If there is anything that lights up the faces of children and adults alike, it is robots. Little electronics that move and perform various functions make everyone curious. If you are an educator yourself, you might be wondering how you can take advantage of the excitement that your students have for robots. Using robots in the classroom is one of the easiest ways to integrate the 4 Cs of learning, which are collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and communication. In this post, we will go through how a robot can take your classroom learning to the next level, what types of robots to consider, how to use robots in the classroom efficiently, and what are some concepts that can be taught with the help of a robot.

There is a specific niche of robots called educational robots. These are the robots that an educator should be interested in if they want to properly introduce their students to the world of robotics. Some of these educational robots need to be assembled, some can help students understand a concept, and most of them are programmable. This means that students will learn fundamental engineering designs and programming skills from a young age.

Many concepts in STEM subjects are very difficult to understand when it is written down in a textbook. Robots will make the jobs of STEM teachers much easier because they will be able to demonstrate the concepts visually. On top of that, when the students get to play with the robots and see how the concepts handle change, they will be able to deeply understand the topic at hand.

Since the students get to play with robots with their hands and interact with the concepts as though it is real, this improves their critical thinking. Coding the robots, disassembling and reassembling them, and interacting with the robot improve critical thinking. 

Robots also help children with developmental disorders. Studies show that humanoid robots can help autistic children develop social skills. When the kids were talking with the robots, they did not worry about being criticized or judged for their behavior. They just interacted with the robots because it is a cool toy. One of the main tips to take from this study is that the robot should have an anthropomorphic form for the kids to improve their social skills.

Now if you want to introduce different robots to your classroom but don’t know where to start, here are some good options:

• PBS Kids: This is a fun interactive build a bot web app for students in grades K-5.
• Bee-Bot: This company offers fun programmable robots for grades K-5. It can be the first step to learn how to code.
• Sphero: Sphero is a company that offers STEAM learning solutions. If you can think of a robot, they probably make it. You can teach programming, assembling robots, and much more with their robots. It is suitable for grades K-12.  
• Ozobot: This company provides various lessons and activities for K-12 students with or without computer screens. They also provide a library of 3D CAD drawings that can be easily printed and used in the classroom with their robot.

If you have bought the robots, and now you want to start integrating robots in your classrooms immediately then you should firstly think and plan ahead. You should not be jumping right into it because it will definitely overwhelm your students especially if they have not been introduced to robotics in the past. The first step should be a small exploratory program that introduces the students to the fundamentals of a robot. Then the classes should include some activities where the students are left alone with the robots to solve problems.

The next thing to consider is organization. Robots come with batteries, wires, sensors, and many more things that need to be organized well. The small parts should also be monitored so that students do not injure themselves with them. A classroom should have a dedicated place where all the robots are kept. The place should be labeled well so that your students do not waste their time looking for parts rather than learning how the parts function.

If your classroom does not have enough robots for everyone, then students should be made into groups or the students should take turns with the robot. Students should also be taught to respect the robots, and how to handle sensitive electronics.  

A robot can be used to teach many different subjects. For physics or math, you can teach the concepts of time, speed, and distance using the Sphero. Building a robot also requires knowledge of geometry, measurements, statistics, and algebra. So, by simply building a robot in the classroom, you can improve many skills of your students. Students can also use robots to program a journey across a floor map. Similarly, there are many concepts that can be easily taught by using a robot.

One final piece of advice that seems to work for most educators is to keep the robots a secret from the administrators. Most school administrators seem to think that robots are a waste of time and that it will be too expensive to justify the benefits. Most of the thinking is old-fashioned, and educators should be the first to grab the future before it passes by.

In conclusion, robots are some of the most interesting things that the modern world has to offer. The fact that educational robots exist should be enough reason to utilize them in the classroom. Robots help students understand concepts by being able to interact with them directly. Robots also help students with autism develop social skills. There are many companies that make robots specifically for educational use. It should be easy to get a robot off-the-shelf for your classroom from one of these companies. When introducing robots into your classroom, you should take small steps of first introducing the robot, and then giving the students activities to get used to using the robots. The classroom should also be organized, and students should be taught to respect the robots. If you have done all that then you should be able to use robots to your advantage in the classroom.