Our SUCRE initiative to promote computational thinking and programming skills in young people have reached a new milestone. We have published (in Spanish) in national conferences and outlets related to the use of technology to improving teaching. Now, SUCRE is going international with the publication of the article “Advancing preuniversity students’ computational thinking skills through an educational project based on tangible elements and virtual block‐based programming ” in Computer Applications in Engineering Education journal.

The abstract is:

University students enroling in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)‐related studies such as computer science continue to decline, even though worldwide educational policy reports warn about the need for this type of professionals in the immediate future. Promoting computer science studies among preuniversity students seems the most direct solution to reverse this issue. In this context, we present the Sucre4Kids project whose main objectives are to engage young people into computational thinking and programming concepts using tangible elements and social interaction. We apply the Sucre4Kids approach to introductory courses of computational thinking and programming concepts to high‐school students. The main results of the 3‐year intervention in the classroom with 256 high‐school students reached suggest that tangible elements and social interaction in groups are determining factors in increasing students’ motivation to learn to code and to raise their interest in STEM disciplines.

Cite it as:

Trilles S, Granell C. Advancing preuniversity students’ computational thinking skills through an educational project based on tangible elements and virtual block‐based programming. Comput Appl Eng Educ. 2020;1–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/cae.22319