Gradus

Robotics without doubt is one of the leading research fields of the 21st century. It can also play an important role in secondary education as a way of developing students’ engineering, information technology and problem-solving competences, thus providing an adequate background for later ambitions in scientific fields. We rely on MINDSTORMS robots as appropriate supporting hardware. Teaching robotics in IT lessons in public education has started to become popular in recent years. Concerning the international trends, competing in this field has had a tradition of more than ten years, involving 50-60 countries with approximately 20-30 thousand student teams. International tournaments often differ from the traditional contests in Hungary, both in concept and content. In this writing we demonstrate the potentials offered by robotics to develop students’ algorithmic thinking and problem- solving abilities with a definite intention of reforming the teaching of information technology at secondary schools. The supplementary control-group trial is meant to prove how this method contributes to students’ motivation in IT lessons.

Kulcsszavak: robotika, algoritmikus gondolkodás, innováció, problémamegoldás, közoktatás,

Keywords: robotics, algorithmic thinking, innovation, problem-solving, education,