Robotic Teachers Can Adjust Style Based on Student Success
From: Medical Design Technology - 07/25/2017
By: Laura Panjwani

As part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Expeditions in Computing,
researchers from Yale University are developing socially assistive robotics -
a new field of robotics that focuses on assisting users through social rather
than physical interaction. A core part of their research is to design these
robots to work with children, including those with challenges such as autism,
hearing impairment, or those whose first language is one other than English.

The goal is not to replace teachers, but to assist them, said Brian
Scassellati, a professor of computer science, cognitive science, and
mechanical engineering at Yale University and director of the NSF Expedition
on Socially Assistive Robotics.

In one instance, socially assistive robotics were utilized at a school where
many of the students spoke Spanish or Portuguese at home and were learning
English as a second language. Several teachers disclosed that their biggest
challenge was not having a good understanding of exactly how much English
their students knew and what areas of the language they were having the
biggest challenges.

"If the teachers asked a kid a question, they would deflect or refuse to
answer because it was embarrassing to say the wrong thing in front of the
class," said Scassellati. "But when we took those same kids and we put them
one-on-one with the robots, even more so than when we put them one-on-one
with other adults, the kids were willing to make mistakes in front of the
robot. There is no social stigma attached with making a mistake in front of
the robot."

This same benefit was observed in kids with autism. Kids who were afraid to
attempt certain social interactions with peers based on past experiences of
messing up and being embarrassed, were not afraid to do so in front of the
robots. The robot could then understand what social challenges the autistic
kids faced and help them to overcome them. Scassellati's team is currently
working on a project where socially assistive robotics were placed in the
home of an autistic kid and his or her family for 30 days each. Each day the
child spends 30 minutes playing social skills games with the robot as well as
with their parents and the robot together. Scassellati's team will then
analysis the impact of this on the child's social skill improvement.

While Scassellati's team has been focused primarily on the use of this
technology with children, socially assistive robotics could be deployed in a
number of adult applications as well. The robots have been investigated for
use with the elderly, to monitor them for signs of dementia and keep them
cognitively engaged and socially engaged with those around them.

Read the entire article at:
https://www.rdmag.com/article/2017/07/robotic-teachers-can-adjust-style-based-student-success

Links:
Expeditions in Computing
https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2016/nsf16535/nsf16535.htm

Brian Scassellati
http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/scaz
http://scazlab.yale.edu/people/brian-scassellati

Social Robotics Lab
http://scazlab.yale.edu