AP Seminar Broadens Opportunities for AP Students

Only a month into the school year, the Advanced Placement Academy and the College Board are in full swing of making sure AP students are able to have opportunities that exceed to the highest education and can increase communication and independent skills that are valued by colleges.

 

Many of the AP Academic teachers are involved with the AP Capstone™, such as physics teacher Nathan Belcher.

 

“The College Board came up with a program called the AP Capstone™ program which is two classes. And so, the first class for that program is AP Seminar, which is really a class about argumentary writing and looking at different ideas from different perspectives and going on from there.” Belcher said. “The second class is AP Research which is essentially a senior thesis, where students do a year-long research project and present their information.”

 

Throughout South Carolina, the AP Capstone™ is evolving in high schools to help prepare students for college.

 

“It’s our first year of doing it and I think the fourth year overall,” Belcher said. “I think, up to this point, that we have five high schools in South Carolina that have done the program, and I think four more joined this year”

 

Being his first year of teaching AP Seminar, Belcher is a part of encouraging and helping AP students with the requirements from the AP Capstone™.

 

“The individual presentations I score because it’s my first year so I will certainly be validated by the college board because they choose teachers every year to make sure their scoring is right.”

 

With many AP classes already provided, the AP Seminar and AP Research can help students in the long run.

 

“I think this is a great course for any student who is looking to build their argumentative and writing skills,” Belcher said. “It’s supposed to be very broad-based and I feel that it definitely does for a very complimentary course such as this.”

 

The AP Capstone™ provides benefits for students and teachers to build lifelong learning skills and professional development in teaching.

 

“It’s been a very good class for students who have already risen to the level that I would expect them to in terms of an AP class. My hope and goal are that we have four, five, six, or seven teachers and thousands of students taking it.” he said. “I don’t see why it couldn’t be a massive thing because I think it’s very useful and students who are going into that more intellectual environment.”