Personal
According to Ligthart children create a bond with Hero while doing maths. For instance, Hero learned that Marije is into horses and swims. On the other hand, Marije learned that Hero worked as a groom. With this information, Hero can come up with sums based on Marije’s interests. They also made up a secret handshake to greet each other before every session. In this way, Hero makes maths personal. Furthermore, the robot provides additional explanations when Marije cannot figure out a sum, breaking it down together into intermediate steps to get closer to the answer.
Improved maths performance
Marije and her fellow pupils had four math sessions with the robot in total spread across two school years. One half, just like Marije, was aided in breaking down sums to get closer to the answer. The other half wasn’t instead, the robot only said whether the sum was calculated correctly, which is common in math practice apps. Ligthart: “Our results show that the maths performances of children improve when they receive help from Hero”.
Watch the video with pupil Reda and maths robot Hero.
Sustainable use
Children liked the help from Hero and as a result, he was considered more social. In addition, children appreciated that the robot still knew who they were, especially after a long interval, and they appreciated that he tailored the math sums entirely to them. Ligthart indicates that children like Marije, for example, felt seen and heard by Hero and they bonded with the robot. This bond helps to keep maths with a robot interesting in the long run. This is essential if robots are to be used in education sustainably.
Supporting pupils and educators
This study was performed in light of the SOROCOVA project. The aim is to support educators and pupils from the 4th grade and up in elementary schools in maths. More specifically, for example, help for maths problems caused by a lag during the COVID-19 pandemic. By the way, social robots are not new in education, but an effective and motivating maths module did not yet exist. The SOROCOVA project is a collaboration between the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, University of Amsterdam, Florente elementary schools, Council of Diemen, Interactive Robotics and VU Amsterdam. It is financed by Taskforce for Applied Research SIA – NWO (SIA.COV.01.006)
Recent publications:
- Design Specifications for a Social Robot Math Tutor - continue reading.
- Exploring requirements and opportunities for social robots in primary mathematics education - continue reading.