New Advanced Placement research classes offered in the 2016-17 school year

By Catelyn DiLeva

Staff Writer

Starting in the 2016 school year, two International Baccalaureate research seminar classes will be added to the Advanced Placement class roster and count as Advanced Placement classes.  

The new AP classes will be offered to incoming juniors and seniors. The AP Research class is made up of two separate classes. Students will have to take the first year of the AP class to take the second part their senior year.

“The class will be a great way to embrace the small class feel the classes will have,” Vice Principal Karina Gerger said. “This class has many opportunities to research on certain topics and work with the teacher.”

The research class will be split up into two years and is taken in the student’s Junior and Senior year. The class size will be on average around 24 students and will be taught by a teacher of any subject, who has not been chosen yet.  

“Since students will have the same teacher for the research and seminar class both years, when they take this course they will get to know the teacher better,” said Gerger. “The students and teachers will spend more time together and create a great relationship.”

Students will create projects, and other work on a specific topic their teacher chooses at the beginning of the school year. Teachers will be responsible for choosing a topic that students create projects for their projects throughout the year and the students will specify topics under the main topic.

“The interesting thing is in the beginning of the year when the teacher chooses what the focus of their class will be on,” said Gerger. “Which will lead to the rest of the year’s projects.”

The Research class is going to be considered an IB class but is put under the AP roster and category so it will count as AP credit. IB classes are offered at other schools around Mira Costa and the administration decided to create this class and introduce and offer an IB class at Costa. The differences between AP and IB courses are the learning styles presented in the class as well as the application process to take a more advanced class.

“Other schools around Costa have IB courses offered at their schools,” said Gerger. “So we thought that it would be a good addition to our other advanced and competitive courses.”

As of now, the administration is meeting with teachers to introduce this new class and see if any teachers are interested in teaching it in the future, according to Gerger.

“The class, being an IB, is more competitive in spirit,” said Gerger. “It is going to be a good addition to the AP classes for students and teachers.”