Towards using robots as tutors: lessons from maths and language learning

Abstract: We have known since about a decade that social robots hold particular promise as educational aids. We do not know why exactly, but it seems that the physical and social presence of robots engages the young learner and stimulates learning. This has been applied in a number of domains, such as mathematics or second language learning. This talk will survey what we know by now, and will present a number of experiments in which we show how robot tutoring can be effective, but also when robot tutoring is not effective.

Biography: Tony Belpaeme is Professor at Ghent University and Professor of Cognitive Systems and Robotics at Plymouth University. He is a member of IDLab – imec at Ghent and is associated with the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems at Plymouth. His research interests include social systems, cognitive robotics,  and artificial intelligence in general.
Until April 2005 he was a postdoctoral fellow of the Flemish fund for scientific research (FWO Vlaanderen), and was affiliated with the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, directed by Luc Steels, at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He held a guest professorship at the same university, where he taught introductory artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.