by Dr. Deborah Bauers

Created on: June 17, 2009   Last Updated: July 02, 2009

Before you can effectively strategize how you will incorporate the seminar teaching format into your high school or college classroom, you must first understand its distinctions and potential relevance. Once you grasp a seminar's dynamics and have decided that its design will compliment your teaching objectives, it will be relatively easy to incorporate its method into your classroom.

Seminars have become a popular approach for disseminating practical information to identified populations both in the community and in institutions of learning. They are presented in order to accomplish everything from enhancing productivity in the workplace to improving interpersonal relationships.

The traditional seminar format is structured into a concentrated period of time and can fill as little as a two to three hour time frame, or span several days. It may be held over a weekend or during a three hour block. Attendees usually have the opportunity to hear knowledgeable speakers. Lectures are interspersed with other activities designed to enhance the overall learning experience.

Unlike the lecture format, a seminar has a narrower focus. A seminar topic is typically a more intensive look at a specific issue, historical event, or skill-set. Sometimes seminars are held to discuss one certain book that has been written around a topic. While a lecture may cover one hundred years of history, a seminary can focus on one battle. Seminars generally incorporate other teaching styles beside the traditional lecture. Work groups, slide and power point presentations, and Q &A are frequently a part a seminar package.

High school seminars target students who have specific interests in participating not only as learners, but as peer instructors and group facilitators. Colleges and Universities use the seminar format to enrich the standard course offering by addressing contemporary social, political, and economic issues and to engage adult learners who are looking for a nontraditional approach to education. Seminars at both the high school and undergraduate levels focus on offering an applied educational experience that is adjunctive to the regular course offerings.

Whether you are a high school teacher or college professor, your first consideration should be whether you can enrich your course content through the advancement of the seminar idea. Perhaps you might decide to add discussion groups or choose certain students to prepare and teach a portion of your material. Maybe

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