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 21,000 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 September 2020. The objectives are to scale the initiative to a wider, more diverse set of local primary schools; to create a self-sustaining ecosystem that nurtures digital creativity in all classrooms; to work together with policymakers and stakeholders to incorporate computational thinking education into mainstream curricula; and contribute to the emerging global literature on computational thinking education.

To learn more about the project, please visit: http://www.coolthink.hk/.