Accreditation Process - International Education
Accreditation Process - International Education
ACE Learning is a protocol that offers a fundamentally different approach to school accreditation compared to prior accreditation protocols. ACE Learning offers a framework for schools to reflect deeply on their 1) foundational structures and processes, and 2) their effectiveness as a learning community.
ACE Learning entails several phases culminating in the External Review Visit (ERV) by a team of trained peer educators that typically leads to accreditation for candidate schools or re-accreditation for member schools. Schools undergo a re-accreditation process every five years.
- Foundation Standards (report and visit)
- ACE Learning Principles Preparatory Phase (report and visit)
- Internal Reflection (report)
- External Review (report and visit)
While traditional accreditation asks schools to reflect on what they do for students, ACE Learning challenges schools to reflect deeply on the Impacts they have on learners and to what extent these Impacts align with the ACE Learning Principles.
ACE Learning is as much a developmental process as an evaluative one. NEASC meets schools where they are in their process of building greater effectiveness as impactful learning communities for all learners. Having demonstrated compliance with Foundation Standards, schools move on to imagine new ways of supporting deep learning, using the ACE Learning Principles as both guide and provocation. While exploring each of the Learning Principles, schools are asked to indicate where they are on the dynamic ACE Learning transformational continuum as they help shape impactful learning inside and outside the classroom.
A key element in each school’s reflection is how the 4 Cs support or hinder the realization of a learning community’s vision:
- Conceptual Understanding
- Commitment
- Capacity
- Competence
