Welcome to Conceptual Science
The Conceptual Academy Instructor Support Site
Instructor support site for
ConceptualAcademy.com and your Conceptual Textbook
Click on a title to navigate to its “table of videos”
The Conceptual Academy Team of Authors
Dear Instructor: Conceptual Academy hosts a comprehensive library of videos collated to the very same content of your printed textbook. Students embrace video, especially in that video provides the context they need to understand the densely written paragraphs of the printed textbook.
As synergistic companions, Conceptual Academy and the printed textbook provide the ultimate support for instructors looking to develop interactive classroom experiences. Traditional approaches to teaching are also greatly supported. Your lectures have more impact and students are quicker to think of questions when they come to class having already studied. Having already studied? How can that be? Conceptual Academy’s point system provides students credit for studying the videos AND the paragraphs in a timely manner.
Importantly, our videos and many other student resources, such as worksheets, are collated to each instructor’s class schedule. Conceptual Academy also features an innovative “encouragement-based” homework system that students appreciate and enjoy, especially when employed as the centerpiece of a study group.
We built ConceptualScience.com as a guide for instructors interested in learning more about Conceptual Academy. We also post many valuable teaching resources here at this support site. Thank you for sharing these resources with other faculty. For any questions, write to Support@ConceptualAcademy.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
From our FAQ page. . .
How do I sign up? Review and select one of our course templates. This template will be uploaded to your instructor’s account where you’ll then be able to modify the course to your specific needs within the Conceptual Academy platform. But first we need to set up your instructors account. For this, send us your anticipated class schedule showing the chapter sections you aim to cover on what dates. The calendar dates of your major exams are also helpful. With this information we can give you a head start on having your course already customized to your needs. We would then look forward to working with you closely so that your course runs smoothly with awesome results. Please consider setting up a phone date with us so that we can personally walk you through the resources and answer your questions in real time. You can also write to us at: Support@ConceptualAcademy.com.
Select a Course Template. . .
Conceptual Academy offers expert support for science instructors using any of our popular “conceptual” line of science textbooks, such as Conceptual Physics or Conceptual Chemistry. Conceptual Academy can also be customized to other textbooks or to courses where reading assignments are provided through alternate means. Through Conceptual Academy, you and your students have access to our author-created library of 600+ engaging video lessons, study advice from the authors, plus worksheets, chapter summaries, interactive PhET simulations, hands-on lab activities, automated quizzes, a grade book, our new “Homework Practice Sessions” (HPS), as well as practice exams all organized around your class schedule from one semester to the next.
Learn More. . .
Conceptual Academy can be described as a platform for your video-textbook. A video-textbook? That’s right, a v-textbook, which is where the primary mode of content delivery is video, not paragraphs. You’ll find our numerous video lessons have the same depth and content as our paragraphs. They are just as comprehensive but can be customized to your class schedule from one semester to the next.
It should come as no surprise that students generally prefer the video format over textbook paragraphs. Importantly, the video provides a context that helps the student to understand the dense paragraphs. So the v-textbook and the printed textbook complement each other quite well helping to reach a very broad range of learning styles. The v-textbook is the perfect resource for instructors looking to incorporate active learning in the classroom or for instructors looking for online material complementing their own lectures. Conceptual Academy also comes in very handy for sick days and bad-weather days, allowing you and all students to remain on schedule.
Conceptual Academy places a student’s reading and video assignments front and center, which we see as the first step to effective learning. As a semester project, students earn points for staying on task with these resources. Never are students penalized with point deductions. Students appreciate this simple, focused, and encouragement-based approach. Instructors appreciate that they need only upload Conceptual Academy scores once per term. Scores can also be tracked per unit, which allows for closer monitoring of student engagement.
Briefly, it works like this:
• Select any one of our template courses described here at ConceptualScience.com.
This template will be the starting point in creating your customized course. We’re here to help you on this.
Your customized course can be tweaked on the fly and easily cloned for subsequent years.
• Send us your request for an instructor’s account
Please include some details about your course, such as seated/online.
Also include your projected schedule of classes with approximate dates of major exams.
Within a week, your customized course will be published and ready for your review.
• Select a payment model to support the maintenance and further development of Conceptual Academy
Site license—students have free access for a site license paid for by your institution. Day-One-Access!
Student license—each student pays a single fee for access to your customized course.
License fees are negotiable. Grants for individual students in financial need are also available.
Conceptual Academy is ADA compliant and particularly useful for students with reading disabilities. If you like the quality of our conceptual textbooks, you will love the quality of our videos, which are short, engaging, and to the point. Please visit our video gallery to watch select samples. We now also producing the podcast versions of each of our textbooks. We look forward to hearing from you soon!
– The Conceptual Team
Conceptual Academy is a complete learning platform featuring a comprehensive video library and an encouragement-based homework system created by the authors of the “conceptual” line of science textbooks, such as Conceptual Physics and Conceptual Chemistry. Conceptual Academy works in the background throughout the semester allowing you, the instructor, to focus on the most rewarding aspect of teaching, which is being there to help your students learn.
NGSS
Speed of Light
Here is one of our astronomy video lessons. For more see our gallery. Enjoy!
We are proud to be affiliated with GradeStrides, a company of science instructors who develop activity-based science curricula using readily available materials. You’ll find their programs dovetail well with conceptual science. Looking for a “flipped lab” resource? Thank you for considering GradeStrides.
