Supporting Twenty-First Century Competencies Using Robots and Digital Storytelling

Abstract

Design thinking is a collaborative problem-solving approach that fosters innovation and communication by enhancing learners’ creative thinking abilities. This article discusses the use of domains identified by the Framework for 21st Century Learning (P21 Framework) to conduct a qualitative, exploratory case study to identify design thinking attributes perceived to be instrumental in building students’ capacity for communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity using robots and digital storytelling. The purpose of this study was to understand how students perceive the use of robots to help them build these 21st century competencies and to help identify practical implementation strategies for teachers interested in using robots to support 21st century skills. Sixteen students in a three-week summer camp were grouped and used Sphero Bot robots to design and build an interactive story using the robots as characters. Data collected included classroom observations, student reflections, and student-created artifacts. The P21 Framework recognizes three domains related to design thinking, identified as major contributors to authentic learning, adaptive critical thinking, and new media literacies. This case study addresses two domains relevant to using robotics and digital storytelling within this bounded case, (a) learning and innovation skills and (b) information, media, and technology literacy skills. Five student competencies within these two domains provided the conceptual framework used as a foundation to facilitate reliability of this research. The results of the current study indicate that using robots in this manner to build an interactive story sparked engagement in coding and digital storytelling, offered an authentic context applying design thinking to build 21st century competencies, and encouraged participants to further explore their newly developed skills.