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 the subject that you are teaching lends itself toward incorporating a specific current event that will increase its relevancy. You might even want to consider asking your administration to be willing to award an extra credit for participation in an enrichment activity that would apply what is being learned in the classroom.
Seminar formats vary and are often tailored to meet the need of the participants. Lecture portions and group interactions can be held on weekends and evenings as well as in the traditional classroom. The beauty of the seminar concept is its adaptability to the setting and the student population.
Seminars abound, encompassing everything from tying flies to a virtual trip to China and from writing a novel to studying the stars at the local planetarium. If you are a high school teacher, talk to your principal about offering enrichment activities that are adjunctive to the normal classroom study. Seminars are wonderful resources for stimulating and challenging gifted and talented students.
High school seminars frequently feature subjects of interest such as social problems and classes geared to pique the interest of those who are looking ahead to college and career. Upper classmen have the opportunity to attend special seminars that may be held between semesters, or even over a weekend as an adjunct to the regular classroom schedule. These generally are offered through the counseling office and deal with helping upper classmen ready themselves for college.
High school seminar course offerings might include topics on time management, note-taking at the college level, and how to successfully transition from high school to the university culture. Some high schools have begun inviting working professionals from the community to address upper classmen on career choices. These seminars are often held right after school or even during a blocked period of time during the school day with an alternate study period provided for students who choose not to attend.
Seniors frequently take Senior Seminar as a capstone of all four years in high school. Senior seminar may include a two-week study tour abroad or a class that meets weekly to assist students in writing a senior paper highlighting all four years of high school. If you teach a foreign language you might want to consider hosting a seminar to expose students to the cultural background of the language.
Colleges offer Freshman Seminars to incoming students. They may include a brief introduction to college life or a course designed to introduce students to available majors. College seminars offered at intervals throughout the calendar year may focus on a global issue like The South African Apartheid or How Your College Campus Can Go Green. College seminars are frequently offered on a pass or fail basis but at least one college credit is awarded upon completion. Students are usually limited to one seminar per semester.
College professors are sometimes asked to conduct seminars on a rotating basis. If you teach history, consider a seminar that focuses on a contemporary issue that has a historical basis. If economics is your forte, then consider bringing in a marketing analyst who can talk about trends in America's economy.
Seminars in the University setting may occur with regularity, featuring the different chairs of each department and even guest lecturers. Papers are frequently distributed that contain necessary content to stimulate discussion that occurs after each lecture. If you have distinguished yourself in your department, are tenured, or chair your own department, you will have greater latitude to bring in lecturers and orchestrate seminars.
Colleges and Junior Colleges often open their seminars to students from other schools and even community members. Advance registration is almost always a prerequisite. Seminars that are offered to the community will generally provide the opportunity for certain populations to receive continuing education credits in conjunction with accrediting agencies within the same field of study.
Local colleges are always looking for ways to impact the community in hopes of generating gifts and endowments as well as procuring new students. The best way to become recognized by your college administration as a faculty member with the resources and background to hold seminars is to volunteer the first few times. When you've proven that you can do a job and have received positive feedback, you may just get the opportunity to teach a seminar and actually get paid for doing it.
Most university seminars offer at least one credit toward graduation unless the seminar is being offered as a prerequisite introduction to a department, in preparation to declaring a major.
Newer technology has made it possible for colleges and universities to offer seminars over the internet. Adult learners and non-traditional students can participate in university life via the virtual classroom without ever leaving home. Students can watch a lecture and then participate in discussion using a web cam.
Teachers who wish to instruct via the internet are usually asked to take specialized training to do so. Perhaps you are an adjunct faculty member looking to increase your value to the college as well as your earning potential. The webinar format may be what you are looking for.
Seminars held on the web often include projects that must be completed afterward in order to receive full credit for the course of study. Courses geared for adult learners are frequently focused on offering some form of continuing education or content that will prepare students for a new career.
Graduate level seminars are practicums that allow students to specialize on either an aspect of ongoing research or participate in a learning experience in a clinical setting. Study groups are a common element at the graduate level where the emphasis is on applied learning and the development of advanced critical thinking strategies. Helping the ADHD Learner might be an example of a graduate level seminar geared toward teachers.
Graduate level professors have much greater latitude in course presentation and, in some cases, even in choice of materials to teach. As a graduate level instructor, you will have greater freedom to structure your class in your desired format.
Whether you are thinking of new strategies to vary your traditional teaching methods in high school chemistry, or supervising a graduate level think tank on the future of socialized medicine, the seminar format may be just what you are looking for. Discussion groups; group projects; guest speakers; Q&A; field experience; and web instructional formats; these are all elements of the seminar. So go ahead! Get those creative juices flowing as you brainstorm ways to incorporate the seminar format in your high school or college. Teaching methods only change when somebody dares to be different, even innovative. That someone could be you.