Theoretical perspectives on teaching with robots: from interdisciplinary prerequisites and necessities in today’s classrooms to five different types of robots

Abstract

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, children and adolescents across Europe have experienced a significant rise in mental health challenges, including anxiety, depression, and behavioural disorders. Schools have observed a marked shift in social behaviour, with increased emotional instability, social withdrawal, and attention-related issues. Simultaneously, educational systems face a growing shortage of skilled professionals, particularly in psychological support roles. While digital technologies offer partial relief, their effectiveness is limited by concerns such as screen fatigue and a lack of embodied interaction. This paper conceptualises the use of social robots as a novel intervention tool in education, grounded in the 4E cognition framework—embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended—and informed by interdisciplinary research. Using design thinking and insights from empirical and practical work, we developed five use cases for integrating robots into the Swiss MindMatters mental health promotion programme. These five use cases demonstrate how robots can facilitate emotional learning, simulate social interactions, support conflict mediation, and reduce teacher workload. By combining physical presence with adaptive behaviour, social robots, which will serve as digital twins of pedagogical partners, offer a promising, ethically sensitive extension of classroom environments, fostering deeper engagement, social competence, and cognitive development in ways traditional technologies cannot fully replicate.