Research On The Application Of Four Error Correction Teaching Strategies In The Three Learning Stages Of Robotics Courses

As an innovative practical education used in both hands and brains,robotics education(RE)meets the needs of basic education curriculum reform,responds to the country's call for training innovative talents,and is particularly important to cultivate students' problem finding and solving skills.As a new teaching method,troubleshooting teaching has shown certain advantages in improving students' problem-solving ability and self-confidence,but it also has some shortcomings.For example,teachers need to present troubleshooting tasks and students need to identify and correct errors in troubleshooting class.Learners with less domain knowledge and troubleshooting experience may be at a loss,which result lower learning efficiency.Therefore,it is necessary to continuously seek appropriate teaching strategies for optimizing the effect of troubleshooting teaching in actual teaching.Studies have shown that providing learning scaffolds(solution or process information)can help students learn more efficiently.However,few have explored in-depth the learning processes in troubleshooting to learn via scaffolds.With reference to related scholars 'research on the classification of students' common errors in robotics teaching,the study classified control errors into numerical errors,directional errors,logical errors,and missing errors,and then designed a series of troubleshooting tasks combining with learning content to train students' troubleshooting skills.Errors in troubleshooting tasks are mainly control errors,few communication errors and sensor errors.The study designed four kinds of troubleshooting teaching strategies with the factors ‘solution(yes/no)' and ‘process information(yes/no)',were troubleshooting teaching strategy with solution and process information(SP),troubleshooting teaching strategy without solution but with process information(NSP),troubleshooting teaching strategy with solution but without process information(SNP),troubleshooting teaching strategy without solution and without process information(NSNP).In addition,based on Bloom's educational goal while also with reference to other scholars' study of learning phases division,the study divided the whole teaching process of a robotics course into three phases including Introductory,Familiar and Applicable phases.This study explored the applicability of four troubleshooting teaching strategies for three learning phases in robotics course with a quasi-experiment.In order to implement the experiment,the study designed detailed teaching processes,teaching materials,and evaluation tools.The quasi-experiment was carried out at Guangfeng Middle School in Wuxi,Jiangsu Province in September 2018,which lasted four months,and 171 seventh graders participated the study by troubleshooting to learn in a robotics course.Classes A,B,C,and D used the SP,SNP,NSP,and NSNP troubleshooting teaching strategies,respectively.A group of two students used one robot kit(m Bot)to learn,and all classes were taught by the same teacher.The experiment with 4 × 3 mixed design was employed to evaluate students' troubleshooting performance(high-order ability),cognitive load and programming skill(low-order ability)at the end of three learning phases.The results showed:(1)Across the three learning phases,the troubleshooting teaching strategy with process information but without solution was always more effective for students' troubleshooting performance(higher-order ability)compared to the other strategies.(2)In introductory and familiar phases,the troubleshooting teaching strategy with process information but without solution was more effective for improving students' programming skills(low-order ability)compared to the other strategies.However,there was no significant difference in students' programming skills among four strategies in the third / last learning phase.(3)The expertise-reversal effect on troubleshooting teaching strategies would appear in cultivating students' lower-order ability,but fail in the higher-order ability.This is a new finding for deepening the understanding on learning scaffolds with process information.(4)The cognitive load should be relatively moderate,otherwise too high to learn effectively,and too low to learn actively,especially for higher-order ability.(5)The troubleshooting teaching strategy with solution and process information showed some advantages in improving students' enjoyment compared to the other strategies,but it was not significant.(6)There was no significant difference in students' confidence,value and engagement among four strategies.According to the above conclusions,the following teaching suggestions were given:(1)Teachers should reasonably select and use different troubleshooting teaching strategies to maximize the effect of troubleshooting teaching in robotics courses.In particular,the learner's level of experience should be considered in cultivating loworder abilities.(2)The design of troubleshooting tasks should be consistent with the cognitive characteristics of learners,and ensure that the difficulty of troubleshooting tasks is moderate.(3)Provide timely guidance and feedback on students' problems during troubleshooting process,and help them master the essentials and methods of troubleshooting.