Supporting Educators to Co-Design Interdisciplinary Projects Integrating Educational Robotics and Arts

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34190/ecel.23.1.2641

Keywords:

Interdisciplinary learning design, Community platform, Educational robotics, Arts education, Computational thinking

Abstract

The growing call to foster interdisciplinary learning has found educators struggling to co-design learning across disciplinary boundaries. Aiming to contribute to the area of interdisciplinary learning design, we explored how to support educators in co-designing interdisciplinary projects integrating Educational Robotics (ER) and Arts, hereafter called Artful ER projects. Our research included developing the "FERTILE" Learning Design methodology as a conceptual tool scaffolding the integration of discipline-oriented viewpoints while educators co-design. Acknowledging that one of the challenges in interdisciplinary collaboration derives from educators’ different intentions for students’ learning outcomes, the "FERTILE" methodology introduces Computational Thinking (CT) skills as an Artful ER project’s primary learning outcome. In this line, the “FERTILE” methodology adapts the Creative Computational problem-solving model, which has been reported to cultivate CT skills through its staged process. Furthermore, we developed the "FERTILE" Community Platform as an online environment providing two-fold support to educators as designers of interdisciplinary learning. The "FERTILE" Community Platform incorporates community functionalities that address collaboration practicalities while educators co-design. Additionally, it integrates authoring functionalities scaffolding educators in designing Artful ER projects based on the "FERTILE" Learning Design methodology. This paper explores how the authoring functionalities of the "FERTILE" Community Platform support educators in designing interdisciplinary learning. We report on a pilot study conducted with Greek and Spanish educators. In this study, we applied a mixed-method research design with a quantitative strand adopting indicators from the Usability Metric for User Experience (UMUX) model and a qualitative strand providing insights into participants’ perceptions. The findings indicate that scaffolding disciplinary elaboration (e.g., robot technical requirements and art forms) and systematising interdisciplinary context (e.g., through project categories) may trigger educators’ mutual understanding. The participants endorsed authoring functionalities that adopted high contextualisation levels for learning design representation to communicate their design ideas across disciplinary boundaries. Also, the participants valued CT skills as the primary outcome of interdisciplinary learning, indicating that CT skills’ cultivation may be the broker among disciplines and trigger educators to overcome disciplinary barriers. Finally, we discuss the findings and implications for refining the "FERTILE" Community Platform as an online environment for educators co-designing Artful ER projects.

Author Biographies

Eleni Zalavra, University of West Attica, Athens, Greece

Eleni Zalavra is a PhD candidate at the Department of Informatics and Computer Engineering, University of West Attica, Greece. She holds an MSc in Educational Technology and a BSc in ICT. She works as an ICT Teacher in Secondary Education. Her main research interests include Learning Design and Teacher Education.

Kyparisia Papanikolaou, School of Pedagogical and Technological Education, Athens, Greece

Kyparisia Papanikolaou is a Professor at the Department of Education, School of Pedagogical and Technological Education (ASPETE), Greece. Her primary research interests include e-learning design and teacher professional development focusing on technology-enhanced learning.

Maria Tzelepi, University of West Attica, Athens, Greece

Maria Tzelepi is a researcher and adjunct lecturer at the University of West Attica, Greece, with extensive teaching experience in technology-enhanced learning in various educational settings. She holds a PhD in Educational Technology, and her research interests include learning communities, learning analytics, critical thinking and computational thinking.

Juan I. Asensio-Pérez, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain

Juan I. Asensio-Pérez is currently a Full Professor at the Department of Signal Theory, Communications and Telematics Engineering, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain. His main research interest includes  Technology-enhanced learning, with special focus on the support for full-lifecycle learning design processes.

Yannis Dimitriadis, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain

Yannis Dimitriadis is a Full Professor of Telematics Engineering and director of the GSIC/EMIC research group at Universidad De Valladolid, Spain. His research interests include technological and conceptual support to teachers regarding learning design, orchestration, and learning analytics of technology-enhanced learning processes.

Mohamed Saban, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain

Mohamed Saban is currently a postdoctoral researcher fellow at the University of Valladolid, Spain. His research interests include the Internet of Things (IoT) and Technology-enhanced learning focusing on human-artificial intelligence (AI) collaboration.

Nafsika Pappa, University of West Attica, Athens, Greece

Nafsika Pappa is a PhD candidate at the Department of Informatics and Computer Engineering, University of West Attica, Greece. Her main research interests include Computational Thinking, Educational Robotics and Blended Learning.

Downloads

Published

2024-10-23