Acumen Tutors ™ is an association of academic tutors who employ a unique method of instruction to empower students to become better learners, higher scorers, and more confident test takers. The method introduces students to the path from Awareness (of the components of comprehension) to Control (of their attention) to Engagement (where the task becomes a game).

The ACE ™ method was developed by Don Albert in his work as an academic and music coach since 1985, and is informed by and indebted to the breakthrough research of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the subject of “Flow”, or the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. Dr. Csikszentmihalyi’s writings, while most commonly associated with sports psychology, are equally applicable to everything from academic learning and test-taking to music and art. In 2005, College Board’s SAT Study Guide provided an essay prompt based on Csikszentmihalyi’s approach to creativity. For a deeper understanding of Flow, click here.

Acumen offers both one-on-one tutoring and group classes based on the ACE ™ method train students to slow down, engage their curiosity, take inventory of the task at hand, and stay in control of the information.