We are following a trend of STEM and technology schools that are successfully employing educational technology solutions to boost students GPA's.  We believe that by implementing technology in practical ways, we open our students to unlimited resources.  We have also partnered with Houston Baptist University to provide our students with early college options.  As young as seventh grade, our students can begin attending classes at HBU with a specially designed class format for our young men and women.  Continue reading to find out more about that format.

 

How It Works

 

The Houston Baptist University Academy approach is straightforward, yet challenging. Our students are trained to learn directly from the text at hand, and use class time to engage with their professor and classmates towards increased understanding of the subject. The Academy curriculum is written entirely by Academy faculty and consists of five essential teaching elements:

 

1. Reading: We read a robust selection of great books chronologically, in their entirety, and from a diverse set of cultures and disciplines. This approach is echoed throughout the subjects our students take, from foreign languages to hard sciences.

 

2. Discussion: We devote the entirety of our class time in The Academy to discussing what we’ve read and taking seriously the ideas that we have encountered. It is particularly through discussion that our students become active, contributing members of their classroom, earning their education and opinions. This is opposed to the passive (and prevalent) approach to education wherein students are meant merely to receive information and try their best to remember it.

 

3. Writing: Students prepare a single essay for each course each semester, and turn in weekly reading reflections. Their work must argue for a strong position on a book or topic we’ve read or discussed. Whenever possible, unsatisfactory work is returned to the student as incomplete, and will be reworked or rewritten until the student has accomplished the assignment well.

 

4. Presentation and Defense: Throughout every course, students create presentations, defend papers, conduct experiments, demonstrate proofs, and create and display creative work, in order to show their academic progress within the community.

 

5. Evaluation and Feedback: Written tests are given only in the subjects wherein they’ve proven most efficacious and helpful, such as foreign language and mathematics. Humanities courses culminate in oral examinations with an Academy faculty panel, and all written work is closely evaluated and the student given extensive feedback.

Students at The Academy earn simultaneous college credit, and so, can graduate from our program earning 6 to 30 units of college credit. We hope to expand the upper limit to 60 units in the near future, thus allowing our students to cut down a full two years of university cost.