Scaling-Up Social Learning in Small Groups with Robot Supported Collaborative Learning (RSCL): Effects of Learners' Prior Experience in the Case Study of Planning Poker with the Robot NAO

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift to online learning in higher education, making the need to rethink pedagogical approaches to on-campus education stronger than ever before. While online learning offers a wide range of benefits for both teachers and students, social, face-to-face interaction provides a strong rationale for in-person education. This paper proposes a novel approach to enhancing in-person social learning experiences through robot-supported collaborative learning facilitated by a social robot NAO in the case study "Planning poker with NAO”, which is a collaborative game-based activity facilitated by the robot. The case study was designed to provide a scalable social learning experience in small groups of students. The evaluation results from a study with 46 university students who played Planning poker with NAO explore different quality aspects of the learning experience. The results indicate that students valued both the social learning experience and the robotic facilitator. The analysis revealed some significant differences among students with and without prior experience in interacting with NAO, suggesting directions for future research related to novelty and familiarisation effects as well as to scaling up of social learning in small groups by applying social robots. © 2023 by the author.

Agile in Higher Education: How Can Value-based Learning Be Implemented in Higher Education?

The corona pandemic has shown how important it is to be able to react quickly to changing conditions. In many organizations, agile process models and agile practices are used for this purpose. This paper examines how agility can be implemented in higher education. Using two case studies, we analyze how agile practices and agile values are implemented for knowledge and skills development. Our results present a student-centered approach where lecturers supported self-organized learning. In the student-centered approach, prior knowledge and experience of learners are taken into account, and the learning process is adjusted through continuous feedback. With the introduction of agility, a value shift towards value-based learning is taking place. Value-based learning supports competency-based teaching since the focus is less on imparting technical knowledge and more on imparting competencies. Copyright © 2022 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved.