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.
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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.
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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
![](img/img-badges.png)
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
![](img/tools/dreambox.jpg)
![](img/tools/khan.jpg)
![](img/tools/duolingo.jpg)
![](img/tools/spellingcity.jpg)
![](img/tools/clicknspell.jpg)
![](img/tools/mango.jpg)
![](img/tools/noredink.jpg)
![](img/tools/lexia.png)
![](img/tools/goodreads.jpg)