How to Prepare Your K-12 Kids for Future Success?

If you think that delivering some facts to kids at schools will make them well prepared for the future success then you might be wrong. Kids usually follow the method of memorizing the info they receive in order to bring it back once again in exams which won’t help in the process of fostering their creativity in the future. Kids need to develop their skills and this will only happen through activities that would help them do that.

How to Make K-12 Kids Ready for Success?

The question always asked about K-12 education is whether it prepare kids for future success and make them ready to enter the employment world or else not. In addition to the knowledge that kids gain from their schools, there are some skills which they are supposed to develop to meet the needs of the future.

There are several needed skills that parents and teachers are supposed to work on, such as developing the kids’ ability to solve problems, think critically, as well as work among a team. If you think about it, these are usually the skills-related questions that employers ask you in any interview and make sure to monitor in the future.

In order to develop such skills and prepare kids for future success, there are different activities that they should be part of, those that will help them in using their minds to think and be creative. We are supposed to push kids beyond the basic education or content they receive in schools, that’s how:

• Teach Them About Artificial Intelligence

There are schools which already adopted the idea of introducing students to artificial intelligence (AI) since it is believed that 40% of the jobs will be replaced with artificial intelligence in the future. Learning more about AI would benefit the student, they could learn to use AI for good, become problem designers and create their own AI. This is important to avoid AI replacing them in the future of work.

We are already reaching the time where smart houses and autonomous cars are becoming real, and where artificial intelligence is talking to us and working on our behalf, which calls for an urgent change in the curriculum given to K-12 students.

• Teach Kids More About Coding

There are some important skills that K-12 students should develop and which could happen through STEAM education curriculum or other coding courses. This kind of tech learning should be available for K-12 kids because it will give them the chance to discover their passion, personal interest, and even explore more meaningful learning. The good thing about coding education is that it gives students the chance to engage in hands-on activities, learn to solve their own problems, become critical thinkers, and manage to make the right decisions at the end of the road.

It is important to mention that STEAM education curriculum is important when it comes to building the core skills needed for the future career of the child when it comes to technology. We need K-12 students to understand how things work and be able to create new technologies in the future, we need them to keep this field always relevant and competitive.

• Develop Kids’ Entrepreneurial Skills

A lot might consider this too early for a child to learn but it is not. There are different activities or ways that could be used in order to prepare the student for the in-demand jobs of the future and make them successful when it comes to the changing world. K-12 students should learn to adapt to the changes that might occur, just like how technology will take over and will need them to be part of creating it. Students should also learn to work independently yet be always ready to collaborate and be part of a team.

• Foster Kids’ Digital Skills

The future is technology and the language of the future is coding, so we should all work towards preparing our kids for their future careers’ success. K-12 students should be well prepared for the variety of work environments with the right digital skills. Technology is taking over and there are different platforms for business operations and that’s the reason why companies are reducing the number of full-time employees and going for the option of hiring independent contractors, freelancers, or temporary employees. Sometimes the physical appearance of employees in the workplace become less needed when it comes to working in virtual spaces.

Problem-Solving, Critical Thinking, & Creativity

With the changing world of technology that we are living in, K-12 students should get well prepared and instead of providing them with the kind of education that only focuses on reading, writing, and mathematics, schools should be preparing a curriculum that will even build the skills needed in almost all the jobs of the future.

According to several studies done, it was found that problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity are the most needed skills that kids should have; these are the ones that will prepare them for the future and help them succeed in any career they decide to choose.

In order to prepare successful students for the future; those who are prepared to meet the needs of the future which we are still unable to predict or know more about, there are general guidelines to be followed, such as:

• Motivating students to learn by providing them with the reasons behind why they should be learning something and tell them how learning this specific task will make them successful.
• Provide students with a curriculum that is fluid and acceptable for the change occurring in the world, because what today’s students will learn in their primary school might not fit the ones coming after, and so on.
• Use of technology is beneficial since we are preparing students to deal with the future of technology. We should introduce them to the world of tablets and screens but in a meaningful way that would be adding to their knowledge and not bringing negative impacts instead.

Knowing how to prepare kids for the future with the methods of education used is important because success is what will drive them forward. Building students’ problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity skills is what will help them to succeed in the future careers they are going to choose; these skills could be always mastered through teaching kids how to code.

You could sign up at RoboGarden and let your child start his/her coding journey to develop and foster those beneficial skills needed for the future.