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When next semester begins, sophomores and juniors will face the task of picking next year’s classes, while the seniors sit back and remember the trauma with grins on their faces. For students looking for change, however, seven new courses are making their debut.
These courses range from vocational-based courses to a student-designed course in mentored studies.
“When you are on the honors track you don’t have a lot of selection,” said senior Jeremy Pris. “Between the limited periods that needed classes are offered and the few honors electives offered, you are pretty much locked into your schedule.”
For people like Pris, the Gifted and Talented program has worked with the school to form three new classes that offer challenge and variety to the honors classes already offered.
Honors Seminar is one semester of in-depth study on one topic picked by students. Students will participate in and lead discussions on topics such as world religion or independent film.
Another new onesemester class will be Introduction to Mentored Studies. Students will choose topics they are interested in and develop a syllabus for the next semester’s class, Mentored Studies. Once a student’s syllabus has been approved by the teacher, he or she finds a mentor —either a teacher or a community member — and complet that course of study.
Wes Hines and Grady Bennett will co-teach an advanced multimedia and web page design class.
“It’s going to be a chance for students to go deeper into multimedia,” said Bennett. “What we are going to do is have students create, update, and manage web pages for faculty throughout the school.”
This class will allow the students to go deeper into the realms of Astound and Power Point (multi-media development programs) to fully experience the multi-media world. They will learn to effectively communicate with audio, video and graphics.
As Hines said: “This will not be a normal class.”
As part of this trend of new and exciting courses, the business department will also offer virtual office. The simulated national project will train students through daily work in the departments of:
• marketing and sales
• human resources
• communications
• finance and accounting
• legal services
• research and development
• information technology management
“This is an updated office procedures course,” said department head Linda Corr. “It is much more extensive than secretarial duties.”
Students will come into class and receive their job tasks over the internet. They will have supervisor from the pseudo company and will need to research to successfully complete their jobs.
There’s another new job-related classe: Bruce Fitzgerald will offer students the opportunity to get hands-on experience with high-tech equipment used in industry through his class Robotics, Lasers, and CNC.
“Lasers is a wide open field right now,” said Mr. Fitzgerald. “This class will give students a feel for what they can do with them.”
So when flipping through the registration handbook next semester, don’t brush over the new courses without giving them a second thought. There may be the perfect class hidden somewhere.
“Here, we have more classes than any other school in the state,” said junior Erika Rauk. “I think new classes are a great idea because it will give us just that many more options. |
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