<![CDATA[Special schools need teachers who can deliver hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning that students with special needs can follow. This capacity was still missing at SLB Negeri 2 Kota Jambi, a school of 144 students and 20 teachers where students on the autism spectrum form the largest group. The school also had no robotics equipment or teaching materials, even though its students were preparing for a regional robotics competition. This community service program aimed to improve teachers’ knowledge and understanding of educational robotics as a medium for inclusive STEM learning. It ran in five stages, namely socialization, an eight-session Training of Trainers with 30% theory and 70% practice, technology implementation, mentoring and evaluation, and sustainability planning. The school received one LEGO Education SPIKE Prime set, one Expansion Set, and one tablet, together with a training module and five robot designs built on task analysis. A 10-item knowledge test and a 10-item understanding questionnaire were given before and after the training to the nine teachers who completed every session. The mean knowledge score rose from 47.8 to 65.6 with a normalized gain of 0.34 (medium), and the mean understanding score rose from 1.85 to 3.59 on a five-point scale. Every teacher improved (Wilcoxon test, p = 0.004). The program also added a robotics mini lab to the school’s assets, recorded in an official handover report and ready for small-group learning with students. Item analysis showed that conditional logic and motor rotation commands remained weak, so follow-up mentoring focuses on programming logic before it is introduced to students step by step.]]>
