Integrating Academic And

CTE Coursework

Sandra H. Harwell, Ph.D.Harwell Enterprises

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Program of Study Components#3

• PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Sustained, intensive, and focused opportunities for administrators, teachers, and faculty foster POS design, implementation, and maintenance.

Effective professional development should:• Support the alignment of curriculum from grade to grade (9-12) and

from secondary to postsecondary education (vertical curriculum alignment).

• Support the development of integrated academic and career and technical curriculum and instruction (horizontal curriculum alignment).

• Ensure that teachers and faculty have the content knowledge to align and integrate curriculum and instruction.

• Foster innovative teaching and learning strategies

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• TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES

Innovative and creative instructional approaches enable teachers to integrate academic and technical instruction and students to apply academic and technical learning in their POS coursework.

Effective teaching and learning strategies should:• Be jointly led by interdisciplinary teaching teams of academic

and career and technical teachers or faculty.• Employ contextualized work-based, project-based, and

problem-based learning approaches.• Incorporate team-building, critical thinking, problem-solving,

communication skills, such as through the use of career and technical student organization (CTSO) activities.

Program of Study Components#9

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Five Models

•Linked Courses•Clustered Courses•Infused Occupational Courses•Infused Academic Courses•Hybrid Courses

Perrin, D. Curriculum and Pedagogy to Integrate Occupational and Academic Instruction in the Community College: Implications for Faculty Development

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Linked Courses

• Two courses are able to link their standards and outcomes and reinforce each other,

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Challenges

• Scope and sequence of the two courses difficult to match

• Difficult to schedule courses with specific cohort of students

• Students at many different levels of academic proficiency

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Example

• A marketing course and a speech course are linked. Instruction and assignments are combined. Students get credit for the assignment in each course.

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Clustered Courses

• Courses are taught in academies or small learning communities with a common theme. All courses in the communities are taught with the same theme and all instruction and assignments are related.

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Challenges

• Limited time for teacher planning• Many teachers need help seeing the

connections between courses• Teacher beliefs about academics versus

CTE

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Example

McKeel Academy, Lakeland, FLPrincipal: Dr. Linda Acocellilindaacocelli@mckeelschools.com

http://mckeelacademy.com/

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Infused Occupational Courses

• CTE courses are taught infusing rigorous academic content where appropriate and where overlap in the two courses exists.

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Challenges

• Differences in vocabulary/language between CTE and academic faculty

• Difficulty or refusal to teach academics in CTE

• Varying levels of readiness of students• Preparation of CTE faculty

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Example of Strategy

• Using Writing Prompts across the curriculum

• Reading in the content areas• Research papers in CTE area• Writing letters to persuade businesses to

come to an event

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Infused Academic Courses

• Academic courses are taught in the context of occupational relevance.

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Challenges

• Preparation of academic faculty• High stakes testing requirements• Vocabulary/language differences• Perception of importance among

academic faculty

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Examples

• Using occupational examples in a mathematics class—calculating slope or “pitch” of a roof

• Determining appropriate fertilizer for a hayfield based on soil analysis

• Designing an advertising campaign for a business

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Hybrid Courses

• New courses are developed specifically to teach both academic and occupational content in tandem and fully integrated.

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Challenges

• State Course Code requirements• Graduation requirements• Preparation of faculty• Teacher certification requirements

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Examples

• CATER program in Florida

http://www.justreadflorida.com/cater.asp

DevelopmentalStage

Stage appropriateTasks

Zone ofProximalDevelopment

Peer Support/Coaching

Scaffolding

DysfunctionalCycle Frustration

WithdrawalLocked into

Poor performance

Using familiar experiences

Using familiar objects

Demonstrating relevance

Solving authentic problems

Gradually increasing the level of difficulty

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Research-based Practices

• Identifying Similarities and Differences• Summarizing and Note-taking• Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition• Homework and Practice• Nonlinquistic Representations• Cooperative Learning• Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback• Generating and Testing Hypotheses• Questions, Cues, and Advance Organizerswww.ascd.org

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www.leadered.com

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Resources

www.leadered.comwww.cordcommunications.com