Building Life Skills With Hands-On Learning

Children are like sponges. With each new experience, they are absorbing more than we might realize! Every learning experience influences a child’s sense of self and the confidence they have in their abilities. So, when children engage in hands-on learning through experiences like invention education, they’re not only building their understanding of STEM concepts, but they’re also gaining essential skills they can apply in any area of life. With this learning style, the next generation can build an agile approach to solving real-world challenges with confidence, creativity and innovative thinking.

Read on to discover how invention education taps into children’s natural curiosity and guides them to thrive in the classroom and beyond!

A Mindset That Builds Life Skills

By giving children unique opportunities to solve complex challenges, we can help them build persistence, collaboration and creative problem-solving skills. Through invention education, educators can empower children to understand real-world concepts and challenges by creating their own solutions. Simply put, children who engage in invention education programs gain a new lens through which to view the world.

The National Inventors Hall of Fame^® helps children unlock their creative potential by leading them to build the I Can Invent^® Mindset, inspired by Hall of Fame inventors. Explore how each of the I Can Invent Mindset competencies empowers tangible life skills:

Confidence

Through student engagement, invention education promotes open-ended learning and guides children to become more self-assured. With the agency to create their own solutions, children build the confidence they need to face any of life’s challenges.

Design Thinking

As they learn the prototyping process, from sketching to building to testing, children consider the challenges and needs of their invention’s potential users. This leads them to iterative design to see the importance of approaching any situation with empathy.

Persistence

Children gain resilience as they learn to embrace challenges and sharpen their skills through innovative trial and error and peer feedback. Building persistence helps children stick with their ideas and meet their goals.

Creative Problem Solving

Invention education helps unlock every child’s potential to be creative and apply critical thinking and problem-solving skills. As they become solution-oriented thinkers, they develop the lasting skills they need to overcome any obstacle.

STEM

By boosting engagement with hands-on STEM experiences, invention education helps children overcome STEM anxiety, explore core concepts and gain confidence in their abilities, in STEM subjects and beyond.

Entrepreneurship

By giving children the chance to explore entrepreneurship and build basic business skills, invention education helps children become curious, creative risk takers and self-assured leaders who can follow their dreams and inspire others to do the same.

Collaboration

The ability to work together is essential in school, at work and in any interpersonal relationship. Invention education provides children with valuable opportunities to collaborate, give and receive feedback, and learn the importance of respecting everyone’s individual perspectives, talents and contributions.

Intellectual Property

The National Inventors Hall of Fame’s invention education programs promote Intellectual Property Literacy^®, empowering children to learn about the value of their ideas, their rights as creators and the protective power of patents.

Innovation

Invention education facilitates active learning experiences that inspire children to think outside the box. As they practice pushing the boundaries of existing solutions, children prove their natural inclination to innovate and improve.

The Future of Education

The impact of invention education can be seen in children’s academic outcomes, school attendance rates, time management and improved confidence in STEM subjects. Give your students the freedom to create and the tools to succeed, no matter where life takes them! Learn more today.