Building blocks of foundation phase educational robotics teacher training across the digital divide

Abstract

Education needs to respond to the unprecedented work-life changes associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Since South African policies inform education’s aim at digital upskilling of teachers and learners, an increasingly prioritised approach to future-proof learners’ skillsets, is Educational Robotics. This approach has many affordances, including the development of learners’ computational thinking and 21st century skills. Starting in the Foundation Phase, Educational Robotics offers learners opportunities to develop their coding skills, while experimenting with robots. The onus of implementation lies on visionary, skilled teachers.

Since teachers require relevant Educational Robotics training, this qualitative study explores relevant foundation phase teacher training. Using Appreciative Inquiry as research strategy, this study includes field experts, teachers, and lecturers to explore teacher training building blocks across Digital Divide contexts through interviews, observations, documents, field notes, and reflective journals. Educational Robotics classroom activities and pre-service teacher module development form part of the study’s data. The data explores the motivations, and knowledge foundations of participants through two frameworks constituting the conceptual framework, namely the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge framework, and the model of digital technology access associated with the Digital Divide. The multi-layered data analysis approach is mainly inductive. Deductive analysis is informed by the literature and conceptual framework. The analysis process progresses from codes and categories to themes centered on six questions.

Theoretically, the study establishes the conceptual framework by contributing 54 process and product building blocks for Educational Robotics foundation phase teacher training. Four further theoretical contributions include an exploration of South African Educational Robotics implementation; addressing teacher motivation in training; demonstration of Bee-bot illustrating the seven computational (coding) concepts; and showcasing the range of South African Educational Robotics tools. Methodologically, the study succeeds in applying Appreciative Inquiry as both a study research strategy, and a change management process for pre-service teacher module development. This study contributes four practical aspects, including a five-step model for Foundation Phase Educational Robotics teacher training design; a detailed outline of a pre-service teacher Educational Robotics module; guidelines for teacher’s classroom activity design; and the inclusion of a range of Educational Robotics tools in teacher training.