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The MIMESIS Coordinator, L.A.B, is pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative since September 2023: the ROBOTS MEET ARTS project. In the present era of rapid technological advancement, the project is introduced as an innovative initiative to connect and bridge the seemingly distinct fields of Arts and Humanities with practices based on Educational Robotics and coding.Le L.A.B, coordinateur de MIMESIS, a le plaisir d'annoncer le lancement d'une nouvelle initiative à partir de septembre 2023 : le projet ROBOTS MEET ARTS.
Addressing Today's Educational Challenges
The "Robots Meet Arts" project is an innovative initiative aimed at improving primary school teachers' pedagogical and cross-curricular knowledge of educational robotics and coding, with a specific focus on arts and humanities lessons. Humanities play a crucial role in providing students with a balanced perspective, a global vision, and an opportunity to expand their knowledge and strengthen their skills, responsibilities, and values (Reiter, 2017). The project's objective is to make arts and humanities lessons more engaging and meaningful for children by integrating digital technologies, such as educational robotics (ER) and coding. However, despite the recognition of coding's importance in primary education curricula across European Union (EU) countries, there is a significant lack of up-to-date teacher training programs and comprehensive resources on coding and educational robotics. This poses a challenge for teachers who wish to incorporate these technologies into their teaching but lack the necessary training and support. Additionally, teachers often struggle to address key risk factors that may impede students' access to innovative education and learning activities, such as special needs, socio-economic status, cultural diversity, and gender. While teachers are aware of these barriers, they often lack the resources, skills, and knowledge to effectively address them in their classrooms.
On the children's side, primary school students, especially after experiencing distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, require additional support to develop fundamental reading, writing, and critical thinking skills, which can be enhanced through arts and humanities subjects. It is crucial to foster their intrinsic motivation to continue learning in these subjects by encouraging them to take an active role as creators and participants in their educational content, rather than passively consuming it.
To address these challenges, the "Robots Meet Arts" project aims to develop an innovative training program for teachers to effectively integrate educational robotics and coding into their arts and humanities teaching. Through this initiative, the project aims to promote equity in the classroom and provide primary school students with the necessary resources and support to develop their digital skills, literacy, and positive attitudes towards arts and humanities subjects. By doing so, students will acquire the essential skills needed for the 21st century (Romero et al.).
Objectives That Drive the Project
Strengthening the confidence and ability of educators to use educational robotics and coding in their teaching, in the arts and humanities: This will be achieved by designing a training programme that provides up-to-date resources on the basics of educational robotics and coding, and their potential for classroom implementation in different curriculum subjects.
Providing educators and institutions with innovative teaching resources that propose an original implementation of educational robotics and coding in the curriculum: To this end, a programme for the application of educational robotics and coding in subjects not usually associated with digital technologies (e.g. literacy, history, arts, etc.) will be developed.
Supporting the development of teachers' and pupils' skills and knowledge by implementing the innovative capacity-building programme and teaching resources in real educational contexts: The project aims to improve teachers' and pupils' digital skills (coding, computational thinking, etc.), enhance pupils' subject-specific knowledge in the arts and humanities, and improve primary school teachers' teaching methods and attitudes.
Enabling teachers to offer better quality education to all children, whatever their differences (e.g. special needs, socio-economic status, cultural diversity and gender): This objective will be achieved by designing a training programme dedicated to the different pillars of inclusive education and developing a curriculum that includes teaching resources that meet the needs of learners in terms of differentiated teaching and promoting equity.
Partners Behind the Vision
The consortium is composed of diverse partners who bring complementary competencies and experience in the fields of educational research, coding, inclusion, teacher education, and innovative pedagogical approaches. Their expertise, experience, and networks cover a wide range of skills, resources, and access to target audiences necessary for the successful implementation of the project. In total, 7 partners support the project, including academic and non-academic organizations - L.A.B., STIMMULI, URV, and UCLL - as well as schools such as DSPI in Greece, Marià Fortuny in Spain, and the KS Leuven network in Belgium.