A Learning Environment.
We believe in creating an environment designed to improve student achievement. At Southwest Learning Centers, technology serves as a conduit to break down classroom walls, bringing students and teachers into contact with people and places they would otherwise never have met or visited. Embracing technology has helped us expand classroom resources by making the latest information, images, software, curriculum and direct professional expertise available at the click of a mouse. Students engage in independent, autonomous learning, which helps them become life-long learners and productive members of the workforce.The service-learning component of the Southwest Secondary Learning Center serves to:
• Pave the transition between academics and workplace competence by providing real-world work experiences.
• Link academic content to life situations by instilling the understanding of the value of work.
• Lay the foundation for self-confidence by providing relevant, student-selected experiences.
A Day in the Life.
Southwest Secondary Learning Center Students are required to attend three sessions per week (each session is three and a half hours) at the main facility, and one session at the Smart Lab.The Smart Lab environment is specially designed to empower learners by giving them ready access to multiple layers of knowledge tools and problem-solving resources so that all styles of learning are readily available to best suit the needs of the student. The Smart Lab environment is not a lecture-style classroom and does not have a traditional teacher. Instead, a Smart Lab facilitator assists learners in finding the resources they need to accomplish their learning objectives.
Since the Smart Lab is not a lecture classroom, students will work on a wide array of team projects, and everyone in the lab could be working on something different at any given time. Students are given substantial freedom to learn on their own as the facilitator may simply give them the resources, ideas, tutorials or manuals and point them in the direction they need to go so that they can discover the answers for themselves.
Mastering the Grade.
Students are required to complete a rigorous scope and sequence in each subject, exercise strong written and verbal communication skills, implement research skills and demonstrate academic skill mastery in each content area.Each student is assessed for skill development and content understanding. Students demonstrate grade-level mastery as defined by New Mexico Content Standards and Benchmarks in the following academic disciplines:
• Arts Education
• Career Readiness
• Health Education
• Language Arts
• Mathematics
• Modern, Classical and Native Languages
• Physical Education
• Science
• Social Studies
Students earn credit in elective courses such as the school's Smart Lab.
Flexible Scheduling.
Southwest Learning Centers lets high school students use a flexible scheduling policy for the realities of the modern world.Southwest Secondary Learning Center Students are required to attend three sessions per week (each session is three and a half hours) at the main facility, and one three and one-half hour session in the school's state-of-the-art Smart Lab.