An Antropomorphic Robot with ChatGPT for Learning Activities: The Teachers' Perspective

With the advance in artificial intelligence, the use of robots during learning activities has attracted great interest. Since teachers are the most involved during the program of educational activities, is crucial to involve them during the design process of such activities involving new technologies. Our research seeks to examine the impact of incorporating ChatGPT on teachers' perception of social robotics in educational settings. The aim is to explore teachers' perspective on the use of social robots during learning activities. To achieve this, we enrolled 16 educators from Milan with over 5 years of teaching experience across three distinct school levels (4 from kindergarten, 6 from primary school, and 6 from middle school). We gathered insights from teachers of varying grade levels on the integration of social robots into their teaching practices. The study methodology involves two sessions with the teachers: the first session consists of a semi-structured interview, a demonstration of the NAO humanoid robot using the software Chroregraphe, and two role-playing activities with the robot to help teachers understand how it can be used in teaching activities; the second session includes a “635-brainwriting” activity and a focus group discussion about the use of educational robots in the classroom, with an additional focus group discussion after observing an experimenter interact with NAO using ChatGPT. The NVIVO program is used for transcription and labeling to identify units of analysis, which are be organized into macro categories. The purpose of the study is to explore the potential use of educational robots in teaching activities and to identify possible scenarios where these robots can be used to promote soft skills such as task orientation, problem solving, creativity, empathy, and conflict management. By using a combination of semi-structured interviews, role-playing activities, brainwriting, and focus group discussions, the study aims to generate rich data that can be analyzed qualitatively to provide insights into the potential use and effectiveness of educational robots in the classroom.