Publications by Francesco Mondada

FADE-CTP: A Framework for the Analysis and Design of Educational Computational Thinking Problems

Francesco Mondada, Alberto Piatti, Engin Walter Bumbacher

In recent years, the emphasis on computational thinking (CT) has intensified as an effect of accelerated digitalisation. While most researchers are concentrating on defining CT and developing tools for its instruction and assessment, we focus on the charac ...

Springer Science and Business Media LLC2025

Teachers’ Perspectives on Using and Teaching Artificial Intelligence in Early Primary Education

Francesco Mondada

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into various aspects of daily life, the need for AI literacy continues to grow. Accordingly, both educators and students must develop a critical understanding of AI systems and acquire the ski ...

Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH2025

The Competent Computational Thinking Test (cCTt): A Valid, Reliable and Gender-Fair Test for Longitudinal CT Studies in Grades 3-6

Francesco Mondada, Jessica Elke Dehler Zufferey, Barbara Bruno, Laila Abdelsalam El-Hamamsy

The introduction of computing education into curricula worldwide requires multi-year assessments to evaluate the long-term impact on learning. However, no single Computational Thinking (CT) assessment spans primary school, and no group of CT assessments pr ...

SPRINGER2025

Preparing Teachers for an Equitable AI Integration in Education

Francesco Mondada

This workshop proposal aims to inform the design of teacher training on equity in the use and teaching of AI. AI is transforming both teaching practices and student learning environments and learning content. Teachers are increasingly using AI tools for co ...

Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH2025

Extending Sensory Capabilities of a Biohybrid System: Prediction of Honeycomb Fill

Francesco Mondada, Robert Matthew Mills

Interactive robotics is increasingly used to investigate animal behaviour, including communication, mating and collective dynamics. An essential component for such systems is sensing the animals and the relevant aspects of the habitat to enable coherent cl ...

IEEE2025

Architecture of a decentralised decision support system for futuristic beehives

Francesco Mondada, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Robert Matthew Mills

Honeybees are essential to human society, providing pollination services globally as well as producing honey and other valuable products. Effective management of apiaries should not only rely on beekeeper knowledge and skill, but also incorporate new infor ...

2024

Quantifying the biomimicry gap in biohybrid robot-fish pairs

Francesco Mondada, Vaios Papaspyros

Biohybrid systems in which robotic lures interact with animals have become compelling tools for probing and identifying the mechanisms underlying collective animal behavior. One key challenge lies in the transfer of social interaction models from simulatio ...

2024

Biohybrid Superorganisms—On the Design of a Robotic System for Thermal Interactions With Honeybee Colonies

Francesco Mondada, Robert Matthew Mills, Rafael Botner Barmak, Raphael Cherfan

Social insects, such as ants, termites, and honeybees, have evolved sophisticated societies where collaboration and division of labor enhance survival of the whole colony, and are thus considered “superorganisms”. Historically, studying behaviors involving ...

2024

How to Support Students to Cultivate Psychological Safety in their Teams

Francesco Mondada, Jessica Elke Dehler Zufferey, Yousef Jalali

The importance of psychological safety in teams has been demonstrated in different settings. Team performance improves when team climate allows team members to be their authentic selves, to ask questions and raise concerns comfortably. However, it is less ...

EPFL2024

Who's Helping Who? When Students Use ChatGPT to Engage in Practice Lab Sessions

Francesco Mondada, Engin Walter Bumbacher, Jérôme Guillaume Brender, Laila Abdelsalam El-Hamamsy

Little is understood about how chatbots powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) impact teaching and learning, and how to effectively integrate them into educational practices. This study examined whether and how using ChatGPT in a graduate-level robotics c ...

Springer Nature Switzerland2024