The COVID-19 pandemic has stressed the importance of efficient and accommodating online educational experiences. In this contribution, we present a novel system for the facilitation of small group online discussions using an avatar during video conferencing. The avatar was programmed with group facilitation best practices, whereas the content for the activities was prepared by the classes' teachers. Groups of tenth grade students interacted with the system, where we compared activities facilitated by the avatar with activities without facilitation. Our results show that students reported the activity with the avatar to be significantly more efficient, more understandable and inducing more participation compared to activities without avatar facilitation. Students also spoke significantly more with avatar facilitation. This system shows promise in future online educational activities as a facilitator of discussions with K-12 students.

Small group activities have many educational advantages. In this contribution, we present a novel system for monitoring and analysing real-time group dynamics in a video-conferecing environment, with and without an autonomous virtual robot facilitator, which was programmed with group facilitation best practices. Groups of tenth-grade students interacted with the system, where we examined subjective perceptions of the activity, group dynamics and the facilitator, as well as analysed real-time speaker and facial expression recognition data. Our results show that students reported the activity with the virtual robot facilitator to be significantly more efficient, more understandable and more motivating of participation compared with activities without facilitation. Furthermore, students also spoke more, were happier and were significantly more engaged with virtual robot facilitation. Analyzing subjective and object measures showed significant correlations between the students' perceptions of the group activity and their own participation in it. Finally, it was found that group dynamics, as measured by time-series speaker and facial expression data, can be clustered into groups with similar behavioural characteristics and that facilitation with a virtual robot facilitator changed these dynamics. This study suggests that online group activities, facilitated by an autonomous virtual agent, are a promising tool to investigate group dynamics in educational scenarios.