Collaborative project between:
Robots and Artificial Intelligence to Improve Social Skills for Elementary Students
Project RAISE is a collaborative project between UCP of Central Florida and the University of Central Florida that aims to improve the social skills of students with disabilities by creating a teaching toolkit featuring ZB, an AI-driven socially assistive robot, and Ray-Z, a virtual robot.
Through the experience, students will have opportunities to learn basic coding while also practicing real-world skills like problem-solving, collaboration, cooperation, and strategic thinking in a safe, distraction-free environment.
The team at the University of Central Florida designed, created, and patented the AI-driven socially assistive robot ZB.
Research Partner Schools
Year 1 Partner:
Year 2 Partners:
Year 3 & 4 Partners:
Year 5 Partners:
UCP of Central Florida Charter Schools
UCP of Central Florida Charter Schools
School Board of Highlands County
UCP of Central Florida Charter Schools
School Board of Highlands County
Orange County Public Schools
UCP of Central Florida Charter Schools
School Board of Highlands County
Orange County Public Schools
Park Hill School District
Princeton House Charter School
PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
The Project RAISE toolkit will focus on supporting students with disabilities in learning communication skills, coding, STEM content, and social relationship skills.
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Phase 1: Students learn coding skills and receive communication coaching while building a relationship with the socially assistive robot (SAR) ZB.
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Phase 2: Students share their new coding skills with a peer while ZB supports them.
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Phase 3: ZB provides personalized support in the classroom to allow students maximum support in the general education setting.
PROJECT OUTCOMES FOR STUDENTS
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Improved social skills and peer social interactions
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Acquisition of knowledge and skills to manage emotions, achieve goals, and establish and maintain relationships
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Understanding of basic coding
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Increased learning in STEM
OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
Six different aspects of Project RAISE will be available as open education resources (OER) at the end of the project. Teachers and schools will be able to use the tools and resources in these key areas individually or as a collection.
The areas are:
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Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) learning to code (resource coming soon)
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Students with ASD teaching a peer-to-code (resource coming soon)
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Socially assistive robot (SAR) supporting students with ASD in math class (resource coming soon)
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Professional development (PD) on cooperative learning in math (resource coming soon)
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Paraprofessional and teacher PD (resource coming soon)
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Measuring social interaction and communication (resource coming soon)
For more information, please email: Dr. Shaunn Smith
RESEARCH SESSION MATERIALS
Social Stories
MEDIA COVERAGE
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SPECTRUM NEWS 13: An AI is Helping Kids on the Autism Spectrum Learn to Code
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FOX 35 NEWS: UCF using AI to help children learn social skills
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Dieker, L., Hines, R., Wilkins, I., Hughes, C., Hawkins Scott, K., Smith, S., Shah, S. (2024). Using an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agent to Support Teacher Instruction and Student Learning. Journal of Special Education Preparation, 4(2), 78–88. https://doi.org/10.33043/d8xb94q7
Vasquez Ferrer, R. Ali, K., Shah, S., Ingraham, K., & Hughes, C. E. (2024). Using AI-based Virtual Companions to Assist Children with Autism in Recognizing and Addressing Cyberbullying. Sensors 2024, 24(12), 3875; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24123875
Ali, K., Shah, S., & Hughes, C.E. (2023). In the Wild Affect Analysis of Children with ASD Using Heart Rate. Sensors 2023, 23, 6572. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23146572.
Dieker, L., Hughes, C., & Hynes, M. (2023). The Past, the Present, and the Future of the Evolution of Mixed Reality in Teacher Education. Education Sciences, 13(11), 1070.
Dieker, L. A., Kennedy, M. J., Vasquez III, E., & Rock, M. [in press]. Use of technology in the preparation of pre-service teachers. University of Florida, Collaboration for Effective Educator, Development, Accountability, and Reform Center. (Document No. IC-11). http://ceedar.education.ufl.edu/tools/innovation-configurations/
Marino, M. T., Vasquez, E., Dieker, L., Basham, J., & Blackorby, J. (2023). The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Special Education Technology. Journal of Special Education Technology, 38 (3), 1-35 https://doi.org/10.1177/01626434231165977
Shah, S., Ali, K., Dieker, L., & Hughes, C. (2023). WAVE: a web-based platform for delivering knowledge-driven virtual experiences. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 43(3), 54-60. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCG.2023.3260599
Taylor, M. S., & Glavey, E. M. (2023). Harnessing robotics and coding to foster social-emotional learning in students with autism. Journal of Special Education Technology. https://doi.org/10.1177/01626434231199992
Wang, D., Wang, P., Liu, K., Zhou, Y., Hughes, C. E., & Fu, Y. (2023). Reinforced Imitative Graph Learning for Mobile User Profiling. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering 35(12), 12944-12957. https://doi.org/10.1109/TKDE.2023.3270238.
Hughes, C. E., Dieker, L., A., Glavey, E., Hines, R., Wilkins, I., Ingraham, K., Bukaty, C., Ali, K., Shah, S., Murphy, J., & Taylor, M. (2022). RAISE: Robotics & AI to Improve STEM and Social Skills for Elementary School Students. Frontiers in Virtual Reality: Virtual Reality and Human Behaviors, https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.968315.
Ren, W., Wang, P., Li, X., Hughes, C.E., & Fu, Y. (2022). Semi-supervised Drifted Stream Learning with Short Lookback. The 28th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 1504–1513. https://doi.org/10.1145/3534678.3539297
Kent, J. A., & Hughes, C. E. (2022). Law Enforcement Training using Simulation for Locally Customized Encounters. Frontiers in Virtual Reality: Technologies for Virtual Reality, https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.960146.
Glavey, E. M., Hines, R. A., & Taylor, M. S. (2022). Project RAISE: Developing a socially assistive robot to increase the social-emotional skills of elementary students with autism. DADD Online Journal.
DISCLAIMER INFORMATION
For Practice/Research-Based Products
This document was produced under U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs Grant No. H327S200009. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or polices of the Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any product, commodity, service, or enterprise mentioned in this publication is intended or should be inferred. This product is public domain. Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part is granted. While permission to reprint this publication is not necessary, the citation should be:
UCP of Central Florida (2020). Project RAISE: Robots and Artificial Intelligence to Improve Social Skills for Elementary Students, Orlando, FL, 32817, UCP of Central Florida