Executive Director – American Academy of Strategic Education

In recent times, there has been a paradigm shift with regard to how education is viewed. No longer are classrooms in brick-and-mortar buildings with desks in rows. Educating children is fluid and has changed drastically in less than a year for students and teachers. There are those who have been able to thrive with this drastic change. Families who have been homeschooling their children have had little disturbance in their child’s education. The flexible model of homeschooling provides children wonderful opportunities for them to learn and meet state standards in an environment that promotes higher-level thinking.

Educational standards for core subjects such as Math, English Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies are determined by each state. In addition, there are some states which have adopted national standards for Math and English. The reason for many states adopting these standards is to help unify learning outcomes for students across the country. 

The state’s educational board assures that these learning standards are concise, with written descriptions of what students are expected to know at their specific stage of education. There is a learning progression that is purposeful for learning across multiple developmental areas, stages, age, and grade-levels. The basic idea is to ensure that students are learning age-appropriate material and that educators are sequencing materials as they teach their students.

Highly proficient schools use curriculum mapping to help their teachers deliver instruction. Teachers work collaboratively on unit plans, lessons, cross curricular activities, and real world applications to help students meet the standards. Teachers incorporate as many modalities of learning such as sight, sound, feel, taste, and smell into their lessons to help students with different learning styles and help with retention of content.

Homeschooling and flexible schooling are adaptive educational options that give parents a greater role in the educational direction of their child. Children’s educational progress is tracked by parents or in the case of students who attend a learning center such as American Academy, student’s learning is tracked by the student’s teachers just like in a traditional school setting. American Academy of Strategic Education understands the importance of meeting the standards to help students become successful. Our project-based classes and personalized curriculum options assures our students not only fulfill state requirements but in most cases, surpass these requirements. 

American Academy teachers and administrators develop relevant and real-world units that promote student learning and intense student engagement. The academy’s project-based units reinforce the importance of curiosity and imagination, initiative, adaptability, critical thinking and problem solving, oral and written communication, collaboration, and assessing and analyzing information. These key indicators help the academy’s programs be successful in meeting each student at their learning level and deliver the standards for learning.

If families are new to homeschooling or flexible schooling, rest assured, there are plenty of opportunities to collect measurable achievements for children that are aligned to the standards. American Academy works closely with parents to provide meaningful feedback for students. We outline each educational unit ensuring they are aligned to the State Standards. In addition, having low student-to-teacher ratios help teachers assess students’ learning effectively. Furthermore, the academy’s flexible-tailored programs help students at their learning level which assists in bridging learning gaps created in previous academic years. Standards are surpassed at the academy through independent study where students are able to work at their pace of learning and higher-order thinking through discussion-based project-based lessons.

American Academy of Strategic Education takes great pride in helping students achieve measurable goals, supporting teachers with instruction, and using project-based lessons to showcase student achievement – all of which are aligned to the standards for each student at their learning level. Furthermore, the academy exceeded standards by helping provide consistency for student outcomes to give students the necessary tools for the twenty-first century workforce.