From RoboESL students to teacher assistants 23rd Athens Junior High School, George Fragakis

Robotics in Education Pedagogical Perspectives Provide a high-quality education Considerably improve technical and social skills Motivates, encourages students to learn science and technology through playing Pedagogical Perspectives Constructivist Theories: Learning is not achieved by sharing knowledge BUT by constructing knowledge based on experience

ROBOESL Project Organizing activities applicable to weak students that tend to fail or quit school Motivate students by using Robotics Wake their interest to Science, Technology and School in general Prevent Early School Leaving

A good chance Robotics will reduce ESL ROBOESL Conclusions Students Teacher Lot of interest Felt spontaneous in class Team Spirit Learned through playing! Innovation Responsibility Offered great satisfaction Guiding rather than teaching New student skills discovered Stronger relationship with students A good chance Robotics will reduce ESL

Next Day ? (After official project) Majority of previous RoboESL students (90%) wanted to do more with Robots – Vivid Enthusiasm! We all did a meeting and decided: To continue Robotic lessons in after school-hours meetings To find a way to attract new students To present our work to the Public But, By organizing new classes, where HOW? ex-students would now be active teacher assistants

Classroom implementation 9 new students (= NewSt) were found, mainly of 1st grade. Previous students (= PreSt) helped in this by gathering them and sharing their experience. 5 PreSt were involved, they were given guidance how to help with the new class. They agreed to play a very active role. 3 teams (NewSt) were formed using a team building activity. Every team would now have a teacher assistant (PreSt). 2 PreSt would be present and standby for further help. 2 Projects already known and completed by PreSt would be the teaching material for the NewSt. (Automatic Train, Automatic Car Park)

Outcomes – Results New students were very excited, eager to make the robots work! Previous students were very focused on helping in various ways (demonstrating, correcting mistakes, etc) Team spirit was cultivated, with previous and new students. Spontaneous behavior was observed, especially after the 1st hour Mature and trustworthy manner, by taking part and demonstrating their work to a public Science Festival. Development of social skills (they were interviewed, they talked and explained their work to the public). Glib when necessary. Good chance of project sustainability

Evaluation Use of questionnaires

Athens Science Festival 2017

Our efforts on camera https://youtu.be/KnTUBH1LGrU