Gathering en masse in Room 2, electricity in the air, all grade 6-9 students heard about T1 course offerings Wednesday morning! These are real-time notes I took during the one hour “pitch” presentations (3 minutes per course). Ask your child what they felt excited to learn more about!
I am sitting next to a student who said, “I want to take this one, and this one, and this one, and this one. This is hard to decide because there are so many I want to take!” (Excellent, right? All of us adults wish we, ourselves, could take all of these courses. We are designing the learning experience that we, ourselves, wish we had!)
How Do Course Offerings (aka “Electives”) Work?
Course options shift each trimester over the course of the year. Each course is offered two times per week, some in the mornings and some in the afternoons. At the start of each school year, teachers sketch what they will offer over the course of the whole year, but with some openness so that new electives can be formed or evolved based upon students’ interests, needs, and world events, every year.
Year to year, some courses are re-offered annually, some courses come back into rotation every second or third year, and sometimes one-offs occur to fit with specific student or teacher interests and world events, offering a cross section of predictable development of deep conceptual and critical thinking, strong analysis and writing skills, and always expanding students’ creativity and collaboration and emotional intelligence skills at the same time.
Students are expected to, over the year, take at least 3 STEAM courses (physics, astronomy, engineering, economics, biology as examples). Jamie, Acera’s upper school coordinator (who also is a math and social sciences/ humanities elective teacher) takes students’ preferences – along with a teacher check-in process and cross check re: the whole set of courses a given student has taken over the years in upper school – to determine the best placement for all upper school students each trimester. We balance students’ interests along with assuring both breadth and depth. Adult judgment amid the placement process is a critical step to assure we address students’ needs, while concurrently knowing that the best way to assure authentic engagement, motivation, and learning is through honoring student choice.
After pitches, students fill out forms prioritizing their preferences. Students are asked to fill out the forms quietly, based upon their own interests not on who else would be interested and in taking the class too. We strive to, and usually achieve the goal that kids get the top one or two preferences.
Two of the electives below are designed to intentionally support students new to Acera Middle School to develop scientific and engineering skills needed which will enable their ability to engage in the HS level sciences courses we offer thereafter.
There is not a “requirement” for the number of social sciences and humanities courses students select because their core classroom themes and assignments emphasize the humanities, social sciences and writing skill development, so the priority for these “elective” course offerings is to assure robust, deep STEM education to balance a whole educational journey over students’ years at Acera. We do, however, encourage all students to, at some point in grades 6-9, take 3 social sciences courses which include topics of government, a class which includes civil rights, and geopolitics or geography type of course.
Morning Electives:
The Psychology of Polarization (psychology, sociology, philosophy) led by Jamie
When someone holds a belief we make assumptions about their character. Why do we attach certain identities to certain belief systems? This course will delve into the philosophy of belief, psychology around dichotomous thinking, and the sociology behind why we police each other’s belief systems. We will also look at social media and social media algorithms. How our brains are wired for dichotomous thinking. Fun fact – tik tok introduced a feature that induced users to get more angry at their feed…
The US Government Elective led by Bob
This is the one time this elective will be taught this year. This is one of the three humanities electives we encourage all MS students to take during MS. This is an interesting time to take this given that it crosses into the election. This course will allow you to understand how the constitution, government, and electoral college system works. We do not tend to get into discussing specific political views, but you will have a grounding in fact to back up those details if/ when you are discussing your views after that. We will follow the election as it is going on. People have very strong opinions as it goes. There may be some people who are upset; thinking about strategies for how you gear yourself up emotionally, how will you handle that, and if different people feel differently about it after the fact, how to handle that responsibly. We will mainly stay with the facts of how things work.
