ABSTRACT
Robotics has been used successfully to engage K–8 students in pre-engineering and general STEM. Specifically, robotics has been shown to improve spatial ability, student attitudes toward science and engineering, and computational thinking skills. Spatial abilities allow students to create three-dimensional images that can be manipulated to solve a myriad of problems. The robotics context is also examined through the lens of cultural brokering—crossing borders from the culture of family and peers to the subculture of science. In addition to spatial reasoning, student engagement in robotics tasks allows for the development of computational thinking. The researchers defined computational manipulatives as tools that have internal computing capabilities, programming, or microcomputers embedded in the hardware. The theoretical framework that undergirds robotics is constructionism, which was articulated by Seymour Papert and I. Harel. The simplest definition of constructionism is learning-by-doing to build knowledge structures despite the type of learning environment.
