Collaborative Research: Learner-Co-Created Social Robots for Supporting Girls’ Development of AI and Computing Skills

Girls interact with advanced technologies every day, and yet only 20 percent of computer science degrees in the United States are awarded to women. This number has further decreased over the years, and when broken out by ethnicity, is much lower for racially minoritized girls. This issue is not solely due to lack of access, but due to the approaches used in computing education technology and pedagogy. These approaches can limit creative and joyful learning opportunities that are meaningful to the learning context in ways that would empower girls to understand and express their own identities with technology. This project focuses on robotics education for middle school girls from backgrounds which have been historically excluded in the field of computer science, with the goal of developing girls' skills to use and create new technologies, and construct positive STEM identities.

The project extends culturally-responsive computing pedagogies through exploration of co-creation, where youth are empowered as creators of a robotics technology, and simultaneously engage in reflective dialogue with the AI-enhanced robots they have created. Learners will be able to directly ideate on the societal implications of their technological creation and develop their skills to positively impact their community. Researchers will carry out design-based research, including three iterations of co-design and program deployment with a total of 140 girls, in collaboration with two community partners, one serves a majority Black population, and one more racially diverse group. This project will contribute: 1) Co-creative technology design principles and how design choices can facilitate Culturally Responsive Computing, 2) Sensing and modeling of the dynamic collaborative context, and 3) An understanding of how the resulting principles, outcomes, and implementation guidelines might differ depending on the cultural backgrounds of the participants. A mixed-method design will be employed, utilizing the co-design and deployment data, and pairing quantitative learning analytics of log and interaction data with a qualitative coding of participant artifacts and interviews. Curriculum, technologies, and professional development materials from this project will be made available for public use, and workshops will be conducted that both provide specific instruction on the program and facilitate general knowledge sharing on how to create and sustain empowering informal learning programs.