10 Benefits of Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program

Progress is often synonymous with change, and unsurprisingly, the 21st century has brought about a significant amount of both. In the last 25 years, there have been rapid advancements in technology, leading to broader access to information and a reliance on digital communications. All this progress trickles down into how we teach our children to help them become successful, contributing members of society.  

So, how do we best prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s workforce? That’s where Nearpod’s 21^st Century Readiness Program comes in.

What is Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program?

Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program is designed to equip students with the skills and knowledge they need for today and tomorrow. Eligible for Federal Title I, II, and IV funding, the program takes a whole-child approach to education by building lifelong skills that will benefit the student far beyond the classroom.  

The 21st Century Readiness Program focuses on:  

• Digital citizenship and literacy skills, which address how children can be safe, responsible, and respectful online while building foundational media and news literacy abilities. 
• Coding and computational thinking, which introduces students to the building blocks of coding. The lessons emphasize logic and problem-solving and prepare students to use technology effectively, safely, and appropriately per the K-12 Computer Science Framework. 
• Essential technology skills, which teach students fundamental computing skills, how to use technology productively, and how to understand computer systems and networks. 
• Keyboarding, which prepares students to type with ease through gamified lessons that promote repeated practice and memorization of keyboarding basics. 
• Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), which leans on CASEL’s core competencies that underscore critical thinking, growth mindset practices, and other work-ready, lifelong learning strategies, in addition to encouraging a positive school climate.  
• College and career readiness, which includes learning strategies that promote college exploration and preparation as well as career discovery through virtual reality career tours. These resources can help students make more informed decisions about life after school. 
• Financial literacy, which covers the fundamentals of spending and saving, from the basics of setting up a bank account and budgeting to long-term goals such as investing and retirement.

For the 21^st Century Readiness Program, Nearpod has partnered with several trustworthy thought leaders in the edtech space to co-design these ready-to-teach interactive lessons, videos, and activities. These partners include:

• Common Sense Education for digital citizenship and literacy
• CodeMonkey for programming
• Typsey for keyboarding skills
• Next Gen Personal Finance for financial literacy

10 Benefits of Nearpod’s 21^st Century Readiness Program

1. Implement digital citizenship skills year-round

Digital citizenship is a skill set that needs to be taught long before a child begins interacting with the digital world. Kids need to establish healthy habits for how they interact and build relationships, both online and offline. In this increasingly digital world of ours, kids need to understand how media and technology affect their mental, social, physical, and emotional health.  

Schools can and should begin digital citizenship lessons as early as kindergarten. By taking an integrated approach and weaving these kinds of lessons across the curriculum and throughout the school year, schools and teachers can help prepare students to become responsible digital citizens.  

Nearpod’s digital citizenship and literacy resources cover topics such as responsible computing, ethics and law, technology and society, emerging technology, and current events. The lessons and videos in this curriculum are co-designed with Common Sense Education, a leading nonprofit in the digital wellness space, and are aligned to state-specific technology standards, CSTA standards, and ISTE standards. 

The following lessons have been unlocked to offer an exclusive inside look at the kind of content available with Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program: 

• Screen Out the Mean (K-2): In this lesson, students learn about cyberbullying and what can be done to address it.
• What is AI? (6-12): Students learn about artificial intelligence and how it works and consider the pros and cons of this technology.
• Sourcing Your Information (6-8): Students learn strategies for identifying the source of online information, exploring native advertising, credibility, and conflicts of interest.

2. Embed SEL into routine instruction

Social and emotional learning, commonly known as SEL, encompasses the soft skills encapsulated in CASEL’s SEL framework. Also referred to as the CASEL 5 or the CASEL Wheel, this framework outlines five interrelated social and emotional competencies: self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, and social awareness.

SEL supports a whole-child approach in education, where empathy, resilience, cooperation, active listening, and other soft skills are taught in conjunction with core academic disciplines. Integrating SEL activities into daily routines and lessons helps foster a positive classroom climate and school community.

Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program offers a range of SEL resources aligned with the CASEL framework. Full-length lessons provide foundational knowledge and skills, while mini-lessons, check-ins, and activities offer flexible opportunities to embed SEL moments into larger learning experiences. By blending these resources, educators can create dynamic learning environments that encourage students to learn, apply, and reflect on these essential competencies.

As part of its SEL offerings, Nearpod has also developed resources to address the challenges of today’s interconnected online and offline worlds. For example, the SEL in Digital Life collection provides lessons and activities that help students build skills like empathy, responsible decision-making, and digital mindfulness in both environments.

3. Prepare students for college and future careers

Whether students decide to pursue a path toward higher education or dive right into the working world, they need the chance to expand their understanding of how their passions and strengths align with opportunities in the real world.

Nearpod’s College & Career Readiness content encourages students to unpack their interests and explore future professions that they might not even be aware of. These resources can help kids set personal goals and challenge themselves in exciting ways.

The College Tour collection provides virtual visits to national college campuses so that kids can get a sense of different schools’ locations, facilities, and opportunities without ever leaving home.

By employing Nearpod’s unique use of interactive virtual reality, students can attend a virtual career fair that highlights a wide variety of possible professions. They can explore more career options and career-building opportunities through the Career Exploration collection.

4. Boost financial literacy skills

Teaching financial skills is often overlooked in school math curriculum, which means that kids lack not only the basic knowledge but the confidence required for complete financial literacy. As of 2024, only 24 states require high schoolers to take a financial literacy course as a requirement for graduation.  

