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
Jane Moulding joins Acera’s Board of Directors
Acera: The Massachusetts School of Science, Creativity, and Leadership, is proud to announce that Jane Moulding has joined its Board of Directors. Moulding is a principal at SmarterWisdom Consulting, and served as Head of School at The Cambridge… Read More
Category: Acera News, Blog, Innovation in Education | March 9, 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
Join us for Acera’s 2nd Annual Trivia Night!
Join us on Thursday, February 6, 2020 from 6:30-9:30 pm for Acera’s 2nd Annual Trivia Night to benefit the Reed Hollett Enrichment Scholarship Fund! Acera’s 2nd Annual Trivia Night for adults only (pizza, beer and wine will be… Read More
Category: Acera News, AceraBlogPost, Blog | January 21, 2020 | kerry
Registration for Acera’s 2020 Summer Camp is open!
Unleash your curiosity…follow your passion…invent your future. Summer 2020 camps are here! Acera is offering more than 75 half day and full day camps for kids, including: Fun and engaging classes for 4-7 year olds, like Carnival Design,… Read More
Category: Acera News, Blog, Student Voices | January 10, 2020 | kerry
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
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? 