A Design Strategy for Meaningful HRI Discussions in Elementary School

Abstract

This position paper describes the experimental behavior design of the adaptable humanoid social robot Pepper in four different roles in class. In 2018 and 2019, we held English classes in seven Finnish elementary schools with a twofold mission. Our aim was both to showcase these four different social roles in an English class of 5th graders and to discuss future robot-assisted education and collaborative learning with the children. As a design strategy, we developed pedagogical robot applications and adopted the content to the curriculum of the 5 th grade and to cultural phenomena that Finnish children aged 10-12 were well familiar with. However, although one thoroughly designs for a meaningful experience of-and interaction with-a robot, other factors are at play that affect the perception of the robot and interaction with it. All things considered, we conclude that co-created robot applications, corresponding to the curriculum and contemporary youth culture that the children interact with co-present in class, offer an interesting and accessible opportunity for children to reflect on the use and design of socially assistive robots.

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A Design Strategy for Meaningful HRI
Discussions in Elementary School
Susanne Hägglund
Experience Lab
Åbo Akademi University
Vaasa, 65101, FINLAND
susanne.hagglund@abo.fi
Sören Andersson
Experience Lab
Åbo Akademi University
Vaasa, 65101, FINLAND
soren.andersson@abo.fi
Yvonne Backholm-Nyberg
Experience Lab
Åbo Akademi University
Vaasa, 65101, FINLAND
ybackhol@abo.fi
Abstract
This position paper describes
the experimental behavior design
of the adaptable humanoid social
robot Pepper in four different roles in class. In 2018 and
2019, we held English classes in
seven Finnish elementary schools with a
twofold mission. Our aim was both to showcase
these four different social roles in an English class of
5th graders and to discuss future robot-assisted
education and collaborative learning with the
children. As a design strategy, we developed
pedagogical robot applications and adopted the content
to the curriculum of the 5th grade and to cultural
phenomena that Finnish children aged 10-12 were well
familiar with.
However, although one thoroughly designs for a
meaningful experience of - and interaction with - a
robot, other factors are at play that affect the
perception of the robot and interaction with it. All
things considered, we conclude that co-created robot
applications, corresponding to the curriculum and
contemporary youth culture that the children interact
with co-present in class, offer an interesting and
accessible opportunity for children to reflect on the use
and design of socially assistive robots.
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for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other
uses, contact the owner/author(s).
NordiCHI 2020 Empowering Children’s Critical Reflections on AI, Robotics
and Other Intelligent Technologies workshop, October 26, 2020. Tallinn,
Estonia.
© 2020 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).

Author Keywords
Human-robot interaction; Design methods; Socially
Assistive Robots in Education; Co-creation.
CSS Concepts
• Human-centered computing -> Interaction
design -> Interaction design process and
methods -> Contextual design
1. Introduction
Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) support students and
teachers in educational contexts through social
interaction in various roles. They serve as tutors,
companions or peers, and teachers with the aim of
supporting and enhancing learning outcomes [1]. We
set out to discuss robot-assisted education and work life
with children and chose to design trustworthy scenarios
of how robot-assisted education may be shaped as a
basis for reflection in class. Our background lies in
exploratory design research, using in particular
Research through Design methods, in human-computer
interaction. Therefore, we wanted to explore whether
designing curriculum aligned applications for a co-
located, socially present robot could be the right design
choice to make for our purposes of a meaningful and
critical discussion of future robot-assisted education
together with 10-12-year-old Finnish pupils.
This position paper is not to be considered as a
formal content analysis of the discussion following the
children-robot interaction but rather as a subjective,
selective interpretation of the children’s perceptions
of the experience design, and how well it served our
purposes of a group discussion on robot-
assisted education. We found that the robot applications
worked rather well as a foundation for a lively, fruitful
and open-minded discussion on robot-assisted
education with the children. Hence, we argue that
a design strategy that involves the teachers prior to visit
in class, which supports co-creation of robot
applications with teachers and students, aligning them
with curriculum and youth culture, is well worth
considering as a valuable path towards a rich
discussion with children on SAR’s potential, use
cases and implications. By sharing our experience of
child-robot interaction in class as a basis for reflection
on use of SARs, we hope to contribute to the discussion
on how children may be given opportunities to discuss
the topic and how to design for a relevant and
accessible experience.
2. Experience Design Strategy
Within a national project on future technology and co-
learning in education, we set out to discuss socially
assistive robots together with children aged 10-
12. We ascribed the robot Pepper four roles in the class,
that of a study buddy/friend, a pupil that the child will
teach, a collaborative agent in a team with human
beings, and as a solitary teacher.
In order to meet the goals of the set design strategy,
we decided to use a blend of proof-of-concept
demonstration and speed dating [2] as a basis for
the classroom discussion with the children. They were –
voluntarily - interacting with six adaptable robot
programs where the robot assumes three different
roles, those of a peer, a teacher and a pupil. The fourth
role of the robot was being an adaptive part of a
team, together with two humans. Although the children
didn’t explore any of the content and scenarios in
depth, our hypothesis was that the likelihood of them
forming an opinion on the topic would be increased after