Social Impact of Artificial Intelligence led by Danny
This course will delve into how advances in the wide world have already and can impact us already and are in the broader community. This is not the same elective as offered a year ago because things have moved along since then. In medicine, arts, justice… The domains are changing in response to rapidly evolving technology. We will take a look at how tools work, but also how people are being affected across your town, state, and the world. What is deep learning for cars and robots? How do technologies work? Who is controlling them? What are some of the benefits and risks? Some of the risks have been made popular and some are already hidden. What are problems being made manifest? What are things we, in our class, can do? There will be in class research and discussions, there will be weekly HW assignments, and a lot of collaborative project work.
Physics – T1 Kinematics and Dynamics by Alexis
These topics are important because they are our entryway into a deeper understanding of emotion. It is about why objects move and why systems change and evolve. This trimester, we will go deeper into these topics than I have in the past. We will start by talking about metrics and scale. – in the cosmos? In things that are really small? What are the reasons and processes of the theory we are creating? If I said, for instance, John will eat lunch today.. How can I test that? What mathematical relationship or law can I come up with .. under what conditions does he have lunch When we have theories for how the world around us works, if you want to understand the universe and how we interact it and if you want to understand the process of how to be a scientist please join me this trimester if physics. The math requirement is that you have already taken Algebra 1. (It is a prerequisite for T2 physics class. It will not be a req for T3 physics which I am not going to talk about yet.)
Astronomy – The Night Sky by Alison
(over the year, for those who take all three trimesters, this will be a full Astronomy course.
I have been teaching astronomy at the HS and college level for over a decade. The goal is that we will teach astronomy all 3 trimesters this year, that will be the equivalent of a HS astronomy course. You do not have to take all three; you can mix and match. It is equal parts science and humanities class. What is my place in the universe? The motion of the stars, planets, moon and sun and the study of that is something all cultures have in common. How can you use the sky to figure out time, crop planting, … we are going to study and make all kinds of real functioning observing tools to be able to tell time better and be able to navigate… All cultures over time look at and use the sky, the stars shift … lots of reading, note taking, group discussions.
Design Build Studio: Movable Playground Structures by Josh
There was a playground design project a few years ago, and an architect had sketched some of things we could add to the playground. The idea was to build things that the school would actually build and use. We would function like a design build firm. I used to work as an engineer, and the visioning process is a flow of ideas. We will be presenting to some of the administrators some of these ideas. The whole world is our oyster here – we will pull from all manner of sources for our project ideas. We will make models, make changes, and hopefully turn this into construction and bring in students to test out our pilot versions of these projects. I will act like a senior design person in a firm; I have worked on a lot of teams with 15 years engineering experience in grad school and work.
Afternoon Electives:
Woodworking Open Studio by Josh
This is a class for all experience and skill levels. You will propose projects. Your experience level will determine how much support I give you. With a max of 8 people in the class we can do some really interesting things. You can do involved projects, learning more skills… say you want to build a lap desk? Probably the biggest project would be a chair; a desk would be too big. A bookshelf would be fine. We are going to source from – we have the entire world of ideas and you have your own mind, vision and judgment (as well as mind) to guide you. I will always use the right to say “That project is too much for you – aka that is $1000 of exotic wood…” (Walnut?) Show me something that shows you can honor a beautiful piece of wood. (Epoxy?) Yes, show me your ideas. This qualifies as a “STEAM” course.
Introduction to Engineering by Alison
This course comes from the same idea as the Intro to Science class last year. If you have taken an engineering class with me previously, this is not for you. This is meant for younger middle school students who want to lay a foundation of engineering design thinking. You are going to need to be quick on your feet, fighting functional fixedness, you are going to be doing interactive design. This is based upon an engineering design course I taught in the past for many years in Texas. This is an introductory experience with a lot of tools we have in the shop – laser cutters printers… being able to think on your feet, collaborate with other people, and make cool things happen. Getting people up and running in an engineering mindset.
(There are two other trimesters happening for those who have already taken engineering with me in the past.)
