Announcement: Dear Conceptual Academy users. We have a beta version of “Ask the Author” (ATA) in physics now ready for review. Thank you for navigating to the following the link below and exploring this new functionality. The actual physics ATA knows is as good as our textbooks. At this point, however, ATA is still undergoing training for its personality. That is, how it interacts with the user. We want it to be conversational as well as polite. Any feedback you might have on its mannerisms as well as your general suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We hope to have ATA embedding into our programs before the end of this year. 🙂 As always, we can be reached at: Support@ConceptualAcademy.com.
Ask the Author (physics only)
https://conceptualacademy.com/ata
Thank you!
– The Conceptual Team
John’s Blog. (summer 2024) Why not post it here on the home page? 🙂
Our apologies for not updating this home school support site for some time. We have been overwhelmed with many adventures and responsibilities. Most notably, our programs are now fully certified by the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) for use in public high schools. It was quite the task to get there. In the end, we were one of only six publishers who made it through the arduous and comprehensive state board review process. This included the multi-billion dollar publishers McGraw-Hill, Savvas, Stemscopes, HMH, Cengage, and little ‘ol us, Conceptual Academy! Wow!! Our great thanks to the many homeschoolers who over the years have 1) supported us, and 2) provided the valuable feedback to help bring our programs to a world-class level. Truly.
Suffice to say, over the past year we have been on the road (literally) throughout the great state of Texas visiting with just about every school district, science teacher, and administrator. It has been quite the honor. Of course, the big pubs are very well entrenched and with deep-pockets making it quite the challenge for us “new kids on the block”. That said, we did much better than we expected. . . which means we’re back on the road in Texas providing training sessions for all the districts who adopted us. Watch what you wish for. 🙂
To say we learned a lot is quite the understatement. The folks we met in our many travels were stellar wonderful. How very encouraging it was to meet the many dedicated and talented admin and teachers. But while the people were by-and-large great, the system they work under is crazy. Absolutely crazy. (Perhaps homeschoolers know a thing or two about this). I’ve MUCH to report on our real-world experiences in all things K12 in an upcoming blog entry.
On another front, I’m proud to announce “Ask the Author” (ATA), which we anticipate being released in beta form this coming October. At that time, this stunning new feature will automatically appear within each Conceptual Academy program, beginning with Physics. Much more than your typical ChatBot, ATA is trained only on our conceptual content, which means it is not pulling from the tainted and at times inaccurate and biased internet. Rather, it pulls information only from us, so you can be sure of its accuracy and style. But that’s not the amazing part. The amazing part is that ATA is also trained in our pedagogy, which includes the Socratic method. If you ask for information, there’s a good chance it will ask you why and then provide that information in only little bits. Typically it’s the human that prompts the AI for information. We have flipped this model. We are training ATA to prompt the human for understanding. The ATA model is one whereby the author is by each student’s side and is constantly available for not just information but also for conversation. Soon it will literally be our actual author voices. How trippy is that?? Imagine your student working on a problem and getting lost. Imagine the author always available as a virtual study-buddy. We know that the best way to learn is to try to teach (get your mouth moving!). Similarly, the best way to teach is to listen (a good teacher knows when to shut up and just listen). Thus, we are training ATA to be a listener. . . so that your student can practice explaining that which they think they understand. That’s good chemistry AND pedagogy. We are most excited.Again, our apologies for the radio silence. I don’t think I’ve updated this site in over a year! But the good news is that we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make our programs the best they can be, which we know to be a life-long endeavor.
If you’re new to Conceptual Academy, thank you for taking the time to look through this website, which you should know is just a support site (yes, ATA will soon also be available for you here for conversing). But you should know that our actual programs are hosted on our learning platform at ConceptualAcademy.com.
While I have your attention: Some FAQs. Our programs run continuously, which means you can start and end whenever works best for your situation. Need to take two years for a one year program. Go for it! Want to start in January? Go for it. We only ask for a one-time enrollment fee for each student. Running a coop of 4 or more students taking the same program? Ask about our setting up an “instructor-led” program for you and your coop. Let me also underscore, as always, we provide a full refund if a program is not a good fit for your student as determine by you. To trial a program in action, consider our free sample chemistry course. We trust you’ll find our programs to be rich, exciting, and meaningful. And today we have the approval of the super critical Texas SBOE to our credentials. Yes! our programs will qualify you for high school credit, and actually then some.
