CoolThink@JC
Seeking to inspire digital creativity among students and nurture their proactive use of technologies for social good from a young age, CoolThink@JC is a computational thinking education initiative created and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, and co-created by The Education University of Hong Kong, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and City University of Hong Kong. In collaboration with local educators and the world’s leading experts, CoolThink@JC empowers teachers with high-quality teaching materials, learning platform, and professional development programmes. Since 2016, CoolThink@JC has trained more than 110 teachers from 32 pilot schools and benefited over 20,000 primary students with CoolThink classes.
The CoolThink@JC approach prepares students for a fast-changing digital future through a hands-on, minds-on, and joyful learning experience. An independent evaluation has found that students participated in CoolThink@JC grew twice as much in problem-solving skills when compared with non-participating students. Following the successful implementation of the four-year pilot, the second phase of the CoolThink@JC is launched in 2020, with the aim of mainstreaming computational thinking education.
CoolThink@JC aims to inspire students' digital creativity in daily life. We believe that parental participation is crucial to the effectiveness of this project, so a series of "computational thinking" parent workshops have been launched.
"Computational Thinking" Parent Workshop provides a parent-child learning platform for parents and their children to learn programming (Scratch) together. Through interactive activities, help parents master computational thinking skills, and also enhance communication and cooperation between the two parties. We hope that the plan will not only allow parents to appreciate the benefits of computing thinking and programming education, but also gain support from parents and all walks of life to promote and cultivate a new generation of technology applications and creators in the future.