Before and after the lockdown: analysis of the perceptions of students and teachers involved in an Educational Robotics project

Abstract

The first lockdown period, during the 2020 spring, had a very serious impact on Italian students’ life. Suddenly, the distance learning became the only way to attend lessons. Students didn’t have an appropriate technological and emotional background considering both the ability to use instruments like computers and e-learning platforms, and the appropriate knowledge and skills to face the new way of managing class lessons especially because it was the unique available option.  Starting from the large amount of information (through teachers' ante, post and in itinere reports, ante and post questionnaires to students and teachers, focus groups with teachers selected on the basis of their involvement in the project) collected during the PON Coding and Robotics project that took place in the 2019/2020 year and ended in the middle of the lockdown, in this paper we are going to analyse the results of the survey administered to students and teachers to investigate how their behaviours and perceptions about education have changed during the distance learning period. Among the results of the analysis conducted on 214 (ante and post) student responses, it emerged that the students who participated in the project felt they had had an improvement in their relationship with science and math and that some teachers found the project a motivational boost to overcome lockdown difficulties.