While it is important to follow a standardized curriculum and structured tests in school, it is also imperative that children build new, innovative technologies in order to prepare themselves for a fast-changing world.
Schools, parents, and teachers need to encourage children to create innovative technologies by helping them think outside-the-box. It is important that a child’s innovative bent of mind is allowed to flourish and that she comes up with new ideas and innovations. In this article, we’ll talk about what needs to be done to ensure that this is so.
- Incorporating play into the curriculum: This leads to innovation, especially when teachers take offbeat approaches to the curriculum. Most successful teachers make learning fun, thereby advancing quality learning. When students perceive their curriculum as serious, they become afraid to take chances and stop thinking creatively, thereby stifling innovation.
- Encouraging curiosity in children: Allowing children to play with various technology-related materials and helping them see how things fit together, helps fuel their curiosity. This, in turn, helps them engage in a variety of individual and team projects. These develop attention and awareness to detail and also create greater understanding and a desire to learn more. When children are able to understand the connections between multiple things, they become curious as to how they all work together, thereby encouraging innovation.
- Enabling children to follow their passion: The best teachers and parents always support students in following their natural passions. They also teach them lessons in such a way as to ignite those passions. They also allow children to choose the subject matter they want to study and encourage them to design their own investigations and experiments. This strengthens the individual motivations and interests of students.
- Inculcating fearlessness in children: Schools, parents, and teachers should encourage fearlessness in children, especially when it comes to taking risks and trying out new ways of doing things. In this way, children become better at problem solving and developing innovative technologies. Also, when praising the child, do praise the effort, as this leads to an increased ability.
- Having a greater sense of purpose: This is important for children who innovate. Teachers can make a very real impact when they talk about the importance of doing something to make a difference, rather than just to get a good grade. Having a greater sense of purpose, helps children find solutions, take risks, and look for new methods to solve challenging issues.
- Catching them young: Schools are the first formal learning ground for children. What children learn in schools will form the bedrock of all of their life skills. In order that children become comfortable with creating new innovative technologies, they should be exposed to technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Data Analytics, Automation, and Coding at the school level. For example, AI could be used to create an online examination system. Above all, the exposure to and the experience of these technologies should be fun, so that the child can come to appreciate technology and can leverage it to their best advantage.
- Nurturing tomorrow’s inventors: According to a 2017 report by Dell Technologies, 85% of future jobs have not yet been invented. It is today’s children who will be the inventors and innovators of new technologies in the future. They will need to develop ideas and innovations that will address the challenges of their times. For this to happen, children need to be exposed to high-end digital technology and digital innovation. This will not only inculcate tech skills but will also encourage curiosity, as to what more can be done with those technologies.
- Playing games: Children have always wanted to play games, whether it be climbing trees, or rolling in the mud. It is very natural for children to engage in any activity that is a game and that tests their skills. Schools, parents, and teachers can offer today’s children a gamified experience. Children should be encouraged to play with technology so that they learn and absorb it without any conscious effort. An example of this is an Augmented Reality (AR) game that lets children visualize the future. In another example, children could compete in a virtual quiz against their friends and classmates. These experiences can help children understand new technologies, and even create them, in the future.
- Trusting a child’s intuition: In their early years of schooling, children rely more on intuition than on information. This is where intuitive ed-tech solutions for learning become extremely useful. These solutions not only make it easy to learn the subject, but also strengthen the intuition and the imagination. So, for example, a lesson about Akbar can incorporate not only the dates of his rule, but can also talk about the challenges he faced as king and how he resolved them.
The world today, is changing at a rapid pace, and so is technology. It is the responsibility of schools and teachers to encourage children to engage with the different digital learning technologies in such a way that they enhance learning. Schools need to encourage digital innovation and need to work at raising innovators, not just rote learners. They also need to inculcate the power of positive thinking in their students.
At Vikas, The Concept School, one of the best CBSE Schools in Hyderabad, we do just that. We believe in advancing quality learning. Our students are engaged in learning with and about new technologies in a creative and innovative way. As one of the top CBSE Schools in Hyderabad, we encourage our students to build new, innovative technologies using their imagination and intelligence.
With Vikas being one of the leading CBSE Residential Schools in Hyderabad, our students soak in the both the curriculum and the ambience. This, in turn, sparks their creativity, all day and every day. Our students are complete, global citizens and are completely comfortable with both using and developing new and innovative technologies both during and after their school years.
Vikas, a K-12 institution has been a pioneer in delivering holistic education with a blend of academic and cultural activities within a technologically and globally connected environment, over the last 3 decades. Vikas is honoured with various International and National awards from the British Council, Brainfeed and other reputed organizations in the areas of excellence and performance. Vikas has given this nation more than 1 Lakh Engineers and 10000+ Doctors. To foster 21st Century Skills, Vikas established the ATL Labs, Robotics Lab, Artificial Intelligence and Entrepreneurship Courses.
Thanks
Vikas, The Concept School | +91 7702900900 | www.vikasconcept.com
