhere) recently faced new challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and quarantines including students falling behind and teachers burdened with high workloads. Together with two Dutch municipalities and nine primary schools we are exploring the long-term use of social robots to study how social robots might support teachers in primary education, with a focus on mathematics education. This paper presents an explorative study to define requirements for a social robot math tutor. Multiple focus groups were held with the two main stakeholders, namely teachers and students. During the focus groups the aim was 1) to understand the current situation of mathematics education in the upper primary school level, 2) to identify the problems that teachers and students encounter in mathematics education, and 3) to identify opportunities for deploying a social robot math tutor in primary education from the perspective of both the teachers and students. The results inform the development of social robots and opportunities for pedagogical methods used in math teaching, child-robot interaction and potential support for teachers in the classroom

On this publication contributed

  • Professor Matthijs Smakman
    Matthijs Smakman
    • Professor
    • Research group: Smart Systems for Healthy Living
  • Stan van Ginkel
    • Professor
    • Research group: Digital Ethics
  • Kees Hoogland
    • Professor
    • Research group: Mathematical and analytical competence of professionals

Language English
Published in 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) 2022
Key words social robots, educational robots, primary schools, mathematics
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/RO-MAN53752.2022.9900569

Human Experience and Media Design