In mathematics education, especially in early childhood that is considered the most formative period in children's lives, there is an always growing need to design, test, and validate tools and activities that take advantage of recent pedagogical and technological advancements but still focus on the creative learning process, instead of quantifying the outcomes and emphasizing numerical data and performance. Educational robotics as a context for interdisciplinary problem-solving scenarios in preschool education can be an interesting starting point, since modern control technologies are usually thought to provide a rich variety of mind-tools that encourage active learning and children's creative thinking. Such activities may stimulate students to “do” mathematics in a seamless, creative, playful way in order to solve meaningful and appealing (for them) problems. The study tries to explore and validate emerging preschoolers' opportunities to unconsciously “mathematize” their environment in everyday playful robotics activities in the context of brief teaching experiments.
TopIntroduction
Educational Robotics (ER) is a rather recent learning approach that is known mainly for its effects on scientific (academic) subjects such as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Interest in educational applications of robotics has risen sharply in the last 20 years or so, culminating in the most recent decade, mainly thanks to the advent of more advanced, affordable devices and specialized software. The increased and more complex possibilities offered as well as the wider availability of new tools and applications based on “open architecture” and cheaper material resources, allow further experimentation and dissemination of the “makers” philosophy and practices to a wider age base of users.
The use of robotics and programming has a long-standing history in mathematics education as well with tools such as “turtle” geometry or Logo explored in classrooms for almost 50 years (Papert, 1980). In the late 1960s, Papert and his floor turtle “launched” the field of educational robotics based on tangible tools and artefacts, giving children the ability to not only process materials and create structures, but also to define and control their behavior. Since then, a new kind of hands-on material, either tangible or digital (digital manipulatives) has made its appearance and is constantly evolving, offering the opportunity to kids and their teachers to experiment with dynamic ideas and affordances that other traditional tools, actually, have never been able to offer (Moyer- Packenham et al., 2015; Skoumpourdi, 2010). It should be mentioned, however, that the use of artificial intelligence and robotic devices and constructions implies a connection with tangible tools that, since the time of Fröebel and Montessori, still support learning through exploration and experiential practices (Brosterman & Togashi, 1997). There also seems to be a direct link with Resnick & Rosenbaum’s (2013) “tinkering approach” which refers to activity that engages children in a playful, experiential and iterative way of doing things with or even without the aid of advanced technology.
For the above reasons, the trend of ER deliberately focuses on a range of control-technology educational tools in a variety of fields, addressing a variety of learning objectives (Keren & Fridin, 2014; Benitti, 2012Eguchi, 2010; Nugent et al. 2010) and outcomes such as improving problem-solving skills (Alimisis, 2013; Benitti, 2012), cultivating cognitive flexibility and metacognitive practices in early and late childhood (Mioduser & Levy, 2010; Sullivan, 2008) as well as encouraging a positive attitude towards the STEM field (Lindh & Holgersson 2007; La Paglia et al, 2011) etc. In addition, recent studies have assessed the effects of robot programming on cognitive and learning processes, such as decision-making, self-awareness, problem-solving, and computational thinking (La Paglia et al., 2011; Kazakoff and Bers, 2014; Atmatzidou et al., 2018; Tuomi et al., 2018; Atmatzidou & Demetriadis, 2016 · Eguchi, 2014 · Keren & Fridin, 2014 · Alimisis, 2013 · Bers et al., 2014).