Senior Seminars

Senior Seminars are exit level courses designed for students who rank in the academic middle 50%. Courses are taken in the students' senior year of high school and designed by a team of high school and higher education faculty. Students who choose to enroll are often uninterested in taking honors or Advanced Placement (AP) courses so their access to college preparatory content is limited. Course content in the Senior Seminar is aligned to a set of college ready standards to prepare students for what they will be expected to know in college. The courses allow students opportunities to experience the pacing and challenge level of first year college courses while learning high school content. All Senior Seminars developed from materials at this site emphasize six essential components:

  1. A faster paced curriculum
  2. An emphasis on writing, feedback, editing and rewriting
  3. Clear grading expectations and detailed scoring rubrics
  4. Key outcomes that are measurable
  5. An emphasis on the development of habits of mind, such as analytical thinking and intellectual curiosity
  6. Frequent evaluation and feedback from external sources, the teacher and peers

Paired Courses

Paired Courses are also designed by high school and higher education faculty and aligned to college ready standards. The faculty members create two sequential courses. A Senior Seminar is the first course in the Paired Courses series. It is delivered in the high school for high school seniors and described above. The second course is for college freshmen. Students who choose to attend their local higher education institutions take the second course when they enroll in the local community college or four-year institution. When they do, they encounter a course for which they are prepared, with similar pacing, writing requirements, emphasis on habits of the mind, and challenge level as the companion course they took in their senior year of high school. Students who take one or both courses are better prepared to succeed in their postsecondary education.

Please note: Each web page contains downloadable files that illustrate the process described. You can either download them individually on each page or download them as one file on the last page.


Begin Here