A Culturally-Responsible Social Programmable Robot
The goal of this project is to explore the educational impact of social robots in informal learning environments, with applications to how social robots can improve participation and engagement of girls in out-of-school computer science programs located in under-resourced rural and urban areas. We have designed a social programmable robot that combines two existing approaches to educational robotics: the robot-as-tool approach, and the robot-as-companion approach. Much research on the impact of robotic learning environments on STEM has engaged learners in authentic programming tasks with robots (a robot-as-tool approach). Other approaches position robots as learning companions, or intelligent agents that can display emotions or interact directly with learners as their tutor, co-learner, or even their tutee. In combining these two approaches, we expect to see synergistic benefits of learning through authentic programming tasks and social engagement with an intelligent agent who participates as part of the "team." Learners interact with our social programmable robot as part of a culturally-responsive curriculum that combines coding lessons using a visual programming language with discussions of power, identity, and how these concepts intersect with technology design. Our ultimate goal is to design and implement culturally-responsive curriculum, technology, and professional development that empowers learners who have been historically underrepresented in STEM activities, especially girls of color.
This NSF-funded project is a collaboration with Dr. Angela Stewart at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Tara Nkrumah and Dr. Kimberley Scott at Arizona State University, and Dr. Amy Ogan at Carnegie Mellon University. Within the lab, Amanda Buddemeyer works on the project.
Publications
Li, Y., Nwogu, J., Buddemeyer, A., Solyst, J., Lee, J., Walker, E., Ogan, A., Stewart, A.E.B. "I Want to Be Unique From Other Robots": Positioning Girls as Co-creators of Social Robots in Culturally-Responsive Computing Education." Upcoming in Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). 2023.
Wu, Zhen, Buddemeyer, A., Walker, E., Stewart, A.E.B. "'I Dance Too': Girls' Identity Reflections with a Social Robot." Upcoming in Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). 2023.
Solyst, J., Nkrumah, T., Stewart, A.E.B., Buddemeyer, A., Walker, E., Ogan, A. "Running an Online Synchronous Culturally Responsive Computing Camp for Middle School Girls." In Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE). 2022.
Stewart, A.E.B., Solyst, J., Buddemeyer, A., Hatley, L., Henderson-Singer, S., Scott, K., Walker, E., & Ogan, A. "Explaining Engagement: Underrepresented Learner Behaviors in a Virtual Coding Camp." In Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED). 2021.
Buddemeyer, A., Nwogu, J., Solyst, J., Walker, E., Nkrumah, T., Ogan, A., Hatley, L., Stewart, A. "Unwritten Magic: Participatory Design of AI Dialogue to Empower Marginalized Voices." In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good (GoodIT). 2022.
Solyst, J., Nkrumah, T., Stewart, A.E.B., Buddemeyer, A., Walker, E., Ogan, A. "Insights from Virtual Culturally Responsive Computing Camps." In Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). 2022.
Buddemeyer, A., Hatley, L., Stewart, A.E.B., Solyst, J., Ogan, A., & Walker, E. "Agentic Engagement with a Programmable Dialog System." In Proceedings of the 17th Annual ACM International Computing Education Research Conference (ICER). 2021.