Catalyzing Education Innovation
AceraEI is the outreach division of Acera: The Massachusetts School of Science, Creativity and Leadership.
We believe that early and deep exposure to STEM topics is essential for students to be ready to tackle the challenges of our time, that students’ growth in core capacities like systems thinking, problem solving, and creativity is as important as academic achievement, and that it is the responsibility of schools to safeguard each student’s spirit, curiosity and innate love of learning, enabling them to be the best version of themselves.
We are proving that this works at our own K-9 STEAM school. We have invented, pilot tested, and put into use new curricula, pedagogy, and school norming approaches over the last 10 years.
Now, we are collaborating with public school districts to customize how our “Tools to Transform Schools” can best fit into their unique school settings to catalyze change.
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? 