TITLE:
Robot for Mayor: Creative Pedagogies with Social Robots in Secondary Education for Youth Civic Agency
AUTHORS:
Ricardo Sosa, Rebeca Torres, Penny Bradford, Andrew Gibbons
KEYWORDS:
Creative Technologies, Creativity, Human-Robot Interaction, Generative Themes
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.14 No.6,
June
14,
2023
ABSTRACT: This paper presents new ways to imagine and carry out creative pedagogies that use robots to teach socio-technical topics. The paper presents key theoretical and methodological ideas that informed a project co-designed in partnership with teachers and learners from Manurewa High School. This project portrays a speculative story of an affable humanoid robot who shares its goal of running for Mayor of the city of Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand and asks children for advice on how to prepare for this future role. The findings from this case study are organised around three main themes: suspendingdisbelief, powerful questions, and breaking the fourth wall. A discussion around learning using digital technologies more creatively and more critically closes the paper. The appropriateness of robots for creative and dialogiclearning callsfor the participation of learners and teachers in playful co-creation activities that transgress the conventional roles and scripts in the classroom and the curriculum.