Learning Design
What Makes Acton Academy Dripping Springs Different?
Traditional
School
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Rows of desks and a teacher at the blackboard
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Memorization and testing of rules and facts
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Report card measures your success
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One teacher lectures to many students
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Worksheets just like our grandparents used
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School like a factory with bells, shifts, and one-size-fits-all
Acton Academy Dripping Springs
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Work collaboratively like at Google or Facebook
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Learn real skills and apply them in projects
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Set personalized goals then transparently track progress
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Everyone's a teacher; everyone's a student
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Professional tools for art, engineering, and storytelling; Cutting-edge adaptive tech for Core Skills
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School like a journey, with big goals, mentors, tools, and a destination you care about
21st Century Learning
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The latest in educational technology for self paced mastery of reading, writing and math skills.
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Deep Socratic discussions about heroes, history and self governance to hone critical thinking skills and the ability to powerfully think, write and speak.
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Hands-on project based Quests to master the tools and skills needed to solve problems in the real world.
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Written promises and covenants that form a tightly bound community of individuals learning to form authentic friendships and honestly resolve interpersonal problems.
We believe that clear thinking leads to good decisions, good decisions lead to the right habits, the right habits lead to character and character becomes destiny.
A Learner-driven Community
- Students create and sign a Contract of Promises describing how each individual will act and the consequences for violating community norms.
- Mentor teams encourage younger and older students to listen, affirm, set goals and hold each other accountable.
- "Learn to Be" badges that celebrate character and completing leadership challenges.
Measuring Mastery
Young people celebrate the mastery of tools, skills and character by earning badges, assembling portfolios and taking part in public exhibitions.
- Parents use badges to track academic progress in Core Skills like reading, writing, math and spelling and character development in “Learn to Be” Badges.
- Electronic and hard copy Portfolios capture rough drafts, photos, video and other creative work.
- Public exhibitions at the end of most Quests allow young people to present work to experts, customers or the public for a real world test.
Personalized Tools
