As a tangible and motivating medium for students to engage in computational thinking, robotics has drawn interest from educators and researchers as K-12 schools continue to integrate STEM into curriculum. Through this mixed methods study, the researcher sought to explore the effects of robotics instructional methods (task-based and project-based)…

With the increasing employment of robots in multiple areas such as smart manufacturing and intelligent transportation, both undergraduate and graduate students from computing related majors (e.g., computer science and information technology) demonstrated strong interests in learning robotics technology to broaden their career opportunities.…

The damped harmonic oscillator physics problem is a standard oscillation problem in calculus physics for pre-engineering students in a community college. The use of alternative linear algebra eigenvalue stability method is consistent with the upper engineering courses using control theory. The external force and friction damping would become the…

Contribution: A first-year programming course was redesigned with a large, open-ended robotics project. The course design aligns with best practices for promoting development of students' self-efficacy in solving ill-structured software design problems. Background: From Jonassen's theory, problem-solving outcomes are dependent on the problem…

In recent years, with the popularity of AI technologies in our everyday life, researchers have begun to discuss an emerging term "AI literacy". However, there is a lack of review to understand how AI teaching and learning (AITL) research looks like over the past two decades to provide the research basis for AI literacy education. To…

This study examined the educational effects in strengthening programming skills among university's undergraduate engineering students via integration of a robotics project and an experiential learning approach. In this study, a robotics project was conducted to close the gap of students' difficulty in relating the theoretical concepts of…

One way that STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) initiatives are being utilized is to encourage schools and teachers to integrate key science-based concepts into daily instruction. The reason is simple: it is more than just an instructional improvement or curricular enhancement; it is a research-based strategy that addresses the…

This study presents the case of development and evaluation of a STEM-oriented 30-h robotics course for junior high school students (n = 32). Class activities were designed according to the P3 Task Taxonomy, which included: (1) practice-basic closed-ended tasks and exercises; (2) problem solving--small-scale open-ended assignments in which the…

As a problem-solving approach, design thinking (DT) emphasizes iterative, user-focused designing. While DT is being readily adopted into education, little is known about how educators integrate DT across curricula. To address this question, we collaborated with a tech-ed industry partner and a focus group of experienced educators to assess…

Problem solving spans all grade levels and content areas, as evidenced by this compilation of projects from schools across the United States. In one project, high school girls built a solar-powered tent to serve their city's homeless population. In another project, 4th graders explored historic Jamestown to learn about the voices lost to history.…

This study aims to investigate the differences between male and female students in technology project design. The major gender differences discussed in this study include the problem discovering and solving abilities, maneuverability, and inquiry attitude among middle grade students. In the project design, students were required to design and…

The POWERTECH contest in Taiwan was established in an attempt to promote inventiveness and technology to elementary school pupils. The POWERTECH contest is designed as a collaborative learning system for project design. Project design is comprised of technical processes, which include the construction of an artifact and improvement of its…

Project-based learning is a research-based instructional tool that has proven to be effective in all secondary curricular disciplines, particularly in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). A project is an applied activity, often hands-on, where the students are challenged to successfully address a problem. In many…

This paper presents a study about learning and the problem solving process identified among junior high school pupils participating in robotics projects in the Lego Mindstorm environment. The research was guided by the following questions: (1) How do pupils come up with inventive solutions to problems in the context of robotics activities? (2)…

With the evolution of the surrounding world market, engineers have to propose innovations in products and processes. Industrial innovation frequently results from an improved understanding of basic physics. In this paper, an approach to accelerate inventive preliminary design is presented. This method combines the main advantages of CBR (Case…