Giving Each Student What They Need With Help from a Dancing Robot
ABii dances, plays air guitar and asks students for fist bumps.
It’s not human, but make no mistake: ABii connects with students in the Blue Springs School District in ways that enhance learning.
ABii (pronounced Ah-bee) is a robot used in kindergarten through fifth-grade classes in Blue Springs. It helps students understand their learning better, and it adapts to meet their individual needs. Here’s how it works:
This smart robot personalizes K-5 math, reading and character lessons. It adjusts the pace and content of instruction, based on a student’s performance and attention. When a student misses a question, ABii will give step-by-step guidance on how to get to the right answer. When students show they’ve mastered a particular lesson, it will animate its head and arms and maybe do a little dance to celebrate.
The robot also has a built-in camera that tracks student activity and engagement. If it notices a student looking away from the computer for too long, a character appears on the screen and prompts the student to get back on task. It uses a variety of characters, so students remain absorbed in the lessons. ABii can detect errors and provide the proper response. As one student put it: “She has a little button, and when we press it, she’ll help us do it again, and then it will finally make sense.”
ABii also provides teachers with detailed reports for each student and each subject, so they can adjust their lessons to meet students’ individual needs.
“Our district has seen significant improvements in student mastery levels, with a 20% increase in mastery using ABii,” said Brandon Martin, Blue Springs director of technology. “ABii is designed to be an engaging learning program that meets students at their ability level to enhance their learning.”
ABii has been a fixture in Blue Springs classrooms for three years. Two robots are assigned to each K-5 classroom, and teachers now use them as part of their classroom stations. Typically, students will practice what they learn with the robot at least twice a week.
“Not only is it an amazing app with all of the support in place for students, it’s easy to differentiate,” said Lindsey Watson, a fourth-grade teacher from Sunny Pointe Elementary School. “All students feel successful when they’re with ABii because it’s personalized to them.”
Teachers have found that ABii not only keeps students engaged but also helps their students become more proficient and achieve higher levels of academic success. The robots also provide teachers with more classroom flexibility.
“A group of administrators identified it as a tool that could effectively differentiate instruction and provide valuable reporting for staff,” Martin said. “After a successful pilot in half our elementary schools, we received positive feedback from staff and students and observed improvements in learning targets.”
This ability to give each student what they need is the reason Blue Springs extended the program to the rest of its elementary schools.
“ABii has provided our teachers with the ability to sit and work with students while they know their other students are working on activities that are meaningful, that are relevant and that are engaging,” added Cordill-Mason Elementary School Principal Cassie Gengelbach.
That’s exactly what Blue Springs hoped when it introduced the robots, and the district was also excited to get older students involved as well. Blue Springs gets the robots from an outside company but then works with high-school students at its Career and Innovation Center to build and program them.
Not only that, ABii is fun.
“It offers a unique experience for our students,” said Olivia Durrell, a fifth-grade teacher at Cordill-Mason Elementary School. “I wish I would have had ABii when I was a kid.”