KidsEdu – a preschool supplementary program that helps children get used to STEM

The world has been changing rapidly with advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning and automation-robotics, however, the education system has hardly changed. Numerous today’s jobs will be replaced by new types of jobs that do not exists today.

To meet this urgent command, KidsEdu was established to equip young children (from 3 to 6 years old) with thinking skills including creativity, analysis and problem-solving skills which are most important for children to succeed in the 21st century.

KidsEdu STEM, which is a preschool supplementary education program, is the first production of KidsEdu helping preschool children become familiar with STEM, especially with computational thinking. The KidsEdu STEM program was developed for more than 2 years with a team of experienced experts, successfully tested at a number of preschool educational facilities, and approved by the Program Evaluation Council of the Vietnamese Insitute of Educational Sciences. It was also evaluated as appropriate, feasible, effective and has been deployed at many early childhood education facilities across the country. The KidsEdu STEM program, which is a standard digital access competency framework for preschool children issued by the Ministry of Education and Training in 2022, meets national Early Childhood Education standards. In particular, KidsEdu STEM that meets international STEM standards has received the STEM.org Reviewed™ certificate from the educational research and evaluation organization STEM.org™.

The KidsEdu STEM program with its outstanding highlights brings certain benefits to schools, parents and children including:

– Building the image of children’s output and focusing on developing 3 core competencies in the 21st century competency framework including: complex problem-solving ability, creative thinking and eagerness to learn – 3 competencies will be a solid steppingstone for children’s future development.
– Focusing on building children’s computational thinking with 4 prominent skills: analysis, rule identification, abstraction and algorithmic thinking to help children identify and solve problems more logically. Training children to be calm and persistent during the handling process.
– Supplementary program with topics similar to the preschool education program with 46 hours of STEM and 46 hours of robotics.
– The set of lesson plans has been built throughout the school year with close and practical topics associated with the preschool program that are regularly updated along with the 5E discovery model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Evaluate, Elaborate) and EDP (Engineering Design Process). The full set of continuously updated lesson plans helps teachers guide children to approach STEM in a methodical and optimal way while saving teachers’ time.

Besides, KidsEdu STEM has differences compared to other preschool STEM supplementary education programs such as:

– The only program in Vietnam applies advanced AR/VR virtual reality technology to the program. With practical features, virtual reality technology helps teachers and children have vivid experiences and save costs when implementing learning activities with AR/VR technology.
– The modern robotics kit is updated with a variety of robots including mTiny, Alpha Mini, Moxie and WhalesBot. Modern robot sets combined with applications on smart devices help teachers and children freely explore, control and perform activities with robots.
– Helping individualize each child through a set of assessment tools including student observation sheets and periodic assessment sheets. Through personalization, the program will offer activities suitable for each child to develop thinking and skills comprehensively.
– A diverse set of advanced learning materials to help children expand the door of knowledge includes wooden self-assembly kits, recycled learning material kits, simple engine assembly and online learning material kits. The learning materials will help children develop their thinking, awareness and creativity.
– Focusing on developing and training teachers to become familiar with STEM through a quality transfer training program. The content of the transfer program emphasizes aspects including the importance of developing digital competencies for preschool children, the overall vision of STEM education – educational innovation through computer education, organizing in preschools, overview of the KidsEdu STEM – Robotics supplementary program, practice teaching STEM and Robotics activities. With these specific contents, KidsEdu STEM allocates a reasonable time frame and training plan to help teachers master the knowledge after the transfer program is completed.
– Experience table setting sessions at preschools create opportunities for parents and children to explore a diverse and advanced set of learning materials while controlling, chatting and performing activities with the robots in the learning set program tool.

In the future, KidsEdu will improve and update the content of the KidsEdu STEM program to meet the needs of the development of the preschool education industry.