Background
Educational robotics (ER) is increasingly used in classrooms to implement activities aimed at fostering the development of students’ computational thinking (CT) skills. Though previous works have proposed different models and frameworks to describe the underlying concepts of CT, very few have discussed how ER activities should be implemented in classrooms to effectively foster CT skill development. Particularly, there is a lack of operational frameworks, supporting teachers in the design, implementation, and assessment of ER activities aimed at CT skill development. The current study therefore presents a model that allows teachers to identify relevant CT concepts for different phases of ER activities and aims at helping them to appropriately plan instructional interventions. As an experimental validation, the proposed model was used to design and analyze an ER activity aimed at overcoming a problem that is often observed in classrooms: the trial-and-error loop, i.e., an over-investment in programming with respect to other tasks related to problem-solving.

Results
Two groups of primary school students participated in an ER activity using the educational robot Thymio. While one group completed the task without any imposed constraints, the other was subjected to an instructional intervention developed based on the proposed model. The results suggest that (i) a non-instructional approach for educational robotics activities (i.e., unlimited access to the programming interface) promotes a trial-and-error behavior; (ii) a scheduled blocking of the programming interface fosters cognitive processes related to problem understanding, idea generation, and solution formulation; (iii) progressively adjusting the blocking of the programming interface can help students in building a well-settled strategy to approach educational robotics problems and may represent an effective way to provide scaffolding.

Conclusions
The findings of this study provide initial evidence on the need for specific instructional interventions on ER activities, illustrating how teachers could use the proposed model to design ER activities aimed at CT skill development. However, future work should investigate whether teachers can effectively take advantage of the model for their teaching activities. Moreover, other intervention hypotheses have to be explored and tested in order to demonstrate a broader validity of the model.



中文翻译：

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通过教育机器人培养计算思维：创造性地解决计算问题的模型

背景
在教室中越来越多地使用教育机器人技术（ER）来开展旨在促进学生计算思维（CT）技能发展的活动。尽管先前的工作提出了不同的模型和框架来描述CT的基本概念，但是很少讨论如何在课堂上实施ER活动以有效促进CT技能的发展。特别是，缺少操作框架，无法支持教师设计，实施和评估旨在开展CT技能的ER活动。因此，本研究提出了一个模型，该模型可以使教师识别与ER活动不同阶段相关的CT概念，并旨在帮助他们适当地计划教学干预措施。作为实验验证，

结果
两组小学生使用教育机器人Thymio参加了ER活动。当一个小组在没有任何强加约束的情况下完成任务时，另一小组则受到了基于所提议模型开发的教学干预。结果表明：（i）教育机器人活动的非教学方法（即无限制地访问编程界面）会促进反复试验行为；（ii）计划中的编程接口的阻塞会促进与问题理解，想法产生和解决方案制定相关的认知过程；（iii）逐步调整编程接口的阻塞状态可以帮助学生建立解决教育机器人问题的稳固策略，并且可以代表提供脚手架的有效方法。

结论
本研究的结果提供了有关对ER活动进行特定指导干预的必要性的初步证据，说明了教师如何使用建议的模型来设计针对CT技能发展的ER活动。但是，未来的工作应调查教师是否可以有效地利用该模型进行教学活动。此外，还必须探索和测试其他干预假设，以证明该模型具有更广泛的有效性。