Robotics in Mathematics Education
Date
2019-05
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Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group /Groupe Canadien d’Étude en Didactique des Mathématiques
Abstract
Robots and robotics have spread out of research laboratories, industrial and commercial settings to a variety of new locations including living rooms and classrooms. This incursion has afforded different learning opportunities for children and adults. In the tradition of Papert (1980), who identified educational robots as ‘objects-to-think-with’, our working group set out to explore some of the potential for using robots to think about mathematics and other powerful ideas through engaging with building, programming, testing, mathematising, playing and discussing emergent ethical issues. Participants came with a variety of previous experiences and expertise in mathematics education and coding across diverse settings and with different goals. These included making stronger connections between coding and robotics, or computational thinking and mathematical thinking; examining potential for inclusion in courses for pre-service teachers given jurisdictional pushes or emerging curriculum emphases; seeking active hands-on experiences for applied mathematics courses and modelling; and also because of the ‘that’s cool!’ factor.
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Citation
Francis, K., Caron, F., & Khan, S. (2018). Robots in Mathematics Education. In J. Holm & S. Mathieu-Soucy (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group /Groupe Canadien d’Étude en Didactique des Mathématiques (pp. 63-75). Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group /Groupe Canadien d’Étude en Didactique des Mathématiques.