Teachers need robotics-training, too

Since robotics holds a special fascination among all the technological fields – due to its cross-disciplinary approach as well as its popularity through movies and literature – this field is attracting even the interest of pupils and students who are normally more reserved and cautious towards technological areas. In particular, practical experiences have shown that out of all the different technological areas robotics has a very high motivation impact on women. Thus, robotics can also be utilized as an instrument to bridge the gender gap in technological areas and fields of natural sciences. However, so far the majority of projects and initiatives focus on the instruction of the pupils and students themselves which naturally leads to restrictions concerning the scope of application. In order to enhance the impact factor, the integration of “multipliers”, in particular the “educators” in elementary schools, middle schools und high schools - and even in the kindergarten - is an important task. Within this paper, we describe a concept for teaching teachers how to implement robotics curriculum into today’s classrooms which is currently under development at the University of Stuttgart and the Technische Universität Berlin.