Scenes from Acera School’s Museum Walk
Creativity was on display at Acera’s annual December Museum Walk! Students displayed the computer games, living wall, robotics, bioplastic sculptures, woodshop constructions, artistic mobiles and comedy skills developed during Creativity Mornings this fall. Well done, students – we’re… Read More
Category: Acera News, AceraBlogPost, from the classroom, Students at work | December 19, 2019 | kerry
Acera’s all-school day of service
On Thursday, Dec. 5, faculty and staff came together with students in the spirit of the holidays to give back to our local community. The day of service aligns with Acera’s year-long theme of Human Needs. Throughout the… Read More
Category: Acera News, Blog, from the classroom, Students at work | December 9, 2019 | kerry
Middle school students bring a modular classroom to life
“It’s really cool to see this built…and real!” The excitement and pride was palpable as students, teachers, and parents gathered on a sunny morning in June. Behind them, brightly colored ribbons – awaiting the ceremonial cutting – surrounded… Read More
Category: AceraBlogPost, from the classroom, Gallery, Innovation in Education, Students at work | September 23, 2019 | kerry
Survivor: The Goldfish Edition
Math comes alive for Acera Students in Mr. Michael’s life sciences lab, where students play a math game to understand sustainability in ecosystems.
Category: AceraBlogPost, Blog, from the classroom, Student Voices, Students at work | December 6, 2018 | kerry
Acera students get a glimpse of Antarctica
Anna Ruth Halberstadt, a geoscience Ph.D. candidate from UMass Amherst, recently visited Winchester’s Acera School to share her research in sea level rise and sedimentology, and discuss her upcoming expedition to Antarctica. Halberstadt led the elementary school students… Read More
Category: Acera News, AceraBlogPost, Blog, Students at work | November 28, 2018 | kerry
How to Make A Prosthetic Leg
Students in Ms. Kim’s class have been working on an engineering design challenge this spring related to their theme for the year, “What Makes us Human?” In teams, they designed prosthetic legs. See their creations, and reflections on… Read More
Category: Blog, from the classroom, Students at work | May 15, 2017 | Acera
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? 