The Teacher's Role in Educational Robotics Competitions

Abstract

Educational robotics competitions are a popular informal learning environment in Computer Science (CS) education and numbers of participating students and teachers increase every year. Well known examples of such competitions are the First Lego League (FLL) or the World Robot Olympiad (WRO). In our research project on learning problem solving through educational robotics competitions, we are also concerned with the teaching pedagogy in these competitions. We want to identify the role of the teacher and the way the teachers support their teams. This article presents results from a questionnaire study (N = 57) which was conducted with teachers (i.e. team coaches) of the regular category of the World Robot Olympiad after the German national final in 2018.