Using educational robots and argumentation in integrated STEM instruction -

Abstract

Early years (4 to 7 years) and middle years (8 to 11 years)

Teachers are tasked with engaging students in justifying and explaining their reasoning in mathematics and science. The construct of collective argumentation captures these justifying and explaining actions in a coherent activity applicable across disciplines. Collective argumentation has been used in learning and teaching mathematics and science, and we have found it applies to learning coding also. Multiple studies have found using educational robots to learn coding increases student motivation and interest. Educational robots are an engaging way to promote learning across multiple STEM disciplines. Integrated tasks involving educational robots enable students to connect important ideas within and across disciplines. In our projects, we engage teachers and students in integrated tasks in which they learn coding and mathematics.

In this workshop, we will engage teachers in coding educational robots (Ozobots and BeeBots) in service of thinking about mathematical ideas such as area and perimeter. We will ask participants to complete introductory coding challenges while we promote argumentation as we would with students. We aim to help teachers reimagine how collective argumentation can help focus attention on the most important ideas in learning goals across STEM disciplines. Through questioning and other supportive actions, teachers’ support for argumentation helps clarify and assess students’ understandings of integrated STEM tasks. Our focus will be foregrounding the mathematics and coding that can occur in integrated tasks. Our ending discussion will focus on characteristics of the facilitation of argumentation that contributed to highlighting the mathematical and coding ideas in the tasks.