Projects |

Breakthrough Tech Chicago: Teaching & Coaching

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Through my work with Breakthrough Tech Chicago, I have supported efforts to broaden participation in computer science as a coach and course co-instructor.

Teaching & Coaching

As a co-instructor, I supported students’ engagement with computing concepts and activities. As a coach, I provided guidance and encouragement as students navigated their learning experiences.

This work connects with my broader research interests in belonging, interest development, and the social supports that help students participate in computing.

MyTurn: Girls’ Participation in Computing

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

MyTurn brings together social robotics, personally meaningful programming projects, peer collaboration, and mentorship to support middle school girls’ interest and participation in computing.

My Contributions

I designed a web-based pre-coding tool that supports students as they move from brainstorming and storyboarding to annotation, pseudocode, block-code planning, and implementation.

Through my dissertation research, I examined how students interacted with the tool alongside peers and mentors during project-based social robotics activities. This work investigated how technological and social scaffolds can support engagement, learning, and interest in computing.

Curriculum and Resources

MyTurn is a social robotics curriculum grounded in the DICE framework (Michaelis & Weintrop, 2022). It integrates support for computing knowledge, value, and belonging to promote students’ interest in computer science.

Activities connect learning about social robots with designing and programming robots for personally meaningful applications.

MyTurn curriculum overview, including project activities and classroom implementation.

PATHWiSE: Teacher-Designed Robot-Assisted Learning

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

PATHWiSE—the Personalized Augmenting Tool for Homework in Science Education—is a teacher-facing system for creating customized robot-assisted reading activities.

Teachers can create and edit comments, select suggested comments, and optionally generate comment suggestions using AI. They can also preview robot speech and choose accompanying emotional expressions.

The system translates these choices into robot interactions that provide knowledge and interest supports as students read at home. Building on STEMMates, PATHWiSE places teachers’ instructional judgment at the center of designing these learning experiences.

My Contributions

I contributed to the design of PATHWiSE as part of an interdisciplinary research team.

STEMMates: In-Home Robot Learning Companions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

STEMMates investigates how a social robot can support middle school students’ science reading and learning at home.

Built on the Misty robot platform, the STEMMate learning companion provides comments during reading activities designed to support comprehension, social connection, and interest in science.

The project brings together learning sciences and human–robot interaction to explore how interactions with a robot can complement educational materials and support learning beyond the classroom.

I contributed to this project by developing a social commentary framework which included knowledge support, social support and interest support comments for the social robot that were specifically tailored to the STEM books selected for this project. This framework was later used again for a subsequent project that used the Misty social robot as a homework companion robot for children.

Projects |

Breakthrough Tech Chicago: Teaching & Coaching

Teaching & Coaching

MyTurn: Girls’ Participation in Computing

My Contributions

Curriculum and Resources

Related Publication

PATHWiSE: Teacher-Designed Robot-Assisted Learning

My Contributions

STEMMates: In-Home Robot Learning Companions