Jessica Redcay

By Jessica D. Redcay

A qualitative analysis of second grade students’ responses to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Challenge demonstrated that young learners use metacognitive skills throughout challenges (beginning, middle, and end). Students work through Engineer by Design (EbD) loop: (1) define and research a problem (2) brainstorm and explore possible solutions (3) develop a prototype (4) test (5) reflect (6) redesign (7) re-test. Social robots can be used throughout STEM challenges to model think alouds. Educators prepare the environment for young learners. Specially, educators find meaningful ways for students to connect concrete and abstract ideas. Five themes emerged from students’ responses to two STEM challenges. The theme with the highest frequency demonstrated that students were making real-world connections. The additional themes included metalinguistic awareness, problem solving strategies, social metacognitive thinking, and concrete to abstract thinking. The five themes were connected to metacognitive thinking, EbD loop, and 6 E’s of Science Inquiry. The themes were arranged in a new model called Redcay’s STEM-oscope Model used to describe the connection between STEM education, social robots, and metacognition. The research study adds to the existing body of research about STEM education by directly linking metacognitive skills, STEM education, social robots.

Part of the book: Metacognition in Learning

By Jessica Redcay

The research study aimed to examine the influence of a new model for reading instruction combining Ludus Reading and RoboKind™ Robots on first-grade students’ phonics skills and attitudes toward reading. Ludus Reading phonics instruction involves explicit and systematic lessons with underpinnings in play-based, technology, and multisensory techniques. RoboKind™ Robots are facially expressive, assistive humanoid robots that can be coded to talk, move, and display images on their chest screen. The RoboKind™ Robots were programmed to act as teaching assistants and help the teacher during the Ludus Reading phonic lesson. A quasi-experimental pre-post design was used to examine three research questions comparing the differences between pre-and post-scores when using Ludus Reading and RoboKind™ Robots in terms of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELSⓇ) Correct Letter Sound (CLS), DIBELSⓇ Whole Words Read (WWR), and Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) scores between the group receiving Ludus Reading and RoboKind™ Robots instruction and the control group. The null hypotheses for Research Questions 1–3 were rejected. The results supported the use of Ludus Reading and RoboKind™ Robots to teach phonics because the experimental group demonstrated a statistically significant increase in their ability to decode and a positive attitude toward reading.

Part of the book: Technology in Learning