Good chemistry,
John Suchocki
Founder, CEO
16 July 2024
This Conceptual Academy Home School Support Site is designed to answer your most pressing questions. You’ll find much to explore. But to answer the majority of all your questions, thank you for looking at our Price List developed in 2021 and still good through 2024-25!
THEN, we recommend you review our “Pathways” documents describing how Conceptual Academy can meet your science program needs for middle school through high school.
Welcome to LearnScience.Academy!
Guided and Real Science Courses for Homeschools
We are so glad you are here. This is the support site for homeschools looking to take our guided, video rich self-study science courses hosted on the Conceptual Academy platform. We currently have 15 highly polished and comprehensive courses up and running with more in the works. We are here as your turn-key solution for all your high school science needs. Sign up is easy as 1-2-3.
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- Select a course from our Course Descriptions (We serve grades 7 – 12)
- Enter the course’s “Course ID” into the registration page of ConceptualAcademy.com
- Consider purchasing the accompanying textbook (see course descriptions)
The centerpiece of Conceptual Academy: our videos, which we’ve been producing for many years. We recommend you visit the “Videos” tab in the main menu. This will lead you to our YouTube channel where we post select samples for the general public.
Scroll down to learn more about who we are and to learn more about our comprehensive curricula. Briefly, we are a company of energetic and seasoned college science professors, who are also the authors of the highly-regarded and popular “conceptual” line of science textbooks. Our first conceptual title rocked the physics education world in 1972 and remains the number one liberal arts physics textbook, now in its 12th edition. Our other conceptual titles have followed suit. Conceptual Academy is our next-generation platform where it all comes together for the modern-age student.
For all inquiries, you can write to us at Support@ConceptualAcademy.com.
LearnScience.Academy is a guide to the rich resources available for the homeschooling community at Conceptual Academy, which offers guided full credit courses based upon the “conceptual” line of science textbooks and the authors’ library of 900+ engaging video lessons. Each Conceptual Academy course also provides study advice from the authors, worksheets, chapter summaries, automated quizzes, our automated “encouragement-based” homework system, a grade book, unit exams, and lab manuals that focus on meaningful activities accomplished with materials readily available in your home or a local discount store. The works! Our focus is on quality and on engaging the student with the wonders of the natural universe. Thank you for taking the time to review our materials. Mostly: Welcome to the Conceptual Academy community! We look forward to working with you.
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In Summary. . .
Thank you for visiting LearnScience.Academy. If you would love to have a well-versed instructor provide your student with solid instruction so you can concentrate on the playful aspects of teaching, such as activities, experiments, and field trips, then you have come to the right place.
Each Conceptual Academy course is designed around one of our market-leading textbooks and includes a library of our video lessons that you will find to be immediately accessible to your student in an engaging way. The best way to understand how an actual course works is to take a look at our free sample course page.
But please keep this in mind, the joy your student finds will not be not from us. Rather the joy arises naturally from learning science for what it is: a window of understanding into this natural universe in which we are all so blessed to be alive. We authors are just your experienced tour guides.
In a hurry? Click here for the quickest overview of Conceptual Academy and the quickest way to reach out to us. Ready for more detail? You’re exactly where you need to be. Scroll downward for more information.
Looking for automated planners? Explore our Homeschool Planet planner page.
Mirrors
Here is one of our more recent video lessons. It nicely demonstrates the value of the video format in helping us to understand and appreciate the wonders of our natural universe.
Sign up for our cool “mini-experiments” newsletter. These aren’t just random activities. Rather, they are sure to be a source of lively dinner conversations and a great way to learn about the quality of our educational content.
Click on the above flow chart to review the resources available within each of our courses.
You Made It!
Way down here to the bottom of the page. This suggests that, like us, you too are rather detail oriented. That means you probably want to go straight to the teacher’s manual to find things such as the course planner. We have such a manual for each course, which you will find embedded within the first lesson for you to download. These manuals are also available here at LearnScience.Academy within each course description. But here you are at the bottom of the ocean, waiting patiently. So, as a sample, here is a link to the teacher’s manual for: Conceptual Chemistry, the Full Version (grades 9+). You’ll find it representative of all our other manuals. It will give you a strong idea of our teaching philosophies and how, exactly, you might implement a Conceptual Academy course with your student. Scroll to the end of this manual to find the full length log sheet planner.
CC Full Version, Teacher’s Manual