What to look for in a remote summer camp
By Courtney Dickinson Covid has dramatically changed the summer of 2020. Programs that parents painstakingly identified are cancelled outright or transitioning to remote summer camp models. How can we, as parents, ensure that our kids have an engaging… Read More
Category: @CourtneyofAcera, Blog, Enrichment at Home | May 20, 2020 | kerry
One response to Covid crisis? A Pop Up School
By Courtney Dickinson “It is Lord of the Flies, over here. I have a job, and I am not an educator.” “The assignments being sent by school do not engage my child. They don’t fit him, and they… Read More
Category: @CourtneyofAcera, AceraBlogPost, Blog, Innovation in Education | May 15, 2020 | kerry
10 netiquette & remote schooling norms families need to know
By Courtney Dickinson @CourtneyofAcera In this era of remote schooling, there are new tech platform norms and social coaching advice that we, as parents and educators, need to expressly spell out for our children. Framing “netiquette norms” and… Read More
Category: @CourtneyofAcera, Blog | April 15, 2020 | kerry
Remote learning is the new normal, now what?
By Courtney Dickinson Seemingly overnight, schools everywhere have transitioned to a remote educational model for the foreseeable future as we enter a period of extended social distancing. For school leaders and families who are trying to adapt to… Read More
Category: @CourtneyofAcera, Acera News, Blog | April 6, 2020 | kerry
AceraEI offers free STEAM content during distance learning
For schools, teachers, and parents looking for free educational content during this period of distance learning, AceraEI is offering downloadable lessons for students in grades K-8. The content includes activities in life sciences, art, math, engineering, architecture, and… Read More
Category: @CourtneyofAcera, Acera News, AceraBlogPost, Innovation in Education | March 20, 2020 | kerry
Five steps to successful remote learning
By Courtney Dickinson As schools nation-wide quickly transition to remote learning in response to COVID-19, many administrators, teachers, students and parents are experiencing distance learning for the first time. In addition to curriculum and content, schools must also… Read More
Category: @CourtneyofAcera, Acera News, AceraBlogPost, Innovation in Education | March 17, 2020 | kerry
Parents as coaches: Tactics to support your child during remote schooling
By Courtney Dickinson @CourtneyofAcera What are best-in-class teaching tactics you can adopt – as the in-person adult – now that so many schools are converting to remote schooling? It will be tempting for all of us to replicate… Read More
Category: @CourtneyofAcera, Acera News, AceraBlogPost, from the classroom, Innovation in Education | March 14, 2020 | kerry
Acera’s 10-hour flip turn to remote learning
By Courtney Dickinson At 10 pm Wednesday, March 11, Acera School’s board voted unanimously to move to a remote education model, effective immediately. With humility, I share steps and philosophies we employed for remote learning, hoping that this… Read More
Category: @CourtneyofAcera, Acera News, AceraBlogPost, Innovation in Education | March 13, 2020 | kerry
Our 2019 Annual Report
By Courtney Dickinson We are celebrating the ten year mark of our school! I write this sitting in the middle of our Commons. I hear conversation threads emerging from math classes – discussions about existentialism and universal quantifiers,… Read More
Category: @CourtneyofAcera, Acera News, AceraBlogPost, Blog, from the classroom, Innovation in Education | January 28, 2020 | kerry
Measuring what matters at school
By Courtney Dickinson What indicates a school’s success? Is it simply a standardized test score, like MCAS? It isn’t. The decades-long standardized testing movement has failed to close the equity gap in education, which was its entire intent…. Read More
Category: @CourtneyofAcera, AceraBlogPost, Blog, Innovation in Education | November 12, 2019 | kerry
At Acera, we believe a school’s success can be measured far beyond its standardized test scores. How happy are its students? Do they feel a sense of purpose at school? Are they developing a capacity for perspective taking and problem solving? Are teachers using evidence-based approaches to pedagogy? Acera’s Education Innovation team is working to change how we measure education to include students’ core capacities, faculty’s use of evidence-based practices, a positive school culture, and standards and achievement.
Tech Hub enables students to emerge as community-minded technologists able to solve problems to benefit the whole school. More a philosophy than a place, Tech Hub can start as simply a cart in a cafeteria with one student fired up to be a knowledgable, technically skillful community member. Concurrently developing emotional intelligence skills and a wide array of technological abilities, Tech Hub members model and spread an attitude of fearlessness at using STEM tools to solve real problems.
Small children can understand big ideas, and computer science is no exception. Acera’s hands-on “Computers and Me” curriculum introduces early elementary students to computer science concepts, and is one example of many creative ways computational thinking and technical fluency can be developed throughout K-12 education, starting at age 5. Pilot-tested and ready to translate for adoption by public schools, these computer science learning approaches help students become facile and fearless.
What if math classes are organized based on what each student is ready to learn, rather than by age? This f
How can educators unleash the initiative and creativity inherent in all children? 