Our brand of education mitigates several of the issues involved in regular or virtual remote learning. Our system is considered as “Synchronous” education. It is as close as one can get to face to face learning but, it also allows for “Asynchronous” learning, meaning not all students have to be accommodated at the same time. The recordings of our classes are available for later viewing by students who missed the scheduled presentations and for those present to view many times to reinforce their learning. Our presenters are aware that we do not just cover content but deliver the material in a manner that greatly facilitates an enduring understanding of each subject area. This saves the students study time and parents/caregivers money for private tutoring.

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed several more of the shortcomings of our k-12 educational system when most schools were suddenly forced to go remote. Parents working from home had to manage their job, teach and help with homework in subject areas that they either had very little knowledge of, or simply forgot most of what they learned in school as children. To further exacerbate the situation, many families lost income and have difficulty coping. The deficiency in states education systems meant that students “were left behind” or parents/caregivers had to secure additional tutoring, often at commercial rates.

To the Parents

We are a group of teaching professionals dedicated to teaching science and math at a very low cost. Despite this low cost parents, guardians and students may still ask the question, “why pay anything when all the content is on line for free?”. We answer this question by asking another question, “why aren’t most students taking advantage of this then?”. The answer to this question is, “unless the student is a very intelligent and organized person, the student will have challenges in understanding the content without the presence of a teacher or tutor." Private tutoring is expensive and this adds to the cost of a course. The alternative is for the student to spend long hours studying or surfing the web to find content that is understandable. This alternative often causes students to lose hope, procrastinate or fall behind in the course pacing. At SMM Academy, we hold the view that when a course is properly delivered, engaged students should not require frequent extra tutoring because this drives up cost and can deteriorate family life.

Student Focused

We understand why so many students are scared of math and physical science. The reason may not be because they are lazy but because many students are not really prepared to advance to the next class or grade level, despite having certification attesting to their proficiency in the prerequisite subjects. Many of them have significant skill gaps and weak critical thinking skills. From our experience, weak critical thinking skills arises predominantly from the absence of challenging content in their earlier courses, accompanied by assessments that are not reflective of the depth of the course curriculum. As this practice continues through successive grade levels, under-performing and unprepared students are “pushed” through the system creating functional “illiterates” who often find it hard to perform well on high stakes, standardized tests. Students hate failure! At SMM Academy, we focus on students and avoid the other problems that appear endemic in many school systems, resulting in students being unprepared for college and careers.

Our training programs are no “silver-bullets” either, but if the students recognize their deficiencies, are willing to learn and are responsible, we can help.

Interactive

We have identified the areas of physical science curricula that are challenging, and the mathematics and critical thinking skills that are lacking. To this end, our course delivery is designed to ensure that they are addressed before progressing to other topics that rely on proficiency and the understanding of concepts taught in the previous topics. The interactive nature of the process involves:

Online presentations viewed simultaneously through video, audio, and text messaging, offering the students the opportunity to ask questions and receive instant answers from the presenter.
Allowance for the presenter to get an instant “feeling” of how the class is receiving and understanding the content.
Polling which enables the presenter to place multiple choice questions on screen at crucial intervals during the presentation to check for understanding after viewing the responses.
Web conferencing software that collects the responses and makes the statistics available to the presenter.
Recording of the presentations, allowing students to go back to view the entire recording or parts of it, and absent students having to never miss a presentation.

Flexible

No Risk to Student's GPA

In recent times, some public-school students have taken an interest in studying for and taking AP subjects online, despite the availability of these courses in their schools. In particular, they want to take the physical sciences and calculus because they are afraid that any low score obtained when taking them in their district will be placed on their school academic record and this can damage their GPA. A degraded GPA can negatively affect the ability of students to be accepted into their college of choice and/or to receive scholarships and funding for tertiary level studies. Taking the course outside of the school district are “no-risk” because it allows them the flexibility of submitting their online school certificate(s) or AP exams scores for inclusion in their school district’s academic record.

Low Risk of College Credit Transfer Denial

Most major colleges in the United States accept Grades 4 and 5 on AP exams for credit transfer. The College Board AP exams are scored using grades 1,2,3,4 and 5 with 1 being the lowest. The only notable exceptions to this practice in our course offerings are the Pre-AP courses. The pre-ap courses are designed to prepare the students for challenging AP subjects such as chemistry which often transfer up to 8 college credits but would normally require two college semesters. SMM Academy provides tuition for such subjects as two year-long courses. AP Physics and Calculus, fortunately, are split into several different courses from which students can gain college credits.

As a College Board’s approved AP provider, our students’ AP exam scores should be transferred to their school district’s academic records without difficulty if the parents or guardians so desire, providing that the district is registered with the College Board.