In this paper, we explore how the physically embodied nature of robots can influence learning through non-verbal communication, such as gesturing. We take an embodied cognition perspective to examine student interactions with a NAO robot that uses gestures while reasoning about geometry conjectures. College aged students (N = 30) were randomly assigned to either a dynamic condition, where the robot uses dynamic gestures that represent and manipulate geometric shapes in the conjectures, or control condition, where the robot uses beat gestures that match the rhythm of speech. Students in the dynamic condition: (1) use more gestures when they reason about geometry conjectures, (2) look more at the robot as it speaks, (3) feel the robot is a better study partner and uses effective gestures, but (4) were not more successful in correctly reasoning about geometry conjectures. We discuss implications for socially supported and embodied learning with a physically present robot.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3491102.3517556
Many families engage daily with artificial intelligence (AI) applications, from conversations with a voice assistant to mobile navigation searches. While there are known ways for youth to learn about AI, we do not yet understand how to engage parents in this process. To explore parents’ roles in helping their children develop AI literacies, we designed 11 learning activities organized into four topics: image classification, object recognition, interaction with voice assistants, and unplugged AI co-design. We conducted a 5-week online in-home study with 18 children (5 to 11 years old) and 16 parents. We identify parents’ most common roles in supporting their children and consider the benefits of parent-child partnerships when learning AI literacies. Finally, we discuss how our different activities supported parents’ roles and present design recommendations for future family-centered AI literacies resources.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3491102.3502031
The unique role that AI plays in making decisions that affect humans creates a need for public understanding of AI. Informal learning spaces are important contexts for fostering AI literacy, as they can reach a broader audience and provide spaces for children and parents to learn together. This paper explores 1) what types of dialogue familes engage in when learning about AI in an at-home learning environment to inform our understanding of 2) how to design AI literacy activities for informal learning contexts. We present an analysis of family dialogue surrounding three AI education activities and use our findings to update existing principles for designing AI literacy educational interventions. Our findings indicate that embodied interaction, collaboration, and lowering barriers to entry were effective at fostering learning talk. Our results also reveal emergent areas for future research on how to support parents and design visualizations and datasets for AI learning.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3491102.3502091
Advances in Natural Language Processing offer techniques to detect the empathy level in texts. To test if individual feedback on certain students’ empathy level in their peer review writing process will help them to write more empathic reviews, we developed ELEA, an adaptive writing support system that provides students with feedback on the cognitive and emotional empathy structures. We compared ELEA to a proven empathy support tool in a peer review setting with 119 students. We found students using ELEA wrote more empathic peer reviews with a higher level of emotional empathy compared to the control group. The high perceived skill learning, the technology acceptance, and the level of enjoyment provide promising results to use such an approach as a feedback application in traditional learning settings. Our results indicate that learning applications based on NLP are able to foster empathic writing skills of students in peer review scenarios.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3491102.3517740