View references (31)Today, robots are studied and expected to be used in a range of social roles within classrooms. Yet, due to a number of limitations in social robots, robot interactions should be expected to occasionally suffer from troublesome situations and breakdowns. In this paper, we explore this issue by studying how children handle interaction trouble with a robot tutee in a classroom setting. The findings have implications not only for the design of robots, but also for evaluating their benefit in, and for, educational contexts. In this study, we conducted video analysis of children's group interactions with a robot tutee in a classroom setting, in order to explore the nature of these troubles in the wild. Within each group, children took turns acting as the primary interaction partner for the robot within the context of a mathematics game. Specifically, we examined what types of situations constitute trouble in these child–robot interactions, the strategies that individual children employ to cope with this trouble, as well as the strategies employed by other actors witnessing the trouble. By means of Interaction Analysis, we studied the video recordings of nine group interaction sessions (n = 33 children) in primary school grades 2 and 4. We found that sources of trouble related to the robot's social norm violations, which could be either active or passive. In terms of strategies, the children either persisted in their attempts at interacting with the robot by adapting their behavior in different ways, distanced themselves from the robot, or sought the help of present adults (i.e., a researcher in a teacher role, or an experimenter) or their peers (i.e., the child's classmates in each group). In terms of the witnessing actors, they addressed the trouble by providing guidance directed at the child interacting with the robot, or by intervening in the interaction. These findings reveal the unspoken rules by which children orient toward social robots, the complexities of child–robot interaction in the wild, and provide insights on children's perspectives and expectations of social robots in classroom contexts. © Copyright © 2020 Serholt, Pareto, Ekström and Ljungblad

The idea of using social robots for teaching and learning has become increasingly prevalent and robots are assigned various roles in different educational settings. However, there are still few authentic studies conducted over time. Our study explores teachers’ perceptions of a learning activity in which a child plays a digital mathematics game together with a humanoid robot. The activity is based on the idea of learning-by-teaching where the robot is designed to act as a tutee while the child is assigned the role of a tutor. The question is how teachers perceive and talk about the robot in this collaborative child-robot learning activity? The study is based on data produced during a 2-years long co-design process involving teachers and students. Initially, the teachers reflected on the general concept of the learning activity, later in the process they participated in authentic game-play sessions in a classroom. All teachers’ statements were transcribed and thematically coded, then categorized into two different perspectives on the robot: as a social actor or didactic tool. Activity theory was used as an analytical lens to analyze these different views. Findings show that the teachers discussed the activity’s purpose, relation to curriculum, child-robot collaboration, and social norms. The study shows that teachers had, and frequently switched between, both robot-perspectives during all topics, and their perception changed during the process. The dual perspectives contribute to the understanding of social robots for teaching and learning, and to future development of educational robot design.

Robots are entering the classrooms and provide new opportunities for education. Educational robots can either be used for programming, or as new types of social actors where these robots are designed to play different roles such as teachers, tutors, peers or tutees. However, new social actors affect the scene for learning by altering the social dynamics in the classroom, which in turn affects the roles of the other actors. In this study we explore the role of teachers in robot-enhanced classrooms, and ask the question: What new teacher roles emerge when robots enter the classroom as social actors? In this study we explore a setting where a student plays an educational mathematics game together with a humanoid robot on an interactive whiteboard, guided and supported by teachers and peers from the class. Four classes of school children in 2nd and 41h grade participated and played for about 5 minutes each. The game playing sessions were video-recorded, and 32 sessions were randomly selected, transcribed, coded and thematically analyzed using Interaction Analysis. Situations in which the teacher acted were analyzed to investigate when and why the teacher intervened and what types of support that was provided to the student. Results show that the teacher took several roles during the sessions. Traditional roles include moderator organizing the learning and managing social interactions as well as educator supporting the student’s learning by scaffolding mathematical problems and game-playing strategies. In addition, the teacher had to act technical facilitator handling problems and challenges with using the robot, and the role as interaction mentor guiding and supporting the student to manage the social interaction with the robot. The latter two roles are challenging and unfamiliar to most teachers. We conclude that using robots as social actors in education introduce new, challenging teacher roles requiring substantial and specific digital competence.

There is a growing interest in exploring how social robots can be used for teaching and learning and robots are now studied in a variety of subjects. When robots are used for teaching, they are often assigned a role with a social character appropriate for the intended learning activity. This study focuses on a learning activity where a child plays a digital mathematics game together with a social robot in a middle school classroom. The activity is based on the idea of learning-by-teaching, where the robot has been designed as a tutee and the child is assigned the role of tutor. Through interviews and questionnaires, the children’s, and the teacher's experiences of the learning activity were captured. How does the social robot perform as a tool for teaching and learning? How should the activity be organized and how should the teacher act?

The study shows that the children think that the robot can express itself verbally and ask appropriate questions. They experience it as a social and fun co-player. However, the robot has several limitations, where difficulties in verbal communication are the most characteristic, such as language recognition, timing, and strange comments. In addition, children react negatively to the robot losing attention to the child and not being able to play the game properly. Moreover, the children think that the activity can be carried out both individually and in groups but consider that the teacher must be in the classroom to explain the activity and above all, to support the child-robot interaction both verbally and technically.

In many ways, the teacher expresses similar thoughts as the children. The robot engages students and through its questions, the robot makes them reflect and communicate mathematics. As the robot gives students continuous responses, students become more persistent in their learning. The teacher also mentions problems with verbal child-robot communication. The students need to speak loud and clear with reasonably long sentences and the right timing. In addition, the teacher experiences technical problems, such as the players losing contact with each other.

The teacher considers the activity challenging to carry out in a classroom partly because background noise interferes with the robot interaction and partly because the activity is not suitable for all students. The teacher also mentions the importance of introducing the game and declaring the purpose of the activity, since it may be hard for students to focus on the game and the robot simultaneously. If using the activity in teaching, the teacher imagines that [s]he needs to support the child-robot interaction, i.e., repeat and explain the robot's questions and help the child with what, how, and when to answer the robot. Besides, the teacher may also help with mathematics and encourage strategies and detailed explanations. Unlike the children, the teacher thinks that the activity enables opportunities for assessment of the playing students.

Finally, the study also revealed some ethical dilemmas with using social robots in educational contexts. It was partly about renegotiating prevailing social norms and partly about the deception of assigning a tool human characteristic. Together with the technical and didactic experiences of teaching and learning with social robots, the study provided an insight into a[n] [in]possible future.