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A Didactical Model for Educational Robotics Activities: A Study on Improving Skills Through Strong or Minimal Guidance

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Book cover Educational Robotics in the Makers Era (Edurobotics 2016 2016)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 560))

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Abstract

This paper introduces a proposed didactical model for organizing educational robotics activities, addressed to primary and secondary school, and called “CPG+” after Collaboration, Problem, Game - competition, while “+” stands for supplementary teachers’ supportive interventions such as promoting students’ problem solving and computational thinking skills. Then, a study conducted in an elementary school is presented, which was based on the CPG+ model and investigates the development of computational thinking and problem solving skills, focusing on the role of guidance (strong vs. minimal). For developing computational thinking skills we focused on the following basic concepts: abstraction, generalization, algorithm, decomposition, modularity, and debugging. The results show that: (a) educational robotics activities fringed by the didactical model CPG+ can be a vehicle for the development of high order skills, (b) although providing written answers is tiring and boring for students, it is an important learning tool.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Soumela Atmatzidou & Stavros Demetriadis

Authors
  1. Soumela Atmatzidou
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  2. Stavros Demetriadis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Soumela Atmatzidou .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. European Lab for Educational Technology , Sparta, Greece

    Dimitris Alimisis

  2. Department of Information Engineering, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padua, Italy

    Michele Moro

  3. Department of Information Engineering, Università degli Studi di Padova , Padova, Italy

    Emanuele Menegatti

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Atmatzidou, S., Demetriadis, S. (2017). A Didactical Model for Educational Robotics Activities: A Study on Improving Skills Through Strong or Minimal Guidance. In: Alimisis, D., Moro, M., Menegatti, E. (eds) Educational Robotics in the Makers Era. Edurobotics 2016 2016. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 560. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55553-9_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55553-9_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-55552-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-55553-9

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