Concord High School has implemented a seminar class. It is held during the last hour of the day and lasts 30 minutes. The purpose of seminar is for students to catch up on any work they need to complete, receive additional support for learning, have extra time with teachers in content areas to support re-teaching and provide students opportunities to engage in social-emotional learning standards and graduate profile standards.. There are five school days in the week and only two are for intervention. That leaves more days for activities that could be intervention. Is Seminar effective?
Three students who were interviewed indicated that seminars should be used to help students who are behind. Some days in seminar there are class activities or assignments that the whole class should participate in, for instance, this last month’s activities involving Responsible Decision Making. This takes time away from the students to catch up on work; however, some students do not use this time wisely by wandering around the halls, sitting on their phones, or just messing around with friends. This can become a problem for the students who do use this time wisely; they get distracted by those who choose not to do any school work at all.
One freshman, Mathon Mackenzie, explains how he feels about seminar by saying, “What I usually do in seminar is make sure all my work is done, which helps me get all A’s”. Students who have grades like this and don’t need any additional help are thankful for Seminar, but once their work is done, it can be a time to just reflect on the day.
Another freshman, Rachel Rundle, has a strong opinion on how she feels about the seminar. She describes how “it kind of helps me when I need it, but I think it is pointless and boring when we do the activities.” When asked about how she uses seminar effectively, she says, “I usually don’t have a ton of work to do, but when I do I make passes to the teachers I need to finish work for.”
Brooklyn Knoblett is a sophomore this year. She does not like seminars, explaining that it is “kind of boring, pointless, and a social hour where she takes naps.” This isn’t effective because not only is she not getting work done, but that is time she could be managing to do something else that could help her more.
Senior Riley Aiken states how “it isn’t effective personally for him since he always has his work done.” He uses seminars for his leadership activities. He explains, “I think about my schedule for what classes I have so I can then think about the work that was posted so I can stay on top of it.” He strongly believes in using time management but still has time to work if he really needs to.
Coach Buck, the Geometry, Algebra 2 and Personalized Finance teacher states his opinion on the seminar by saying, “I think if the students took the activities a little more seriously they could understand what we are doing to help them prepare for outside of school.” Buck has a argues that seminar should help students not only with school work but with life outside of school.
Overall, the seminar could be more effective, and students could be given as much as they need. We should change how each student is focused on and connected with. If their seminar doesn’t work, students should have the last hour to go to the teacher’s classroom where they need help. If they do not have any work, then they should have the opportunity to work in other classrooms on passion projects or college projects.
Freshman Jessica Clouser suggests, “ I think we should have some extra classes, like if you aren’t good at English then you could go to a class that will help you understand it better, same with math, biology, and history.” This is a good idea because it can help us when we graduate improving our grades and GPA’s when we apply to colleges.
Seminar should be a class for students to get all the help they need without having to worry about what days we have to do so. Instead, many students come in class asking if it is a work day, but when told no, it can make it hard for a student who needs it. It is always challenging starting something new and making it useful. It isn’t going to be perfect since this is only the second year of seminar, but when we get students to work together and input their suggestions, there will be a huge improvement.
