THE IMPACT OF A TEACHER TRAINING ONLINE COURSE ON EDUCATIONAL ROBOTICS

This paper reports on the results of a teacher training course on Coding and Educational Robotics and of a follow-up after one year. The course was carried out by researchers from University of Macerata and involved 41 teachers from the institute “Egisto Paladini” of Treia (Macerata, Italy), ranging from Kindergarten to Lower Secondary school. Due to the pandemic situation, the course was held entirely online from May to June 2020, using different platforms to support both synchronous and asynchronous interactions. The reference platform for asynchronous interactions was Google Classroom, where materials, tasks, and feedback were shared. Google Meet was used instead for all the synchronous meetings. Therefore, even if some teachers had been previously trained in these fields, the peculiar situation in which the course was run made them work in a different way, acting both as researchers and as teachers in training. The course was mainly divided into two phases: a first technical and theoretical phase for the presentation of topics and devices (specific videos and tasks for each stage of education) and a second design phase dedicated to the planning of collaborative activities on coding and/or robotics. All materials were shared with all the participants and all the meetings were also open to all of them. Thus, every teacher, regardless of the stage (Kindergarten - Primary - Secondary school) was free to choose which materials to view, which tasks to complete, and which meetings to attend. We wanted to promote an interdisciplinary and vertical curriculum, and a pull approach (Hagel, Brown, & Davison, 2012). We administered two questionnaires (before and post course) to investigate basic knowledge - both on coding devices and project design -, expectations and satisfaction with the course, different attitudes in approaching design tasks, and new school activities. After almost one year, we decided to perform a follow-up with a focus group of teachers who carried out some activities on these topics in their classrooms. Initial analysis shows that the course was a stimulus for new insights for the upcoming school year. Indeed, it encouraged teachers to deepen what they had learned and gave them the confidence to experiment in their classrooms.