Abstract:

Social robots afford multimodal interaction with humans which allows creating engaging learning experiences for a diversity of learners. Educational robots, including social and humanoid robots, provide a tangible embodiment of technology, which has been shown to enhance interaction, motivation and development of a range of crucial skills. A number of recent studies have shown how diverse learners, including school children, learners with disabilities and senior learners, may benefit from applying social robots to support learning. Despite a growing number of publications reporting on example uses of social robots to support learning, publications focusing on the design methods and processes for designing engaging learning experiences with social robots have been scarce.

This paper describes how students in international student groups collaboratively designed a wide range of learning experiences with social robots in a wider context of formal, non-formal and informal education. The paper focuses on the learning design methods, processes, tools and results from the collaboration which took place as part of the virtual exchange in the course on Learning Design in the B. Sc. program of Digital Business in Germany and the course on Human Computer Interaction in the B. Sc. program of Information Systems in Israel with a total of approx. 260 students. The methods and tools applied to support student teams in designing engaging learning experiences with social robots were informed by such frameworks and approaches as user-centred design (UCD), ethnographic research, learning experience design (LXD), and scenario-based design (SBD) and included structured observation, empathy mapping, and use case diagramming.

Specifically, this paper includes the analysis of application domains chosen by students to apply social robots to support learning (such as school education, lifelong learning, well-being, elderly care, healthcare, tourism) and describes in more detail three selected examples of learning designs, which were voted for by students and teachers as best practices for user-centred and engaging learning design assisted by social robots and based on a sound theoretical and methodological foundation.

This paper ends with conclusions about which learning design methods, processes and tools may be most beneficial for designing engaging learning experiences with social robots in the course of a group-based process in virtual, international teams of students and proposes a tool set for developing robot-assisted learning designs as a collaborative and problem-based learning experience.

Keywords:

Learning design, learning experience design, robot assisted learning, human robot interaction.