Academics
A KUA Education
Find the Joy in Learning
Kimball Union provides a college-preparatory education that honors the individual student as an essential part of the greater community. We invest in each student’s future by understanding who they are. We ask students to learn about themselves. Then as partners, we figure out who they will become – as students and as human beings – as they prepare for college and beyond.
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World History
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Design Thinking
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Acting I
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Timber Framing
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AP Environmental Science
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Studio Art
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Precalculus Honors
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Conceptual Physics
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Makerspace
KUA Design: Our Approach to Learning
KUA Design is our approach to learning at Kimball Union. Your unique experiences, interests, and abilities influence the way you learn and engage inside and outside the classroom, and tell us how best to support and inspire you. That’s why, from the day you arrive at KUA, it’s our mission to learn about you.
On the foundation of positive relationships, we leverage the science of how the brain works and learns to create intentionally designed experiences and challenges so that all students feel motivated, engaged, and supported. The approach guides every aspect of student life—how they find academic success, navigate social experiences, and work as a team on the playing fields.
By implementing research-informed teaching and learning strategies into the curriculum and faculty professional development, KUA can best deliver an experience that will support students in their educational, social, and emotional lives.
Today it is understood that the teenage brain is developing, adaptable, experience-dependent, and social in nature; as such our teaching, coaching, and learning strategies are informed by four key principles that the teenage brain needs for optimal learning and growth:
The Science of Relationships: Positive relationships are foundational to learning because they motivate healthy connections and growth.
The Science of Individuality: All brains are unique and draw from their individual abilities and experiences.
The Science of Learning: Memory, attention, assessment, and feedback are essential to the learning process.
The Science of Wellbeing: Emotion, cognition, and physical wellbeing are interlinked.
Why this Matters
The teenage brain is far from set, and it can change and adapt to experiences it encounters. This makes high school a critical time for intellectual, social, emotional, and physical development. The boarding school environment is an exceptional setting for putting neuroscience into practice, not just in the classroom but throughout a student’s full life experience.
Students are guided at every turn by faculty, coaches, and advisors who are not only highly invested in student success but are also trained in research-informed best practices for teaching and learning. As a result, students see that education can feel rewarding and satisfying.
Students are guided at every turn by faculty, coaches, and advisors who are not only highly invested in student success but are also trained in research-informed best practices for teaching and learning. As a result, students see that education can feel rewarding and satisfying.
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Elysia Burroughs
"We create a safe and welcoming space and develop relationships with kids so that as teachers, we know them well enough to joke around while simultaneously being able to push them."Science Department Chair
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Riley Adams
"I'm painting and I'm drawing as I'm teaching so that students can see the work in progress. It gives them the feeling that it's okay to make mistakes and things aren't always perfect on the first try."Arts Department Chair
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Blaine Kopp
"KUA is animated by our history with this landscape. We each experience it differently, but collectively, we are blessed with amazing environmental resources, cultural opportunities, and natural beauty."Louis Munro ’57 Chair, Environmental Studies
The Faculty Perspective on KUA Design
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What’s the Point? Helping Students Fall in Love with Learning
I love teaching because there’s always more to learn and I get to help others. Job one is to create a safe, supportive learning environment. Job two is to balance rigor with creativity and boisterous fun.
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Memory Matters: Learning to Remember
I have come to learn that teaching literature is teaching not so much what but how to remember.
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The Science of Coaching: Trust, Feedback, and Purpose
A good coach will intentionally build relationships by the care they show student-athletes beyond the boundaries of the playing field.
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