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Please visit LearnScience.Academy, which is the Conceptual Academy support site for home schools. Just about all your questions can be answered by visiting LearnScience.Academy. Thank you for visiting LearnScience.Academy. :-)
About Conceptual Academy
Conceptual Academy is a website created and maintained by the authors of the “conceptual” line of textbooks, including Conceptual Physics, Conceptual Chemistry, Conceptual Physical Science, and Conceptual Integrated Science, both college and high school editions. This site hosts hundreds of the author’s video lessons, which are organized by the table of contents of each of their written textbooks. The site can be considered a “live" textbook. Thus, students have a choice when directed to read a particular section within a chapter. They can read that section or they can come to Conceptual Academy to watch the video lessons associated with that section. Ideally, the student does both with an emphasis on one or the other depending upon their needs and learning styles.
This site has been launched in its early stages so that it can grow based upon the feedback of instructors and students. Notably, the video lessons are free to everyone. However, with a $15 registration fee, students are provided access to additional resources, such as chapter summaries, practice exams (where available). This financial support is greatly needed for the further development of this website.
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About Our Textbooks
Our conceptual textbooks are used primarily for college courses designed to meet the needs of students majoring in a field other than science. The main focus of this curriculum is to help the student build a strong foundation in the basic concepts of science, which are presented in the context of our daily lives. Because of this orientation, our books have become popular among high schools, which led us to create dedicated high school editions. If your home school student is motivated and in grade 10 or higher, we recommend you first look at our college edition textbooks. From middle school to grade 9, we suggest you first look at our high school editions, which each have the word “Explorations” in its title. Published by Pearson Education, our textbooks are market leaders in their respective areas and are also used around the world having been translated into many languages, including Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese and more.
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A Complete Curriculum
There are four main components needed to make for a complete curriculum within any science course. First, students need a means by which they are introduced to the concepts of science. This need is keenly met by our textbooks as well as by our video lessons available through this website. Each of these resources complements the other. For example, where the videos are weak, the textbook will be strong, and vice versa. So please provide your student with access to both!
The second main component to a complete curriculum is providing the student with the opportunity to really learn the material presented. Students are not themselves recording machines. You can’t simply deliver content to a student and expect immediate understanding. Rather, the student constructs his or her own understandings. Often this is done from scratch, or worse, from entrenched misconceptions. Guiding students through this learning process is the second stage, often called “content facilitation.” This is what instructors do so well. It’s the guidance, perspective, and patience you provide along the way that makes all the difference.
The third main component to a complete curriculum in science is the opportunity to perform hands-on science activities. Hands-on lab activities are not only fun, they are essential to learning science. Thus, each of our textbooks features many intriguing hands-on science activities, which are easy to perform, and doable using household materials and equipment.
Lastly, students attend school not just to learn specific subjects but for personal growth as well. This growth includes improvements in their analytical and verbal reasoning skills, along with a boost in self-confidence from having successfully met well-placed challenges. The value of a Conceptual Academy course, therefore, rests not only on its ability to help students learn science, but also on its ability to help students learn about themselves. We authors are very passionate about teaching. This passion arises from knowing that we are not really teaching science. Rather, we are teaching students. And in doing so we are part of a network of adults helping young people to become better thinkers and helping them to reach their personal goals of self-discovery.
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