While teachers and parents may not see the benefits clearly for another couple of years, using technology to enhance learning in kindergarten is actually a pretty wise decision. Adding a new wrinkle to early education can help promote inquiry in students, provide opportunities for collaboration, and help them start to develop both STEM and soft skills. So, if you ask us, the question isn’t really ‘should I use technology?' It’s ‘what technology should i use?’
The Shift to 21st Century Kindergarten
There’s little remaining to argue regarding the changes taking place in all levels of education and the new skills students must have in order to be considered prepared for real life. Of course, some of these huge shifts are the introduction of technology into learning, the frequency with which it is used, and its increasing addition to early learning. Statistics show that since the No Child Left Behind Act was incorporated in 1998, the education outlook has undergone a great amount of change leading up to the current years. One of those changes is a much greater focus on introducing kids to technology very early and, despite some pushback, this trend is continuing to grow.
Every time we turn around, it seems education officials are trying to institute more high-stakes testing into the requirements for moving on. This does little to help student achievement, however, and efforts have been made to replace testing with more relevant measures of readiness. These include more frequent formative assessments and a greater focus on experiential learning. That’s not to say these tests aren’t necessary, but the amount that kids have riding on them can certainly be lessened, which could provide the time for more beneficial learning opportunities in kindergarten. Students should also be introduced to STEAM subjects, like music and art, as early as kindergarten since this helps improve their creativity and expression. Administrators realize the importance of cultivating tech skills, but having artistic skills is equally important for kids who will soon be expected to innovate at every turn.
Though not everybody is on board, early education teachers are leaving some of the most commonly covered and classic topics behind in favor of promoting new skills and experiences. This includes the removal of discussing dinosaurs and outer space from the classroom and replacing them with opportunities for open-ended invention. If you ask us, this is not a bad trade at all. At the same time, however, kindergarten students should be given the freedom to choose their learning paths at least some of the time. All they need is about an hour a day to truly engage in something they care about, which has been known to increase achievement in all areas of learning. While it will still be quite a while until these kids enter the real world, the way they’re exposed to some of its characteristics can start having an effect on their readiness as early as kindergarten.
Tech Transforms Learning as Early as Kindergarten
This generation of educational excellence has afforded all students with innovative opportunities to do more than any generation before them has accomplished. One educator even described her enthusiasm for this revolution as the end of the days of “chalk and talk” as schools shift towards hands-on learning with a purpose. Even in kindergarten, both students and teachers are leveraging the power of technology to transform learning earlier than ever—and in ways you wouldn’t necessarily expect. It has become very common for kindergarten students, for example, to regularly work with computers and other electronic devices to reinforce some of the content they’re covering while also helping them become familiar with those devices. In many schools, digital citizenship is launching before kids even get out of kindergarten.
The world is constantly changing and adapting to the times, so educators need to do all they can to shape students who are able to adapt alongside it. In this day and age, much of the change centers on the use and advancement of technology in almost every aspect of daily life. In order to ensure students are ready for this changing world, teachers are taking every opportunity to present them with academic challenges that mirror the problems they will be solving later in life. This means they are commonly able to work with technology to construct creative solutions and find innovative ways to spark change. Of course, at the kindergarten level, kids are using EdTech tools that are more catered to beginners rather than the inventive instruments, such as 3D printers, being used by high school students.
When students enter their first formal days of schooling as kindergarteners, they should be met with an experience that’s as engaging as possible. When they get the chance to work with technology for even a small portion of the school day, it can lead to development results that are big. Teachers play a large role in these kinds of programs as they need to work directly with students to offer them guidance and help them work through problems, but the combination of hands-on exploration teamed with teacher tutelage is extremely beneficial for students. In kindergarten classes, students get a lot more out of the experience when technology is integrated into class discussions than they do simply from those class discussions. Having technology available for use in kindergarten classrooms is often the hardest step to complete, but once it’s acquired, teachers should take advantage so they can set their students up for future success.
Making Sure Kids Don't Fall Behind in STEM Starting in Kindergarten
Overall, STEM competence and readiness across the country is declining as educators and political leaders look for ways to bolster STEM proficiencies in graduating students. One of the most effective ways to do this is to start teaching and preaching the importance of STEM very early on. We’re talking kindergarten early, folks. Students tend to start performing more poorly in STEM subjects, research shows, because, eventually, there are lower expectations set for them when it comes to excelling in these subjects. Eliminating these factors early on could do a lot in making sure they stay interested while also giving them a reason to be. Steering students away from STEM early means they will likely never try to pursue a lucrative STEM career—something they can’t really afford to have happen to them and something no teacher should allow.
