Research Projects

 
Developing Young Learners' Spatial and Socio-Emotional Skills in Early Childhood Through Robotic Activities
PIs: Assist. Prof. Duygu Umutlu & Assist. Prof. Mutlu Şen-Akbulut
M.A. Students: Betül Polat & Simge Çiçek
 
Two projects are designed to explore the development young learners' skills through robotic activities. The first one aims to explore how young children's spatial skills are shaped and improve when they are involved in educational robotics activities. The robotics activities have been designed based on Brenna and Resnick's (2012) Computational Thinking Framework. And, the collected data will analyzed through multimodal analysis from the perspective of Embodied Cognition.
 
The second project focuses on how completing CT-oriented robotics activities influences young children's socio-emotional learning. The activities were designed based on  Social Emotional Learning and Positive Technological Development frameworks. Data will be collected through video recordings of children during their interactions with robots and peers in a real classroom environment. 
 
These projects aim to provide insights into how robotic activities can specifically enhance the development of spatial skills and socio-emotional learning among young learners, thereby informing future educational practices and curriculum design in these areas. Through identifying effective strategies for designing and implementing robotics activities that align with educational frameworks and developmental theories, these projects will enrich the fields of educational technology, cognitive science, and early childhood education. 
 
Nurturing 21st-Century Skills in Young Learners: Design and Development of an Educational Robotics Curriculum
PIs: Assist. Prof. Duygu Umutlu & Assist. Prof. Mutlu Şen-Akbulut
Research Team:
Hatice Gökçen Ağca (Project research assistant)
Betül Polat (M.A. student)
Simge Çiçek (M.A. student)
 
This research project aims to design and implement a robotics curriculum that enhances young learners’ (5-6-year-old kids) 21st-century skills, such as collaboration, creativity, and communication through computational thinking (CT). Relevant literature shows that there is a lack of research on how to improve the 21st-century skills of children through robotics programming, particularly in Turkey. The first phase of the study will be to develop robotics activities where children can collaborate and communicate with each other while programming educational robots creatively and using their CT skills. The second phase of the study will be to implement this robotic curriculum at an Early Childhood Education Unit. Based on the findings from this initial implementation, the activities will be revised, and a more robust robotics curriculum for children will be created. The findings of this study would benefit instructional designers and early childhood education teachers who are in the search of a well-designed robotics curriculum. Also, the output of this project would be an invaluable contribution to the literature as there is little research on kids’ development of 21st-century skills through CT and robotics.
 
Developing Pre-Service Teachers' AI Competencies
PI: Assist. Prof. Mutlu Şen Akbulut, Researcher: Bersu Ansen

Two projects will be conducted with pre-service teachers to facilitate their AI competencies. The first project focuses on the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) education into a school experience course (namely CET 462- School experience II) to prepare future educators to effectively teach AI concepts in K-12 classrooms. Through a mixed-method approach, the study will explore the impact of teaching AI module on pre-service teachers' competencies and pedagogical practices. Drawing upon AI4K12 (see https://ai4k12.org/) framework developed by Touretzky, Gardner-McCune, and Seehorn  (2023), this study seeks to develop and evaluate a comprehensive approach to AI education for pre-service teachers. Pre-service teachers will engage in different learning tasks, including exploring AI resources, selecting a big idea from the AI4K12 framework, and designing and teaching an AI-related lesson during their teaching practicum. Data collection will involve AI literacy scale, lesson plans, teaching reflections, and opinion forms on AI in education. 

The second research project will involve pre-service teachers from diverse departments, such as Mathematics, Science and Foreign Language education, participating in a learning module to enhance their competencies in teaching AI. The modul design will be based on UNESCO AI Competency Frameworks for Teachers, ensuring alignment with global standards for AI education.The participants will design learning activities to incorporate AI concepts into their subject areas. Data collection will include reflection forms, course artifacts (such as lesson plans), and interviews. Content analysis will be conducted on the instructional materials designed by participants, while thematic analysis will be applied to reflection forms and interview data. 

These projects will provide insights into effective AI education strategies and contribute to the enhancement of teacher training programs. 

 

 

Instructional Material Design with Robotics 
PI: Assist. Prof. Duygu Umutlu

In this research project, how pre-service teachers from different subject area, such as Maths, Science, and Language Arts use educational robotics to design instructional materials will be explored. Data will be collected through video recording and interviews. Also, the instructional materials that pre-service teachers will design will be treated as a data source. While qualitative content analysis will be conducted on the designed instructional materials, video-recordings and interviews will be examined through thematic analysis. 

 

Eğitim Araştırmacılarının Yapay Zeka Okuryazarlığının Geliştirilmesi

PI: Prof. Dr. Diler Öner

Bu projenin amacı, eğitim araştırmacılarının yapay zeka okuryazarlığını geliştirmektir. Yapay zeka okuryazarlığı nispeten yeni bir terim olup alanyazında anlamı henüz gelişmekte olan bir kavramdır. Bununla beraber, yapay zeka çağında araştırmacılar için önemli bir kavram haline gelmektedir. Bu proje üç aşamada gerçekleştirilecektir: (1) eğitim alanında çalışan lisansüstü öğrencileri için bir yapay zeka okuryazarlığı dersinin tasarımı; (2) uygulama; ve (3) değerlendirme (veri analizi). Yapay zeka okuryazarlığı, dört ana boyut çerçevesinde tanımlanacaktır: yapay zekayı bilmek ve anlamak; yapay zekayı kullanmak ve uygulamak; yapay zekayı değerlendirmek ve oluşturmak; ve yapay zeka etiği. Bu çerçeve hem  yapay zeka okuryazarlığı dersinin tasarımına rehberlik edecek hem de yapay zeka okuryazarlığının gelişiminin değerlendirilmesinde kullanılacaktır.