the opportunity to watch and/or try out interacting with
the robot in these contexts.
The educational robot applications derive from two
contexts. Firstly, the current curriculum of the 5th grade
English subject in Finnish elementary school was at the
core of the robot application content. As an example,
we created a scenario where Pepper was acting out the
nouns and verbs – in essence the homework of the
English subject – much like in the game Charades with
the children. The idea here was to explore the robot in
a peer role, mimicking a fellow pupil practicing the
homework with another child. For instance, Pepper
pretended to fly like an airplane and asked the children,
in English, “What am I doing now?” The robot
adopted its answer to whether the response of the child
was correct or incorrect.
Another example is the adapted Basic
channel application, where the children
were posing questions to Pepper, ranging from social and
cognitive life of the robot to its personality. These
discussion topics had been practiced in class together
with the teacher prior to our visit as examples of how to
greet and to make conversation in English.
Secondly, several schools had active daily life, dancing
and motion in everyday life as a special theme. We
chose to highlight this theme as well, and included
scenarios where dancing was taught in class with the
children and the robot, working together. At the time
of the group discussions held with the children, the
floss dance was immensely popular within this age
segment. Most had heard of it, and many knew how to
do the dance, popularized by digital games
and popular culture. Thus, we designed a scenario
where Pepper asked the children to teach it how to do
the dance and for feedback as the robot did the floss
dance. This work was co-created with students prior to
discussions in class.
We always started each school session with a
presentation of Pepper, its abilities and pre-
programmed platform. We outlined together the
framework of the lecture, in terms of transparency and
trialability [3], voluntary interaction and the elements
of the lesson, i.e. introduction, interaction and then
finally, discussion.
Subsequent to the applications, an unstructured group
discussion with teachers, assistive teachers, and the
children took place. We tried to re-orient the discussion
to social robots, in case the topic resided too much on
automation of say vehicles or space crafts. The main
focus was always to open a window to future
possibilities and to keep an open discussion on what
was on the children’s mind.
We conclude that the choice of showcasing many
shallow modes of interacting with a robot in various
roles, instead of going into depth in one single use
case, was pursuing our goal of having a lively discussion
on SARs with the children.
The robot content seemed to be appreciated and our
experience design managed well in most cases to
maintain the children engaged throughout 45-50
minutes. However, in several classes, the oldest
children were at times dissociating themselves, perhaps
because they thought it was too childish, particularly
the storytelling application. Also, the whole continuum of
emotions and perceptions of the robot was present in

almost each class, where some of the children were
enthusiastic and excited, others were
calmly curious, and some were reluctant and hesitant
to interact. A few children were very suspicious. Both
positive and negative emotions were discussed and
shared throughout the session and in the group
discussion afterwards as well.
Naturally, we identified many factors influencing the
children’s attitudes towards the robot’s performance,
abilities and possible adoptions, reflecting the group
discussion afterwards. We note that factors on a
subjective, environmental, technical, and cultural level
all affect the outcome of the child-robot interaction.
These include prior work in class; context based issues
such as lighting, buzz and sound in the surroundings;
the children’s prior experience of social
robotics; children’s and teachers’ attitudes towards
technology and robots in general; group dynamics in
the class and the more or less supportive role of the
teacher in the group interaction; the message, feeling
and sense of security of the researchers working
together with Pepper and holding the sessions;
technical challenges and so forth.
3. Conclusion
The chosen design strategy served our goal rather well.
It’s our experience that it was the right thing to design
several educational, adaptable applications to be
interacted with a co-located, socially present robot in a
group setting in class, in order to have a lively and
insightful discussion on robot-assisted education in the
future with 10-12-year-old pupils.
We support co-designing the applications serving as
basis for discussion with children on the one hand, for
relevant and meaningful topics and teachers on the
other, who can point to meaningful content in current
curriculum as well as introduce the topic prior to
collaborative learning scenarios in class and assist in
the discussion afterwards.
Acknowledgements
We’d like to thank the Ministry of Education and
Culture for funding our work. We’re grateful for the
work on the technical development of the applications
provided by Mengge Hu, Wenhao Zhu, and Yi Zhou.
References
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Deng, Rhianna Lee, Gisele Ragusa &
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an In-Home Socially Assistive Robot for
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Front.
Robot. AI 6:110. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2019.00110.
[2] Scott E. Hudson & Jennifer Mankoff. 2014.
Concepts, Values, And Methods for Technical
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