To tackle this problem from the ground up, school districts need to make sure their youngest students have regular exposure to STEM learning. This includes time spent on scientific concepts and also hands-on exercises that teach them fundamental 21st century skills, like coding. It would be ideal if STEM instruction started in kindergarten and picked up steam (not capitalized) each year as students moved through the education system. Studies show that the achievement gap is already widely visible by the time students reach middle school, which is why it’s too late at this point to decide to ramp up STEM focus. Children are not always well-versed on the natural and social worlds when they enter the early grades, but opportunities for exploration can substantially help with their growth in these areas and, beginning in kindergarten, they can start developing key skills if given the right resources and opportunities.
Part of the reason students struggle to keep up with STEM subjects is because they enter school with low general knowledge. These students tend to reflect low science achievement by the time they reach third grade, especially if nothing is done to try to reverse this trend. In most cases, students who struggle with certain things, like general knowledge and creativity in kindergarten, are likely to continue struggling until they fall significantly behind by the time they reach middle school. To lessen the chances of students slipping behind, educators should place a greater emphasis on general knowledge and exploration-based learning, which can be aided by the regular experiential use of technology. Asking questions will also help bring about their creativity skills and evoke curiosity—both of which are important to have. While it’s not necessary to have kids coding their way through kindergarten, statistics show that it has become pretty important that they be given the opportunity to engage in STEM starting then.
Students are Ready to Start Coding in Kindergarten
Technology is a powerful tool that children should have the opportunity to use to solve problems and deepen their educational experiences from the first day they enter a formal classroom. Regular exposure to age-appropriate tech tools, like coding kits designed to ease kindergarteners into the fray, help them learn how to harness technology to create, solve problems, and collaborate with their peers—three essential skills needed to thrive in the modern world. Some education experts are starting to argue that this kind of learning has become essential in early education as it’s more critical than ever that kids become technology literate and know how to use meaningful technology for good. Coding challenges with game-based kits that are appropriate for their hands and minds are essential for introducing them to goal-based learning.
Believe it or not, kindergarten students are actually at the ideal age to begin learning coding. Their willingness to try new things and the fact that they have been around technology all their lives also contribute to their natural pick-up of basic coding concepts. They use the fact that they aren’t afraid of failure to explore and tinker with coding toys until they find a combination that works. While they are playing and experimenting, they are actually starting to look at things with an engineering mindset, which is developed further and further every time they create a new coding cue. Through hands-on exploration (even in kindergarten), students are able to recognize the framework for using technology to solve problems, including identifying the problem, creating a plan, executing that plan, and evaluating the result—the kind of trial and error that coding helps illuminate.
An early introduction to coding does more than prepare children for careers 20 years down the road. It will help them better develop math and literacy skills that they’ll use throughout their education as well. They’ll also learn critical thinking and design thinking skills, which will help them take on whatever problems they face in their future careers. Coding also improves the thought process of kindergarten students as they work toward an end goal by compiling all the necessary pieces of a puzzle. Students can even learn coding while they’re learning other subjects, like reading or spelling. There are plenty of ways to get kindergarteners the coding practice they need and all it takes is a little inventiveness and enthusiasm to adapt the curriculum.
Creating Authentic Kindergarten PBL
Familiarity with technology and all it can enable is important for kindergarteners to begin to understand. One other thing they can ease into starting at a young age is project-based learning. Typically, PBL involves a longer-term project and is done by junior high or high school students in an attempt to affect positive change within the community. While nobody expects kindergarteners to go to such great lengths, they can try a similar approach but on a smaller scale. One example we recently heard featured a kindergarten class who was doing some volunteer work at a local nursing home. One of the residents loved sitting outside and reading on a bench, but it was too hot for her to do so in the summer, so the class decided to plant her a tree beside the bench since they happened to be learning about trees at the time. A very small example, but this is a great way for young students to experience the power of PBL.
This is a pretty basic example of project-based learning, but it is still an authentic project, which is the overall goal of PBL. By authentic, we mean that the students are actually designing and completing a tangible project rather than just replicating something or talking about how they would do it if they had the chance. Despite their size and age, there is no reason to exclude kindergarteners from participating in authentic PBL adventures. There’s even some tricks teachers can employ to make sure that their students are getting a lot out of the whole experience. It’s as simple as listening to them and finding out what they like and don’t like. Kids talk all the time and this previously meaningless babbling could give teachers great insight into their interests and spark an idea for an active learning project in the class.
When planning PBL for kindergarteners, the simpler the better. It doesn’t have to necessarily be academic either. Teaming up to solve a lingering problem in the community is a great first PBL step for kindergarten kids. While coming up with project ideas and designing these projects, teachers need to keep in mind that what creates authenticity is content and context. As long as the project embodies a concept being covered in the current unit and provides context that shows its real-world relevance, that is a good PBL class. Creating authenticity in PBL shouldn’t be that difficult as kindergarten-aged kids have just as many things they care about as older students do. Kindergarten PBL will help teachers develop students who are ready to improve the world with a little ingenuity and some help from technology.
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