Disclaimer: We received this product for review purposes. As always, we are not required to write a positive review. All opinions are honest and my own. This post may contain affiliated links.
If you are like me, you watch your kids and wonder what will they become when they get older. Am I filling their days with enough wonder to light a spark? Will they love what they do? How will we know? Did we lay out the right path? Did they make the right choices? There are so many questions we ask ourselves as parents.
I’ve honestly never heard of TruSpark Curriculum and Assessment before being given the opportunity to review. However, I knew immediately it was something I wanted my tween to try.
What is TruSpark?
This program has been designed based on TruMotivate, which is aimed at college-level young adults. TruSpark scaled it down to fit pre-teens and teenagers and it is an innovative program meant to help them to identify the things that drive them, and their core motivations, through self-awareness via a series of questions and activities.
Details:
Grade/Age: I feel this should be geared towards 8th graders and above.
Parent Involvement: Very minimal or close to none depending on your child.
Schedule: One shot assessment that takes a few hours to complete.
Costs: The prices vary between $20 – $80 depending on the bundle you decide to purchase.
How It Works
TruSpark is a digital curriculum and assessment quiz that is designed to help you understand what your core motivations are. As an FYI, the curriculum is pretty straight forward and it presents itself as a google slide presentation.
- Level 1 Core Motivations (3 lessons) (approx. 45 mins to complete)
- Level 2 Career Exploration (3 lessons) (approx. 90 minutes to complete)
- Level 3 Live Out Your Purpose (1 lesson) (aprox. 90 minutes to complete)
Reading through the curriculum will definitely provide definitions, explanations and in-depth examples on how to answer the questions for the assessments.
Our Experience
The Online TruSpark Curriculum is fun and easy to navigate. My tween could easily work through the program alone. However, because I wanted to know more about him, and honestly, he didn’t mind sharing the reasons behind his answers, I sat with him through most of the activities. However, this isn’t a quick 30-minute assessment. It took us about 4 hours to complete – – -this is not including the breaks.
At the end of the assessment, we learned that his 3 motivations are: The Impactor, The Overcomer, and The Achiever. According to TruSpark, he seeks creative freedom, comes alive under pressure, and LOVES competition. That is my son in a nutshell. There are 19 Motivations in total, and you can read about them here.
Below is MY assessment and the jobs that would best fit my personality.
Our Overall Impression
To be honest, I loved the conservations I had with son while completing this assessment. Sometimes, as a parent, we have to do all the things and miss out on the some of the details. Aside from the actual assessment taking, I realized that my son is really a deep logical thinker. He has profound reasons behind his actions. I didn’t realize he knew how to recognize it as well as he did. If I took anything from this experience, is that I need to trust my kids’ judgment more.
Another positive about this assessment is that it promotes self-awareness. There is no simple bubble in the answers and move on to the next one. TruSpark gives you room to really think about a couple of your most cherished memory where you felt you made an impact. Then it dives into WHY. Through a selection about 20 reasons, you will have to sort into groups until you filter down to your top three reasons (motivations) . Based on those motivations, you are then given a comprehensive list of suggested career paths.
Overall, If you are entering a new year your tween or teen and need some guidance to help you lay the path for your child’s future, TruSpark will really give you some insight on where to start.
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