Mathematical and Computational Thinking from a STEAM Proposal: is the Practitioner's Teaching Profile and Educational Capabilities Developed?

The multidisciplinary approach can develop more potential and attractive teaching skills and attitudes in teachers due to its flexible and adaptive condition of didactics and curricular contents as opposed to non-integrative constructionist didactics. A multidisciplinary STEAM project for practicing teachers (n = 18) versus constructionist teaching (n = 17) was implemented, and computational thinking and school mathematical thinking were tested. The total number of participants was 913 schoolchildren, who participated in a longitudinal comparative methodology. The group comparison reported effects of the STEAM Integration Programme, which showed that the skills of practicing teachers were more effective than those of teachers who followed the university training scheme (classical constructionism). Among the longitudinal evidence, a greater speed of development of cognitive tasks was found in the last three months of application of the STEAM Project, and operational and testing skills improved, showing a greater effect of the strategies on computational thinking than on mathematical thinking skills.