Robo-Tangible Activities for Geometry

How does teaching a robot influence student knowledge and motivation? Middle school students give Quinn, an autonomous Lego Mindstorms robot with an iPod Touch face, instructions on how to solve coordinate geometry problems. Quinn follows their instructions, and responds with prompts (“In (4, 0), does the 4 tell me to move on the x-axis or on the y-axis?”), and social statements (“We worked hard to solve that problem.”) This work investigates the benefits of interacting with a robot compared to a virtual agent, and how these benefits relate to students’ prior knowledge. 

Collaborators: Kasia Muldner, Victor Girotto, Cecil Lozano, Win Burleson