Robotics Education provide the opportunity for students to bring their individual interests, perspectives and areas of expertise together in order to work collaboratively in a real-world science. In order to increase students’ engagement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, it is important that learners increase their time working with concrete STEM tasks in collaborative groups. According to Cannon et.al (2007) Robotics is often used to provide STEM experience for students in a manner that is concrete, authentic, accessible and motivating.
Quinn (2004) stated that robotics has a potential to bring together people from various disciplines and fields to work on a single project. Many researchers have been investigating the use of robotics to support education. Several studies have shown that robots can help students develop problem-solving abilities and learn computer programming, mathematics and science.
Interactive Learning is a practical innovative approach that helps students to be more involved in retaining more materials to improve their skills, with or without using a formal technology.
It aids in strengthening the critical thinking and problem solving skills of the students. It involves collaboration among learners, this elicits discussion and tasks. Collaboration as part of interactive learning goes beyond simple cooperation where group members do their assigned tasks and work well together. It is all about the integration and synthesis of every group member ideas and expertise. Yuen (2015) mentioned that collaboration is important to learning process because it brings together multiple perspectives, ideas and abilities. Group dynamics is another innovative approach in teaching, this requires group members to have individualized tasks and individual accountability to the group.
Yuen (2015) cited that when assigning roles in a certain activity, group members must be aware of each other’s strengths (in order to take advantage of them) and weakness (so other can offer support and guidance). That is, success of a group relies on the group’s ability to work together to complete the task.
From the result of the study presented by LEGO Engineering (2014) it was found out that students improved their critical thinking skills using robotics. Students learned to collaborate and share ideas. The students’ interest in Physics has dramatically increased with the addition of robotics. Ozgen et.al (2014) concluded that activities with robots contribute considerably to the level of students’ perception on the nature of Science. Ebeth (2012) study provided evidence that students involved in an after school robotics program improved in several subjects. The increased skills were predominantly in the areas of research, engineering, technology and problem solving as a theme. Furthermore, Study of Sullivan (2008) as cited by Nall et.al (2016) found that students who participate in a robotics curriculum build and develop their thinking and science processing skills. This allows them to scientifically attack and solve any problem. The researcher also found that students understanding of science and technology skills improve because they have use thinking and processing skills such as observing, evaluating solutions, testing/experimenting, generating hypotheses, controlling variables, manipulating variables and estimating.
Trece Martires City National High Schools aims to get more students involved in STEM subjects, the researcher incorporated robotics as part of Advanced Physics subject. The increasing number of LEGO Mindstorm robotics kit given to the school motivates the researcher in determining the impact of innovative approach in teaching which includes collaboration, group dynamics and mini-competition on the academic performance of Grade 10 SSC students in Robotics at Trece Martires City National High School. Moreover, the researcher wanted to assess the perception of students toward the robotics lesson as a part of the elective subject.
Generally, this study was conducted to determine the impact of innovative approach in teaching which includes collaboration, group dynamics and mini-competition on the academic performance in Robotics of the selected Grade 10 students of TMCNHS. Specifically, it seeks to answer the following questions:
Robotics Education enhances the capability of students to think deeper, plan better to create a better robot as an output. Interactive Learning as an approach to innovate teaching will be an avenue to enhance strategy in learning robotics.
Since the G10 students of TMCNHS were new to Robotics, the researcher planned of possible strategy that catches the learners’ attention as well as finding the best way to enhance their knowledge in the subject in an easier and fun way. This give the researcher an idea to conduct a study to compare the teacher-learning method strategies which was proven to be effective versus the innovative approach in teaching. The focus of this innovative approach is for students be acquainted to the main principle of robotics, drawing attention to youth scientific and technical creativity. Students will be able to exchange experiences and ideas for them to develop bases of design of robots that have different degree of complexity. Robotics competition is also a part of this innovative approach since this strategy is considered to be one of the key insights of educational robotics. This will give an opportunity to disclose technical imagination, exchange ideas, knowledge, and approaches to master knowledge. Innovative approach in teaching robotics will include collaborative brainstorming and recording ways that robot could perform its specific function. Sketch and label what one of your ideas would look alike. Group dynamics, is where students plan as a group how their robot will be manipulated and controlled. Teams must always work collaboratively and be competitive, it is of great importance that players interact with each other to have improved robot team performance. Mini-competition within the groups inside the classroom. The competition will focus on sumo bot and line tracing only.
This research utilized the mix method type of research since a pre-post-test design and a survey questionnaire was utilized in the conduct of study.
Purposive Sampling was used in determining the respondents for this study. Two sections of Grade 10 under the Special Science Curriculum was the respondents for they were the students exposed to robotics education. Thirty (30) students from Jose Juliano were the experimental group, while the other thirty one (30) students from Gregorio Zara were the control group.
The study was conducted at the Science Laboratory I of Trece Martires City National High School for the period of two months from June to August 2019.
