Robot-Mediated Learning: Exploring School-Deployed Collaborative Robots for Homebound Children

美国有250多万儿童因医学原因不能外出。他们在社会上被孤立，在物理上被隔离，目前的教育实践在很大程度上将他们排除在学校社区之外。远程呈现机器人已经成为支持这些孩子重返当地学校的一种可能手段，然而，目前尚不清楚在家的孩子如何有效地利用这些机器人来获得最佳的学习和社会发展体验。该项目的目标是在学校推进机器人中介学习，并研究协作机器人如何促进最佳学习体验。研究人员将1)确定在学校中使用嵌入式协作机器人的最佳实践和指导方针，以最好地促进学习和社会发展；2)为居家儿童设计新的包容性界面和控制模式，使其能够使用移动远程机械手；3)开创新的包容性机器人课程，以支持残疾儿童进入STEM工作岗位。该项目将产生多个领域的新知识，包括人机交互、教育和医疗保健。该项目还将通过探索如何使残疾人能够使用移动远程机械手来促进科学进步，包括在创建未来机器人系统方面的新见解，该系统可以由最终用户动态重新配置，而无需领域专业知识。这项工作将通过洞察机器人介导的互动而造福社会，这种互动可以扩展到其他领域，如远程医疗、远程医疗，以及其他与现实世界社区保持社会联系的障碍。该项目的成果将把与公共空间中人类操作的协作机器人有关的社会、教育、财政和伦理问题带到最前沿，并探索新的方法来包容在整个社会和STEM领域中代表性不足的学生。该项目将告知几个关键的研究问题，包括：1)识别有助于最佳学习的机器人中介学习任务；2)创建包含日常协作机器人交互社会规范的最佳实践和指导方针；3)为居家儿童设计新的可访问、适应性强、可用的移动遥控控制方式；4)利用与具身协作机器人的互动来激发对STEM的兴趣，特别关注医学上居家儿童和残疾儿童。该项目将采用案例研究方法，探索机器人中介学习体验中利益相关者的相互联系。该项目将包括48个案例研究，每个案例通常由22名参与者组成：一名在家的孩子、一名家长、一名老师、18名同学和一名学校管理员。将使用多种数据来源，包括直接观察、半结构化访谈、调查和焦点小组。访谈记录、观察笔记和调查回复将进行开放编码，以确定案例内部和案例之间的共性/差异。从分析中产生的主题和概念将与数据反复比较，以确保其有效性。研究小组将与在家的儿童合作，共同设计可访问和适应性强的控制界面，以反映这一人群独特的教育和社会需求。该项目由国家机器人计划2.0：无所不在的协作机器人（NRI-2.0）计划和学生和教师的创新技术体验（ITEST）计划资助，该计划支持建立对实践、程序元素、背景和过程的理解，有助于增加学生对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）以及信息和通信技术（ICT）职业的知识和兴趣。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Over 2.5 million children in the US are medically homebound. They are socially isolated, physically segregated, and current educational practices largely exclude them from their school communities. Telepresence robots have emerged as a possible means to support these children to return to their local schools, however, it is not yet understood how homebound children can effectively use these robots for optimal learning and social development experiences. The goal of this project is to advance robot-mediated learning in schools, and investigate how co-robots can facilitate optimal learning experiences. The investigators will 1) Identify best practices and guidelines for the use of embodied co-robots in schools to best facilitate learning and social development; 2) Design new inclusive interfaces and control modalities for homebound children to use mobile telemanipulators, and 3) Pioneer new inclusive robotics curricula to support children with disabilities entering the STEM workforce. This project will yield new knowledge in multiple fields, including human-robot interaction, education, and healthcare. This project will also promote the progress of science by exploring how to make mobile telemanipulators accessible to people with disabilities, including new insights in the creation of future robot systems that can be dynamically reconfigured by end users without requiring domain expertise. This work will benefit society through insights into robot-mediated interaction which can extend to other domains, such as telemedicine, telehealth, and others who experience barriers to remaining socially connected to their real-world communities. The results of this project will bring to the forefront societal, educational, fiscal, and ethical issues concerning human-operated co-robots in public spaces, and explore new ways to be inclusive of students underrepresented both in society at large as well as in STEM fields. This project will inform several key research questions including: 1) Identifying robot-mediated learning tasks that contribute to optimal learning; 2) Creating best practices and guidelines that incorporate social norms for daily co-robot interactions; 3) Designing new accessible, adaptable, and usable control modalities for mobile telemanipulation for homebound children; 4) Leveraging interaction with an embodied co-robot to motivate interest in STEM, with a particular focus on medically homebound children and children with disabilities. The project will employ a case study research methodology, exploring stakeholder interconnectedness in the robot-mediated learning experience. The project will consist of 48 case studies, where each case will typically consist of 22 participants: a homebound child, a parent, a teacher, 18 classmates, and a school administrator. Multiple sources of data will be used, consisting of direct observations, semi-structured interviews, surveys, and focus groups. Transcripts from interviews, observation notes, and survey responses will undergo open-coding to identify commonalities/differences within and between cases. The themes and concepts that emerge from the analysis will be repeatedly compared with the data to ensure their validity. The research team will work with homebound children to co-design accessible and adaptable control interfaces to reflect the unique educational and social needs of this population.This project is funded by the National Robotics Initiative 2.0: Ubiquitous Collaborative Robots (NRI-2.0) program, and the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.