Critical analysis of a “robotics workshop” experience from a Piagetian perspective
Keywords:
robotics, education, computational thinking, engineeringAbstract
This article presents a critical analysis of a teaching experience carried out as part of the Introduction to Mechanical Engineering course at the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Ingeniería y Agrimensura of the Universidad Nacional de Rosario (FCEIA-UNR). The experience centered on a robotics workshop was designed to foster computational thinking. Taking place at the FabLabUNR laboratory, it involved programming educational robots through graphical environments to promote problem-solving in a controlled technical setting.
Adopting a constructivist perspective and engaging with Jean Piaget’s theory of Genetic Epistemology, the process of knowledge construction is analysed based on the interaction between the student and the technical system comprising the program and the robot. The learning object is redefined as a program-robot system, and its potential as a cognitive mediator in formalising logical, mathematical, and technological notions is discussed. Along this line of analysis, we propose a reinterpretation of Piaget's general law of cognition adapted to scenarios where programming and physical execution converge.
This work therefore, begins with an empirical analysis based on workshop practice and concludes with a theoretical contribution that explains how computational thinking develops in educational robotics contexts.
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