IgniteTable by Hatch™
IgniteTable is a digital learning center anchored in a touch-screen interactive table that delivers engaging, research-based learning experiences across domains of social and emotional development for children ranging in age from 3 to 5 years. IgniteTable was designed with a focus on the critical development of social and emotional skills in early childhood. To inform the development of this product, we built a foundational framework backed by research directly relates to the research outlined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).
A summary of the skills children can develop through engagement with IgniteTable are outlined below and the full research foundations document here: IgniteTable Research Foundations
Social and Emotional Learning Skills
The IgniteTable framework consists of six domains of learning that are aligned with CASEL’s core competencies:
- Relationship skills: Building and keeping healthy and caring relationships.
- Social awareness: Taking the perspective of and empathizing with others.
- Self-awareness: Recognizing one's own feelings and thoughts and the influences it has on behavior.
- Responsible decision-making: Demonstrating caring and constructive choices about behavior and interactions.
- Self-management: Regulating one's emotions, understanding, and behaviors.
- Unstructured play: Engaging with materials for enjoyment rather than a set objective.
There are currently 23 subdomains, consisting of three specific and observable skills that are a part of the six social and emotional learning competencies. These observable skills are referred to in IgniteTable as skill descriptors. The digital experiences address skill descriptors and provide children with opportunities to practice specific competencies. The complete IgniteTable framework can be found here: IgniteTable Learning Domains, Subdomains, and Skill Descriptors.
Executive Function Skills
IgniteTable’s digital experiences are intentionally designed to promote, reinforce, and strengthen executive function skills every step of the way. The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University defines seven skills as essential to executive skill development. Those seven skills are embedded into the IgniteTable framework:
- Self-control enables children to prioritize and resist impulsive actions or responses, helping them to avoid saying or doing the wrong thing, pay attention at the right times, and switch focus when needed (n.d.).
- Working memory enables children to retain and utilize information over short periods, such as remembering details or making decisions based on their experiences (n.d.).
- Planning enables children to organize ideas to reach a goal (2011).
- Focused attention enables children to avoid distractions and retain concentration in challenging environments or situations and prevents children from acting on impulses (2011).
- Persistence enables children to set and accomplish a goal, particularly when tasks are challenging or tedious (2011).
- Flexible thinking enables children to sustain or shift attention in response to different challenges or to apply different rules in different settings (n.d.).
- Self-monitoring enables children to self-evaluate and make changes in behavior when needed (2011).
Each digital experience provides children with opportunities to practice one or more of these skills through various learning goals, game design, and play mechanics.
References
- Harvard University, Center on the Developing Child. (n.d.). Executive function & self-regulation.
Retrieved from https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/executivefunction/ - Harvard University, Center on the Developing Child. (2011, February). Building the brain’s
“air traffic control” system: How early experiences shape the development of executive
function (Working Paper 11). Retrieved from https://developingchild.harvard.edu/wpcontent/
uploads/2011/05/How-Early-Experiences-Shape-the-Development-of-Executive-
Function.pdf