Who Are We?
NWC+ is not your traditional school. We don’t have a school bell or a “typical” school day. We utilize the Flipped Classroom model where students are in charge of their new learning. Our students attend each one of their classes once-a-week for (usually 2-3 days on campus) but are free to choose when they do their school work before attending their next class. We give every student a new Chromebook to see them through high school and let me keep it when they graduate. Our Teachers are free to create an engaging, but challenging, experience for their students using their once-a-week class periods to deepen their learning and engage in challenging and engaging activities.
As a school, we believe in the importance and power of students having experiences outside of school. We value extracurricular activities and workplace experience as important as academic lessons. As such, we designed our school to give students maximum time to explore these experiences. Many of our students use their free time to attend college classes or career and technical training programs at Santa Monica College.
We’re trying something new & exciting and we’re looking for the right type of students who want to join.
What Is Hybrid Learning?
Hybrid learning simply blends a student’s independent study with on-campus seminar classes. Our hybrid learning model has students completing 70% of their work independently and 30% at our school site in seminars, tutoring sessions, or meeting one-on-one with their Teachers. Our seminars act as a way for our teachers to check student understanding and to deepen their understanding of what they have learned on their own. Seminars can be any engaging activity or assessment. Seminars could be science labs or demonstrations, debates or mock trials, presentations or performances, Socratic Seminars, historical simulations, problem-based activities, and more. Seminars can also be used by a teacher to give any type of assessment. Students are free to come and work on campus in The Lounge where subject-specific experts are on hand each day to provide help and support.
Hybrid learning has been shown to improve student performance and is typically how most colleges or universities operate. Learning on your own can be difficult at first. It does require a lot from the student and the family. Students should have or be willing to learn greater time management, responsibility, scheduling, and other valuable life skills that will help them succeed here and in life. The family should be willing to devote extra time monitoring and engaging with their student about their progress, social and emotional health, understanding or difficulties, interests, high school plan, and graduation requirements.
