Collaborative Research: HCC: Small: PATHWiSE - Supporting Teacher Authoring of Robot-Assisted Homework

学习科学的研究人员将学习描述为一种社会活动，与他人的社会互动有助于发展深刻而持久的知识。在科学课堂上，教师经常通过为学生提供指导来帮助学生利用社会互动，包括给予学生可能注意到他们学习的小提示，重述其他人解释的关键点，或者向学生提问以解释他们的推理。然而，在家庭作业中，学生通常是自己完成功课，没有老师指导的丰富的社会互动的帮助。为了帮助学生完成家庭作业，教育技术可以为课程提供个性化的支持，但大多数系统缺乏提供教师在课堂上使用的那种社会丰富的指导的能力。一种解决方案是使用社交机器人或学习伴侣机器人，作为一种教育技术，能够在学生完成作业时提供社交学习体验和个性化支持。为社交机器人提供家庭作业课程的一个主要挑战是，教师缺乏工具来创建和定制这些课程。为了应对这一挑战，在这个项目中，研究人员将与中学科学教师和学生合作，设计PATHWiSE，科学教育家庭作业个性化增强工具，这是一个用于机器人增强学习的家庭作业工作室。PATHWiSE家庭作业工作室是一个在线系统，教师可以在这里设计课程，并在科学作业中添加机器人互动，学生可以在家里用机器人登录，参与这些机器人辅助的家庭作业活动。PATHWiSE允许教师在作业中为学生添加指导，包括指导性评论，突出材料，并提出与课堂和学生生活经历相关的问题。在PATHWiSE工具的帮助下，教师可以将家庭作业转化为一种社交互动体验，从而极大地改善各种能力学生的学习体验。这项工作通过一项创新技术为社会做出了重大贡献，可以改变家庭学习体验；展示如何为复杂技术开发教师创作工具的新知识和指导，以及为将社交机器人融入科学课程的现实实践提供信息的新建议。学生通常是孤立地完成家庭作业，而不是通过丰富的社会互动。教育技术可以通过逐步反馈或熟练程度跟踪来支持学生的家庭作业，但大多数系统缺乏机制来提供反映学生在课堂内外的社会文化经验的指导。为了应对这一挑战，该项目的研究人员将与中学科学教师和学生合作开展基于设计的研究，共同设计PATHWiSE，科学教育家庭作业个性化增强工具，这是一个用于机器人增强学习的家庭作业工作室。PATHWiSE家庭作业工作室是一个开源的在线系统，它包括一个教师创作环境，用于在科学作业活动中添加教师指导，以及一个学生作业环境，学生可以参与机器人辅助的家庭作业活动。PATHWiSE使用一种修改过的触发-动作编程环境，在教师界面上直接将触发-动作对直观地叠加到多媒体作业活动上。教师指出触发点，指示在哪里提供指导，以及描述机器人在该触发点的反应的相关动作。当学生在家使用PATHWiSE界面工作时，机器人将从数据库中检索作业的触发-动作对。当到达触发点时，相关的动作将被转换为机器人行为（口头、非口头和运动动作）。最后，研究人员将进行一项试点研究，以检查教师对PATHWiSE系统的使用情况和学生的体验，教师将在他们的实际课程中嵌入四周的作业，学生将在家中使用机器人或类似的基于计算机的系统完成这些作业。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。

Researchers in the learning sciences describe learning as a social activity where social interactions with others are conducive to developing deep and lasting knowledge. Teachers often help students using social interactions in science classrooms by providing guidance to students, including giving small cues to what students might notice about their learning, restating key points in what others are explaining, or asking students questions to explain their reasoning. However, during homework, students usually complete lessons by themselves without the aid of rich social interaction that comes from teacher guidance. To help students during homework, educational technologies can provide personalized support for lessons, but most systems lack the ability to provide the type of socially rich guidance that teachers use in classrooms. One solution is to use social robots, or learning companion robots, as an educational technology capable of providing a social learning experience and personalized supports for students as they complete their homework. A major challenge in providing homework lessons designed for social robotic support is a lack of tools for teachers to create and customize these lessons. To address that challenge, in this project, researchers will partner with middle school science teachers and students, to design PATHWiSE, Personalized Augmentation Tools for HomeWork in Science Education, a homework studio for robot augmented learning. The PATHWiSE homework studio is an online system where teachers can design lessons and add robot interactions to science homework and students can log on with a robot in their home to engage in these robot-assisted homework activities. PATHWiSE empowers teachers to add guidance for students during homework by including guiding comments, highlighting material, and asking questions that relate to their classrooms and students lived experiences. With help from the PATHWiSE tool, teachers can transform homework into a socially interactive experience that can vastly improve the learning experience for students of all abilities. This work makes significant societal contributions through an innovative technology that can transform at-home learning experiences; new knowledge and guidance that demonstrate how to develop teacher authoring tools for complex technologies, and new recommendations that inform real-world practice of integrating social robots into science curriculum.Students usually complete homework lessons in isolation rather than through rich social interaction. Educational technologies can support student homework via step-by-step feedback or proficiency tracking, but most systems lack mechanisms to provide guidance that reflects the socio-cultural experiences students have in and out of the classroom. To address that challenge, researchers in this project will conduct design-based research in partnership with middle school science teachers and students to co-design PATHWiSE, Personalized Augmentation Tools for HomeWork in Science Education, a homework studio for robot augmented learning. The PATHWiSE homework studio is an open-source online system that includes a teacher authoring environment for adding teacher guidance to science homework activities and a student homework environment where students engage in robot-assisted homework activities. PATHWiSE uses a modified trigger-action programming environment that visually overlays trigger-action pairs directly onto multimedia homework activities in the teacher interface. Teachers indicate trigger points, indicating where to provide guidance, and associated actions that describe the robot response at that trigger point. As students work at home with the PATHWiSE interface, the robot will retrieve trigger-action pairs for an assignment from a database. When a trigger point is reached, the associated actions will be translated into robot behaviors (verbal, non-verbal, and movement actions). Finally, researchers will conduct a pilot study to examine teacher use and student experiences with the PATHWiSE system, where teachers will create augmented homework assignments, embedded over four weeks in their actual curriculum, and students will complete these assignments at home with either the robot or a similar computer-based system.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.