A robotics-based approach to foster programming skills and computational thinking: Pilot experience in the classroom of early childhood education

This document has the purpose to present some results obtained in the pilot experience, play and program with Bee-Bot. The activities were developed in the framework of the doctoral research project whose purpose is the design and integration of learning activities with robotics to foster programming skills and computational thinking in the classroom of early childhood. Teachers and students of the second cycle of early childhood education of a concerted school participated in the experience during 2016-2017 academic period. School is in Salamanca, Spain. The activity allowed students to solve programming challenges using the Bee-Bot floor robot. Instruments were used to collect data, such as: questionnaires, interviews, rubrics and field diary. In general terms, the results obtained were positive. The technical, pedagogical and social aspects proposed in this research have received the favorable acceptance of teachers and students. Therefore, the information generated allowed to strengthen the design, structure and evaluation of the robotics program would be used in later stages of the investigation.