Development and Assessment of Robot Teaching Assistant in Facilitating Learning

Abstract

The drive to tackle teachers' support needs in the classroom has led to a great increase in the demand for teaching assistant who can work in a variety of assignments, especially when it is difficult to do only by the teacher himself/herself. This study developed a humanoid robot as a teaching assistant to provide teachers with the necessary support, and applied the robot teaching assistant to support teacher to particularly explain and demonstrate two icebreaker games. To examine the impact of the robot teaching assistant on learning, we carried out a series of experiments in which students were organized to learn the rules of games in two conditions: with or without robot teaching assistant. A questionnaire survey was designed to confirm whether the use of robot teaching assistant enhanced the students understanding. The comparison of the scores obtained from the questionnaires for two conditions indicates that the instruction supported by a robot teaching assistant is more effective to promote students' understanding and help students create more positive perceptions towards the learning activities in the class.