A twenty (20) items multiple choice type of test focusing on building and programming a robot was constructed by the researcher, department head and master teacher of science assessed the validity of the pre-test, then it was administered to the respondents. The students were given twenty (20) minutes to answer the test. The test was checked using a scoring scheme wherein every correct answer worth one point each.
For the control group, building and programming of an EV3 robot was done in a teacher – learner activity; the teacher gave instruction and the group followed the given task step by step as instructed by the teacher. For the experimental group, Innovative Approach in Teaching was utilized. The teacher gave the general instruction or direction to the class and each group will first, collaboratively brainstorm ideas on how they will design and built their robot suited to the need of the environment. Then, group dynamics was observe; students plan as a group on how their robot was manipulated and controlled, trial and error in terms of programming was done. Teams must always work collaboratively and be competitive, it is of great importance that players interact with each other to have improved robot team performance. Lastly, groups compete against the other group (mini-competition) to test the durability of the robot and efficiency of the program they created. Programming focused on the following: Line tracing and SUMOBOT.
After one month of giving series of exercises on building and programming a robot a post test was administered to the experimental and to the control group.
For the interpretation of result, the following rating was utilized
In this study, the scores were measured using the mean, percentage and paired t-test in determining the impact of innovative approach in teaching which includes collaboration, group dynamics and mini-competition on the academic performance in Robotics of the selected Grade 10 students of TMCNHS. Weighted Mean was also used to identify students’ perception about Robotics as part of the subject in terms of their interest towards the subject and activities being presented.
Tables were presented to show the findings of the study. Description and interpretation were also provided.
Table 1. Academic Performance of the Control and Experimental Group based on Pre-test
The average percentage of pre-test of both control and experimental group were presented in Table 1 with the percentage of 25.56 for the control group and 26.33 for the experimental group. It shows that the academic performance of the control group is a little bit lower than the experimental group.
After calculating the result of pre-test of the two groups, the scores were treated using paired t-test at 0.05 level of significance, to determine the comparability of the two groups. From the data presented in Table 2, were the computed t-value 0.460 is less than the critical t-value at 0.05 level of significance, it explains that there is no significant difference between the academic performances in Science between the two groups in terms of pre-test. The result ensure that the respondents in both group are heterogeneous in nature and that no group is better than the other.
Table 2. Difference between pre-test of the two Groups
After the pre-test, students belonging to the experimental group was given a general instruction or direction by the teacher, collaboratively brainstorm ideas on how they will design and built their robot suited to the need of the environment. Then, students plan as a group on how their robot was manipulated and controlled, trial and error in terms of programming was done. Lastly, groups compete against the other group (mini-competition) to test the durability of the robot and efficiency of the program they created. While the control group was taught in a teacher – learner activity; were teacher gave instruction and the group followed the given task step by step as instructed by the teacher applying the normal/traditional class room discussion. After one month of discussing gases, two groups both took the 20 items post-test. Raw score was recorded to compare the academic performance after the treatment.
Table 3. Academic Performance of the Control and Experimental Group based on Post-test
Table 3 presents the difference in the result of post-test between the control and experimental group. The average percentage for the control group is 47.00 and 58.56 for the experimental group. The difference explains that the students exposed to innovative approach in teaching obtained a higher achievement performance than the control group.
Results from paired t-test of post-test was presented in Table 4, data shows that the post-test mean of the experimental group was significantly higher than the control group. Since the computed t-value is greater than the critical t-value at 0.05 level of significance, it proves that there is a significant difference between the result of post-test between the experimental and control group. This proves that the use of Innovative Approach in Teaching Robotics is an effective aid in enhancing the academic performance for the experimental group.
Table 4. Difference between Post-test of the two Groups
Collected data presented on Table 5 explains that using teacher-learner activity, the academic performance of the control group increased from 7.667 to 14.100 showing that there is an advancement in the control group. However, an increase in the academic performance of the experimental group from 7.900 to16 to 17.567, indicates that the performance of the experimental group who was exposed Innovative Approach in teaching for a month is higher than the control group. This also signifies that there is a great improvement on the part of the experimental group.
Table 5. Comparison of the Academic Performance of the Control and Experimental Group before and after the treatment
The findings is parallel with the study of Scaradozzi et.al (2014), in his study it was proven that innovative way of transmitting skills which started from design process of ideation, construction and implementation helps students to develop the skills that will be necessary to be successful in the 21st century. This also support the findings of study were robotics as an educational process provides active development in students of the entire complex of cognitive process.
After giving the Post-test, students in the experimental group were given survey questionnaire, to determine their perception in robotics subjects in terms of their interest towards the subject and set of activities presented.
Data presented on Table 6 shows that in terms of their interest, students in the experimental group “Strongly Agree” that robotics subject is easy to understand with a mean of 3.57, “Agree” that they feel comfortable when programming a robot with a mean of 2.93 and also “Slightly Agree” that programming makes them interested to attend robotics subject. This is due to the fact that limited materials such as laptops can be used by the students in creating robotics program. Students with their own laptop gain advantage over other who are waiting for their classmates to finish their turn.
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