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，在这种活动中，与他人的社会互动有助于发展深刻和持久的知识。教师经常通过向学生提供指导来帮助学生在科学课堂上使用社交互动，包括给学生可能注意到的学习内容的小线索，重申其他人讲解的要点，或者向学生提问解释他们的推理。然而，在家庭作业中，学生通常在没有老师指导的丰富社交的帮助下自行完成课程。为了在作业期间帮助学生，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丰富的社交指导的能力。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，能够为学生完成作业提供社交学习体验和个性化支持。提供为社交机器人支持而设计的家庭作业课程的一个主要挑战是缺乏供教师创建和定制这些课程的工具。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，为科学教育中的家庭作业设计Path Wise、个性化的增强工具，这是一个机器人增强学习的家庭作业工作室。Path Wise家庭作业工作室是一个在线系统，教师可以在其中设计课程，并在科学作业中添加机器人互动，学生可以在家里登录机器人从事这些机器人辅助作业活动。Path Wise使教师能够在家庭作业中为学生增加指导，包括指导意见，突出材料，并提出与他们的课堂和学生生活经历有关的问题。在Path Wise工具的帮助下，教师可以将家庭作业转变为社交互动体验，从而极大地改善各种能力的学生的学习体验。这项工作通过可以改变在家学习体验的创新技术、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整合到科学课程中的现实世界实践提供信息的新建议，做出了重大的社会贡献。学生通常在孤立的情况下完成作业课程，而不是通过丰富的社交互动。教育技术可以通过循序渐进的反馈或熟练程度跟踪来支持学生的家庭作业，但大多数系统缺乏提供指导的机制，以反映学生在课堂内外的社会文化体验。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进行基于设计的研究，共同为科学教育中的家庭作业设计Path Wise、个性化增强工具，这是一个机器人增强学习的家庭作业工作室。Path Wise家庭作业工作室是一个开源的在线系统，包括一个教师创作环境，用于将教师指导添加到科学家庭作业活动中，以及一个学生家庭作业环境，学生在其中参与机器人辅助的家庭作业活动。Path Wise使用改进的触发动作编程环境，在教师界面中将触发动作对直接可视化地覆盖到多媒体作业活动上。教师指示触发点，指示在哪里提供指导，以及描述机器人在该触发点的响应的相关动作。当学生在家用Path界面学习时，机器人将从数据库中检索任务的触发动作对。当到达触发点时，关联的动作将被转换为机器人行为(语言、非语言和移动动作)。最后，研究人员将进行一项试点研究，以检验教师的使用情况和学生对Path Wise系统的体验，在该系统中，教师将在实际课程中嵌入四周的增强型家庭作业，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NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.