“It will surely fall”: Exploring Teachers’ Perspectives on Commercial Robots for Preschoolers

Abstract

This paper presents a study with kindergarten teachers to assess the advantages, challenges and opportunities of commercial robots to teach computational thinking to young children. Recent studies have highlighted the potential benefits of introducing CT concepts at an early stage. Robots are an engaging and effective educational tool for teaching CT to young children, providing hands-on and interactive learning experiences. Entirely tangible robotic environments have successfully connected the abstract world of CT with the concrete world of preschoolers. Children can program robots by pressing buttons, drawing the path or using code cards. However, there is limited research on the use of commercial robots in preschool classrooms. This research aims to address this gap by investigating preschool teachers’ perspectives on the advantages, challenges, and opportunities associated with using commercial robots in the context of kindergarten classrooms. We contribute with a list of practical, pedagogical and motivational aspects that should be taken into account while evaluating robots and design considerations to build robotic environments for kindergarten classrooms.