March 1, 2023 | Liz McCardle

Find Your Grind’s Future Ready Framework

The Future Ready Framework is the foundation for building a future-ready generation.

The Future Ready Framework outlines both competencies and outcomes for students. The competencies introduce relevant outcomes to prepare students for life, no matter what pathway and lifestyle they choose, and strengthen future-proofing pathways by expanding from the primary focus of college and career readiness, academic skills, career knowledge, and college knowledge. The Future Ready Indicator shows how future-ready a student is.

Future Ready Competencies 

• self awareness
• career awareness
• social awareness
• action awareness

The Outcomes

• self awareness: Students will be able to demonstrate their personal strengths, skills, values, and behaviors
• social awareness: Students will be able to communicate how they relate to others, individuals, social settings, and the world around them
• career awareness: Students will be able to identify how their skills and talents will empower them to thrive in the future of work and the industries and careers they can be successful in
• action awareness: Students will have the ability to communicate their actionable steps toward achieving their goals

The competencies are aligned with the curriculum content that impacts students’ learning experiences and development. These experiences prepare students to BE future-ready. Through self-assessment and a personalized experience, students take responsibility for their life and learning experiences. Proving already, Find Your Grind is helping students build a future-ready mindset.

What does “Future Ready” actually mean to Americans? 

K-12 Priorities: College Readiness or Practical Skills

Let’s step outside of Find Your Grind’s view and look at a recent report on the purpose of education, and see how society’s view of education has shifted significantly since before the pandemic. Populace¹ surveyed 1,010 American adults in September 2022 about what they would prioritize for K-12 schools along with what they think society at large prioritizes. 

In the survey conducted in 2019, Americans ranked students being prepared to enroll in a college or university as the 10th highest priority for K-12 schools. In 2022, that fell to 47th out of 57 total priorities—a big change! What’s also interesting is that the respondents believe preparation for enrollment to college is other people’s third-highest priority. This is demonstrating a deep societal misunderstanding of one another. 

Why has college readiness dropped rank in the prioritization list? Survey respondents said practical skills should be the top priority for schools. Practical skills and knowledge encourage self-learning and development like making choices, managing personal finances, and using interpersonal relationships and communication skills. Ranked as the top five priorities for teaching K-12 students also included 

• how to “think critically to problem solve and make decisions”; 
• “demonstrate character,” such as honesty, kindness, integrity, and ethics; 
• achieve basic reading, writing, and math skills; and 
• have access to learning supports as the top five priorities.

In summary, the number one thing that the Purpose of Education Index and is top priority of all demographic subgroups of the study is that everyone wants students to think for themselves—students are able to think critically to problem solve and make decisions. Americans believe the K-12 education system should redirect its focus—despite the recent emphasis placed on preparing students for higher education programs before the pandemic—on what it means to actually successfully prepare American students and that is equipping them with practical skills that prepare them for life. 

The Future Ready Framework’s Relevance 

See how the Find Your Grind Future Ready Competencies align to the top six priorities in the Purpose of Education survey: 

Find Your Grind students are Future Ready

Find Your Grind is adapting education for the future of work with a focus on self-discovery, employability skills, and career exploration—disrupting the old education and career model with a future-proofing curriculum. And we prepare every student to be Future Ready. So, no matter if the priority is on practical skills or college readiness, Find Your Grind prepares students with future-proofing skills—skills they’ll need in their unique pathways and the real world.

If you would like to learn more about the Find Your Grind and the Future Ready Framework, contact us here!

References

1. Populace, a societal systems think tank.
2. Purpose of Education Index