Using Digital Laboratories for the Development of Students’ Engineering Thinking

Additional education of schoolchildren is a mechanism for ensuring continuity between general and higher education, meeting the educational needs of gifted children, and, in general, providing an innovative economy with a “creative class”. It can be organized my means of the so-called Quantorium, which is a kind of institution of additional education for schoolchildren that has a great potential for the implementation of the ideas of STEM education and its popularization. In the modern world, it is important to provide early professional education of schoolchildren and the development of schoolchildren’s readiness to receive professional education. The research purpose is to create a model for the development of engineering thinking of a Quantorium student in a digital educational environment, which is part of the university complex. The object of the research is the development of engineering thinking of schoolchildren in the conditions of additional education. The subject of the research is the potential of using digital laboratories in the development of the engineering thinking of students. The research is based at the regional school technology park, which is part of the university complex of Kuban State Technological University – an engineering university located in Krasnodar, Russia. Based on modern models of a competitive personality, as well as model ideas about early professional education, the authors of this article have developed primary models for the development of engineering thinking in schoolchildren in the digital educational environment of the Quantorium.