Didactic Strategy for the Teaching of Educational Robotics and Programming at Secondary Level

This research article focuses on the use of programming through the Scratch program as an educational tool to develop computational thinking skills and robotics in high school students of the Polytechnic High School of the National University of Moreno (ESPUNM). The main objective is to evaluate the feasibility of developing computational thinking in high school students through the teaching of programming with Scratch, emphasizing interdisciplinarity, creativity and problem solving. The methodology comprises two stages. In the first, practical activities were carried out with Scratch, involving students from 11 to 15 years old who are taking the Educational Robotics workshop. In the second stage, a semi-structured observation was carried out and a virtual forum was established for the evaluation of the students, which showed consistency in the data found. After analyzing the results, it was found that the students responded favorably to the teaching strategies implemented in the process. Finally, it is concluded that Scratch is an effective tool for teaching programming and the development of computational thinking, thus allowing to face the challenges of a constantly changing technological context. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.