Digital Life receives award for tackling COVID-19 learning disadvantages in primary education
21-03-2023
The publication 'Design Specifications for a Social Robot Math Tutor' was awarded second prize for 'Best Studies Paper Award' at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction '23. This paper is part of the project SOROCOVA, the abbreviation for Social Robotics to support COVID-19 learning disabilities, in which our Digital Life research group is participating.
Lector Somaya Ben Allouch: 'I am very proud of the entire SOROCOVA team. There is also international appreciation for our approach, in which we use patient social robots together with external partners for a personal learning experience for children with learning disabilities.'
SOROCOVA
The COVID-19 measures have had a major impact on how children worldwide received education. Dutch children also had to make the transition from physical to digital education in the first lockdown. During the second lockdown, education and interaction between teachers and students also mainly took place via screens.
The SOROCOVA project builds on an existing application by (further) developing social robotics as a learning tool to support teachers and students in the upper years (groups 6, 7 and 8) of primary education to increase insight into accumulated learning delays due to COVID-19 measures in math education among students.
In addition, the social robotics and associated calculation modules are used to support teachers in providing math education to students in a motivating way.
The project is a collaboration of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, VU University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, Florente Primary Schools, Municipality of Diemen, Municipality of Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam and Interactive Robotics.