Defining Features: Graduate Seminar Course

Key Features

Modeled after courses in Poland universities, the seminar has remained largely unchanged over the
last century. In the graduate seminar, students are often expected to produce publishable research as
overseen by a leading professor as well as write and present critiques of related research often curated
by the leading professor.

Key Design Considerations

The purpose of a graduate seminar course is to immerse students in the discipline and provide
opportunities to think critically about it. In addition, they learn about various research methods that
are commonly employed in their field. To this end, attention to readings* and how they are related to
the discipline and interrelate to others is an important design feature. Other questions to explore
when designing a seminar course may be:

 What are the various disciplinary issue associated with the seminar topic?
 Do the issues suggest a framework for studying the topic?
 Which issues are appropriate for investigation by the students I will have?
 How will I provide the background and context for students to understand the issues?
 How can I present the readings* in such a way that students will think critically about the
topic?
 What classroom activities can I use to stimulate critical thinking?
 What are the basic research tools in the discipline that students need to know?
 What classroom exercises can I use to help students learn about (or use) these tools?
 From my own experience, what insights about research can I contribute to the class? (Neal,
1996)

Answering questions such as these will provide a strong foundation on which a graduate seminar can
be constructed.