Reflections of future kindergarten teachers on the design of a mathematical instruction process didactic sequences with the use of robots

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the reflections of future kindergarten teachers when designing didactic sequences with the use of the bee-bot robot. A qualitative methodological design was followed to achieve this objective, collecting the data through a written record prepared by the participants from collaborative work. A total of 25 future teachers participated, forming six working groups. The data were analyzed with the content analysis technique, considering the criteria of didactic suitability-epistemic, cognitive, interactional, mediational, affective, and ecological-and their respective components. The results suggest that at the moment prior to the design of the didactic sequences, the reflections of the groups of future teachers are related only to some criteria, while, in the design of the proposed teaching and learning process, the units of analysis were related to all six criteria. With the results obtained, it is concluded that a future implementation and observation of the design of didactic sequences by the participants would allow the participants to consider more components of the criteria when reflecting. In addition, it is concluded that training that contemplates the criteria of didactic suitability, would also allow future teachers to deepen their reflections, guiding them with these tools.

Pre-service teachers’ perceptions towards integrating educational robotics in the primary school

“…The integration of ER in ITT should therefore include: space for sharing and discussing ideas and experiences; observing peers managing classes that integrate ER; continuous teaching support during the stages of training, planning, and performance; a specific theoretical, practical, reflective and didactic component (Schina et al, 2021a); and, similar to any training program focused on technology integration, the application of lesson plans in a real classroom setting and subsequent reflection (Pedro et al, 2019;Schina et al, 2021a;Song, 2018). Since competency in lesson plan creation influences the integration of ER in PST teaching practices (Tankiz & Uslu, 2022) ITT programs that integrate ER should enable PST to create lesson plans that integrate ER (Kim et al, 2015;Seckel et al, 2022) and implement them during their teaching practices (Kucuk & Sisman, 2017;Luciano et al, 2019;.…”

“…In light of the above, and as further explained in the next section, this study aims to create conditions for PST to: experience the integration of ER in practical and contextualized situations (Casler-Failing, 2021;Huang & Zbiek, 2017), contacting with different ER platforms (Anwar et al, 2019;Schina et al, 2021b), aiming at increasing their acceptance of ER with the purpose of facilitating proper integration into their teaching practices (Davis, 1989;Rafique et al, 2020), allowing PST to participate in collaborative tasks that integrate ER with their peers (Anwar et al, 2019;You et al, 2021), create and implement learning scenarios in real classroom setting (Tankiz & Uslu, 2022;You et al, 2021), and reflect on this process (Schina et al, 2021b;Seckel et al, 2022). To adjust the intervention design we collected PST perceptions of ER regarding:…”

“…This was followed by the exploration of the design process of the learning scenarios created by the teacher/researcher for each didactic sequence through a set of written tasks. This learning scenario would then be adapted by the groups to the respective practicum context (Kim et al, 2015;Pedro et al, 2019;Seckel et al, 2022) with the design of a hypothetical learning scenario.…”

Employing Robotics in Education to Enhance Cognitive Development—A Pilot Study

“…As Seckel and colleagues [15] pointed out, the majority of teachers, regardless of age, gender, and time spent in education, support the introduction of educational robotics. However, it is also important to highlight the inherent difficulties in teaching robotics [7] and to take feedback from teachers into account [16].…”

“…There is an annual competition organized in more than 50 countries for primary and secondary education students. The tasks based on grades and ages are split into five categories: Mini (grades three to four, ages 8-10), Benjamin (grades five to six, ages 10-12), Cadet (grades seven to eight, ages [12][13][14], Junior (grades nine to ten, ages 14-16), and Senior (grades eleven to twelve, ages [16][17][18]. The tasks are composed in a manner that they can be solved without any previous computer sciences knowledge [33].…”