You Quantified by Alexis
This is a data focused elective. We will look at biometric data, including cardiac, brain waves, heart rate and respiration, effects of mindfulness and meditation, and the social side of it like data collection and how that affects things like social synchrony. Data is collected about you is collected across so many apps and systems, and the way it is shared with you is data visualization is trying to tell a story. Data is not neutral. How can we use data to tell a story? How do other entities use data to tell the story they want to tell? Arduino respiration devices, EEG headsets, facial recognition software. You will use this to make different visualizations about yourself. At the end, you do a project in which you pose a question, and then you use data to tell a story. We want you to be as creative as possible – including artists – how people can use data in a creative way. (Alexis’ T2 and T3 electives will be biology and lab sciences based.)
Scientific Inquiry by Danny
This is a foundational kind of course inspired by the course that George and Tory taught last year. Science is real! We will look into reality around us and how we can figure things out. This course will focus on the question of what it means to practice science. Measurement tools; cylinders, higher tech equipment. How to record things in paper notebooks… they might be shorter and longer term observations of things to assess – for example – the measurement of plant growth. We will extend core capacities like critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration. You will design your own experience, you will conduct your own experiment using all the various tools. This will be a lab based, mostly indoors course. We will use multimedia sources to gain background knowledge. There will be background experiences, group discussions. You might be able to discover something new. This is geared more towards students who have not taken upper school sciences courses before.
Visual Creation and everything with visual media by Linwood
In my prior electives, we have used electives explored using visuals to tell a story. In this elective, we will explore concepts of video editing, animation, abstract and prompted storytelling in Adobe creative suite. Students will create music videos, commercials , generate characters, AI inspired scenes and originally produced films. These various forms of sourcing media will teach students to maximize their digital creation skills. We will explore using images and music to make a project using digital. Linwood shared examples of ideas that students created in past electives. Video editing, storytelling using Adobe.
Cold War by Renee
This course explores prolonged conflict between the US, Soviet Union, and the greater spheres of influences that were entangled together. In graduate school, I participated in some ethnographic projects in Siberia, and because they were amazed at times that we were able to find a shared language … one of these encounters was with an elderly woman in Siberia, with a woman who had been forced to engage in a certain type of labor. She had the perspective that Stalin was misunderstood. She had that perception because she was sent on a vacation in her middle years to an ocean which was beautiful. Political circumstances of U.S. and Soviet Union, various conflicts, looking at primary sources and documents and at the competing visions of life shared by these different types of documents. What were the ways these two superpowers intended to control public perception? We will look at the space race, proxy war, vietnam, korean ward, involvement of arms in southeastern asia and colonial africa. We will untangle primary documents. There will be a culminating project in which you select a primary source or document to examine.
Creative Writing by Vered
Elective on historical fiction. We will be considering questions around world building and why we place stories within a given time period. Sometimes a story helps you understand a period’s history. Sometimes it helps you understand the story better. We will study a couple of specific periods of history and we will write our own short fiction within those time periods and then we will do a final project within a historic period of your choice. Depending upon how the course goes, it will evolve. You will read a number of short stories, and ask ourselves how the narrative is altered by its setting. By the end of the class, you will have chosen a time period to research for yourself, and set a story within that period, building on our understanding of what makes great fiction as well as how to allow the setting to do some of the work for us. This is a humanities elective and will have a fair amount of reading and writing.
Technical Drawing Class: How to draw using perspective by Camila
There is a lot of software which can make this for you, but having the skills to sketch something is still important. The class goes very quickly; it is hard at first, but then half way through it becomes quite fun. There are some projects that can only be done by hand. The students who have already taken this elective cannot take it again. In this art elective, you will acquire and hone technical drawing skills necessary to produce two-dimensional illustrations of three-dimensional objects and structures, also known as pictorial sketches.There will be many drawing exercises, visual and spatial reasoning exercises, as well as some 3D paper prototyping. Though not really a “drawing for engineering and architecture” class, this elective will certainly give you tools to more accurately and expressively communicate your ideas on paper. This is not computers, no software, it is all by hand.
New to Acera? Not sure who all of these staff members are? Check out our staff page on our website: https://www.aceraschool.org/people/
~ Courtney