This is an issue because financial literacy skills are life skills that intersect with personal and professional success. Strong financial literacy skills can support one’s life goals, whether looking at future education costs or long-term retirement plans. From understanding debt to running a business, financial literacy and planning can help one not only manage money wisely but achieve financial stability, even in the face of unexpected life moments such as unemployment. 

Nearpod’s financial literacy resources were created in partnership with Next Gen Personal Finance, CEE, and Two Cents. These lessons address foundational personal finance and financial literacy skills for K-12 students. From saving and investing to spending and budgeting, the topical bundles support personal and professional finance knowledge.

5. Teach the basics of coding

Even if students aren’t interested in a career in coding, learning how to code can teach fundamental skills in computational thinking, problem-solving, and logic. The try-try-again mentality of coding promotes a growth mindset where failing forward is applauded.

CodeMonkey and Nearpod collaborated to create Nearpod’s Code & Computational Thinking collection. This set of lesson plans, videos, and interactive activities brings the principles behind coding into the classrooms even without sophisticated digital technologies like hardware and software. The ready-made lessons provide turnkey activities that even those unfamiliar with coding can facilitate with ease and with confidence.

6. Build essential technology skills

In addition to coding, today’s students also would benefit from some basic knowledge of how different technologies work. These can be simple concepts, such as how to create a document or a presentation, or significantly more complex, such as the application of cryptographic methods.  

The more basic skills will support their growth and development in school and outside of it as they function in our high-tech world. Growing their knowledge and developing other skills regarding more complex topics will result in a strong understanding of the technology that affects their everyday lives and may lead them to different tech-based careers.

7. Improve keyboarding skills

We have long believed that handwriting, and even cursive, is a skill that needs to be introduced and practiced through the elementary years; now, keyboarding is becoming a similarly foundational skill to develop.  

For young students, the hand-eye coordination and muscle memory required for keyboarding make it important for early, ongoing practice. It can even empower children who struggle with a variety of learning challenges, whether with motor skills, mental processing, writing, or communication. Keyboarding can reduce anxiety and promote independence. 

Nearpod partnered with Typsey to curate resources to help with learning letter, number, and symbol locations and keyboarding techniques such as proper posture and good ergonomics. These gamified lessons bring a sense of fun and engagement to these repeat instances of practice, which help students develop keyboard fluency and increase ease of use.

8. Regulate classrooms with Brain Breaks

Research has shown the benefits of providing students with brain breaks, which are short periods of rest from focused activity to better promote focus, retention, and productivity. Neuroscience supports this concept by revealing how brain breaks work: By switching the type of mental activity we’re engaged in, these breaks allow our brains to recover from overdrive. This shift redirects communication to a different part of the brain, replenishing neurotransmitters and restoring cognitive resources, making it easier for students to re-engage and sustain their learning. 

Exclusive to the 21st Century Readiness Program is Nearpod’s collection of Brain Breaks. These short-format videos can be interspersed throughout a lesson or school day to provide much-needed moments of relaxation or motivation.  

Teachers can choose from either Calming or Energizing Brain Break videos and can embed them into Nearpod lessons or launch them on the fly at any point through the Teacher Dashboard. Both types of Brain Breaks videos can help reduce anxiety, increase blood flow, and improve focus for students.

9. Keep all teaching resources in one place and platform

We know that a significant challenge for teachers in the classroom is the lack of instructional time. Educators are tasked with teaching both core academic subjects and non-core topics like digital citizenship and SEL. 

Nearpod takes some of this burden off teachers by organizing our ready-to-use resources within one, easy-to-use platform that is designed to meet educators’ needs. Teachers can rely on Nearpod to provide them with a wide array of content and resources that are easy to sort through, filtering content by topic, grade level, and even state standard. Plus, Nearpod provides real-time data to help make data-informed decisions for both whole-group and individualized instruction. 

Additionally, teachers can create their own Nearpod lessons, bringing their unique perspective to students’ daily learning. They can craft compelling and engaging lesson plans and activities and organize them within their personal, school, or district library of content. They can also modify existing lessons to speak directly to their students’ needs and interests by adding more interactivity or reference media or combining topics for a more personalized learning pathway. Teachers can edit the lessons to add, remove, or rearrange slides and activities for differentiated learning and small group work, for more personalized instruction.

10. Gain real-time insights through engaging formative assessments

Speaking of real-time data, Nearpod provides an array of interactive formative assessments designed to empower teachers in shaping their instructional strategies. These assessments not only engage students with activities like polls, quizzes, and open-ended questions but also provide immediate insights into their understanding. 

With Nearpod, teachers can monitor whole-group progress and individual participation in real time, identifying trends and areas where students may need extra support. Post-session reports provide a detailed overview of class performance, helping educators plan and adjust their instructional approaches to address the diverse needs of their classroom effectively.

Learn more about Nearpod 21^st Readiness Program

Talk to any educator, and they will emphasize their goals of helping each student reach their full potential. Achieving these goals requires a holistic approach that addresses not only academic growth but also a student’s social and emotional development. A whole-child educational approach is uniquely suited to this task, as it nurtures the skills and mindsets necessary for success in both school and life. By adopting Nearpod’s 21st Century Readiness Program, educators gain access to a comprehensive set of resources that align with this philosophy, supporting K-12 students in developing the lifelong skills they need to thrive in an ever-evolving world.

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