**4.2 Science and mathematics education in elementary school**

A critical feature that elementary school needs to develop on their students is the ability to use mathematical and logical thinking in daily life situations. For this

**Figure 3.** *Physical education class with the support of a robotic platform.*

### *Industrial Robotics - New Paradigms*

reason, a NAO robot was used to create brief experiments regarding whole number fractions, sound propagation, and operations with the metric system [19].

The idea of the experiments was that the explanations and activities could be given by a robotic platform or by the teaching staff. Also, an observation protocol was implemented to analyze seven characteristics of student behavior:


For every session and experiment, the students were required to follow the instructions given by an instructor or the robot, and its performance was then measured with the behavior scale. Each session was composed of a theoretical explanation, a practical exercise, a final evaluation for the students about the given topic, and a time for questions and answers.

The exercise with fractions included a visual exercise, where the teacher or the robot would show a geometric figure divided by a certain number of colored parts and with blank spaces. After showing the image, the students were questioned about how many spaces were missing to complete the figure and then which fraction represented that portion.

For the sound propagation experiment, the teacher or the robot would work as a receiver, while the student would be the transmitter of a message. The idea was to say a phrase to the receiver at a certain distance and determine if the message was received. In the affirmative case, the student would increment the distance with the teacher or the robot and repeat the exercise until they fail to receive the phrase. When the instructor or robot was not capable of hearing, the student was asked to use a paper cone to transmit the message again and verify if, in that case, the message was transmitted successfully.

The exercise of metric system evaluation is shown in **Figure 4**. In this case, a two-meter band was used as a reference for putting the robotic platform at the beginning of the track. The students were required to use 20-cm bands to determine how many were required in order for the robot to move a particular distance.

The results obtained from these experiments demonstrated that the students showed a better learning process when using the robotic platform as a reference during the experiments than the case where the teaching staff was the only one interacting with them. Finally, a perception survey was also given to the students, where they expressed their interest in the activities and the use of a robot in class. In those questionnaires, the students showed signs of great interest. Also, during a final evaluation given to the students, it was observed how the ones that interacted with the robotic platform during the exercises achieved better scores than the ones that did not interact with the robot.

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**Figure 5.**

*Use of a NAO robot in a high school class.*

*Socially Assistive Robotics: State-of-the-Art Scenarios in Mexico*

**4.3 Attention span evaluation in high school students**

*Metric system evaluation with a robotic platform.*

illustrated in **Figure 5**.

**Figure 4.**

High school students are more accustomed to the use of novel technological platforms and their use in daily life activities. For the same reason, the novelty of using robotic platforms during class may not be that interesting at first glance to them. The lack of novelty could even produce the reduction of the attention span during class. For this reason, it would be proven useful to evaluate the attention span of high school students during class, when the instructor is using a robotic platform, as

The study described in [20] analyzes how much attention a group of high school

students give during a mathematics class when the teacher uses a NAO robot.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91446*

*Industrial Robotics - New Paradigms*

1.Concentration (precision)

2.Concentration (recall)

3.Habituation

5.Distraction

4.Non-habituation

6.Task enthusiasm

7.Task motivation

tion represented that portion.

sage was transmitted successfully.

that did not interact with the robot.

topic, and a time for questions and answers.

reason, a NAO robot was used to create brief experiments regarding whole number

The idea of the experiments was that the explanations and activities could be given by a robotic platform or by the teaching staff. Also, an observation protocol

For every session and experiment, the students were required to follow the instructions given by an instructor or the robot, and its performance was then measured with the behavior scale. Each session was composed of a theoretical explanation, a practical exercise, a final evaluation for the students about the given

The exercise with fractions included a visual exercise, where the teacher or the robot would show a geometric figure divided by a certain number of colored parts and with blank spaces. After showing the image, the students were questioned about how many spaces were missing to complete the figure and then which frac-

For the sound propagation experiment, the teacher or the robot would work as a receiver, while the student would be the transmitter of a message. The idea was to say a phrase to the receiver at a certain distance and determine if the message was received. In the affirmative case, the student would increment the distance with the teacher or the robot and repeat the exercise until they fail to receive the phrase. When the instructor or robot was not capable of hearing, the student was asked to use a paper cone to transmit the message again and verify if, in that case, the mes-

The exercise of metric system evaluation is shown in **Figure 4**. In this case, a two-meter band was used as a reference for putting the robotic platform at the beginning of the track. The students were required to use 20-cm bands to determine how many were required in order for the robot to move a particular

The results obtained from these experiments demonstrated that the students showed a better learning process when using the robotic platform as a reference during the experiments than the case where the teaching staff was the only one interacting with them. Finally, a perception survey was also given to the students, where they expressed their interest in the activities and the use of a robot in class. In those questionnaires, the students showed signs of great interest. Also, during a final evaluation given to the students, it was observed how the ones that interacted with the robotic platform during the exercises achieved better scores than the ones

fractions, sound propagation, and operations with the metric system [19].

was implemented to analyze seven characteristics of student behavior:

**52**

distance.

**Figure 4.** *Metric system evaluation with a robotic platform.*
