Caring Thinking with Robots: Teacher-Guided Exploration with Robots in Preschool Classrooms

• In Event: Empowering Young Learners: Enhancing Child Agency Through Educator-Facilitated Digital Exploration

Abstract

As AI technology becomes increasingly integrated into children’s lives, understanding how young children encounter and experience this technology is crucial (Garvis & Keane, 2023; van Straten, Peter, & Kühne, 2020). While discussions around young children's technology use often focus on safety/protection or future career preparation, there is a lack of consideration of children's relationships with technology as deserving of care or concern (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017; Silvis et al., 2022). To address this gap, we explore how teachers guide young children in interacting with robots and engaging in care-thinking.
Care-thinking, an ethico-epistemological approach, involves thinking with care (Collins, 2000; Noddings, 1984; Tronto, 1993) and is based on three core ideas of an ethic of care. First, individuals are inherently relational, and their knowledge can only be understood through their connections with others (Noddings, 1984). This concept extends to include nonhumans and intelligent agents as potential recipients and providers of care (Suchman, 2005). Second, caring is a mutual act, with the cared-for also playing a crucial role in the circulation of care (Tronto, 2015). This reciprocity often leads to a cycle of caring actions (Noddings, 1984). Finally, a caring ethic is particularly important in situations where disadvantaged individuals or groups are overlooked (Villegas-Galaviz & Martin, 2023).
This study was conducted at a university-affiliated preschool in Fall 2023, where an 8-week program was piloted to introduce young children (ages 2-5) to basic concepts about AI through interactions with robots. Three classroom teachers led weekly sessions with 33 children from toddler, preschool, and PreK classrooms. The research team video-recorded these sessions, totaling approximately 10 hours, and collected observational and anecdotal notes from the teachers. Interaction analysis (Jordan & Henderson, 1995) was used to understand how teachers guided children's exploration and engaged them in care-thinking with peers and robots by identifying telling moments.
Preliminary findings revealed that both teachers and children naturally incorporated care-thinking into their interactions with robots. Teachers often related these experiences to children’s relationships with pets or friends, helping them connect these caring behaviors to their anthropomorphic perceptions of robots. The children named the robots Fastleg (small) and Spot (large) and engaged in caring actions such as "building a house for robots," considering the robots' sizes and movement needs. In another activity, children participated in a "classroom routine" with Spot, pretending to pour milk and serve snacks, which extended care from human interactions to interactions with robots. These episodes show that care flows not only from teacher to child but also from children to robots, facilitated by both the physical controller ensuring safe interaction distances and the teachers who reinforced caring behaviors and interaction rules.
The study demonstrates that fostering care-thinking with robots enhances mutual agency and ethical engagement among young learners. This approach cultivates empathy, redefines agency, and broadens the understanding of responsibility among these learners. Furthermore, the findings highlight the value of incorporating care ethics into early childhood AI education, promoting a comprehensive approach that emphasizes empathy and mutual respect in interactions between humans and robots.

Authors

• X. Christine Wang, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Grace Yaxin Xing, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Zhuoyun Cai, University at Buffalo - SUNY