Chris A. Roegge
Ahmed Ferej
University of Illinois
National Center for Research in Vocational Education
University of
California at Berkeley
2030 Addison Street, Suite 500
Berkeley, CA
94704-1058
Supported by
The Office of Vocational and Adult Education
U.S.
Department of Education
August, 1995
FUNDING INFORMATION
| Project Title: | National Center for Research in Vocational Education |
|---|---|
| Grant Number: | V051A30003-95A/V051A30004-95A |
| Act under which Funds Administered: | Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act P.L. 98-524 |
| Source of Grant: | Office of Vocational and Adult Education U.S. Department of Education Washington, DC 20202 |
| Grantee: | The Regents of the University of California c/o National Center for Research in Vocational Education 2150 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 1250 Berkeley, CA 94704 |
| Director: | David Stern |
| Percent of Total Grant Financed by Federal Money: | 100% |
| Dollar Amount of Federal Funds for Grant: | $6,000,000 |
| Disclaimer: | This publication was prepared pursuant to a grant with the Office of Vocational and Adult Education, U.S. Department of Education. Grantees undertaking such projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their judgement in professional and technical matters. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official U.S. Department of Education position or policy. |
| Discrimination: | Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states: "No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." Therefore, the National Center for Research in Vocational Education project, like every program or activity receiving financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Education, must be operated in compliance with these laws. |
The authors gratefully acknowledge the many persons who contributed to the completion of this report. These include Illinois State Board of Education managers and consultants who nominated exemplary teachers in each vocational subject area, school administrators who allowed us access to their faculty and programs, and especially the teachers themselves who submitted to interviews and opened their programs up to us. Several faculty, staff, and graduate students in the Department of Vocational and Technical Education, College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, also provided input into the study and the report.
This pilot study represents the first phase of a two-year study of individual
teachers who provide integrated instruction for their students, with the goal
of uncovering genuinely innovative tips and techniques which may be emulated by
others. The pilot study sought to identify individual teachers who recognized
the advantages of integrating the vocational and academic aspects of their
instruction prior to the influence of state or national initiatives such as
Tech Prep. By examining these "early innovators," the project is seeking to
locate and describe strategies that truly work and that lie outside of (or
augment) the current body of knowledge on the subject. The instruments and
procedures developed and refined in this pilot study will be used to collect
data from a larger sample of teachers in several midwestern states during the
second phase of the study.
The pilot study concentrated on the process of identifying the right subjects
to study. A multiple-stage procedure was developed which involved (1) having
state-level staff nominate exemplary vocational teachers and/or programs, (2)
conducting telephone interviews with nominees to determine if they were "early"
integrators along with their current level of integration, and (3) selecting a
small number of subjects for further study based on telephone interview
results. This identification procedure yielded three detailed
interviews.
Data collection, analysis, and reporting procedures were piloted by conducting
intensive on-site interviews with the three subjects in the late fall of 1993.
The interview guides were developed by project staff and focused primarily on
teaching methods used to achieve integration. Interviews were audiotaped, and
the tapes were transcribed and content analyzed. Narrative reports were
developed around the following organizers: (1) teacher background (with
integration); (2) their overall view of integration (e.g., why it should be
done, what its function is, perceived benefits); (3) how integration is
achieved in their classrooms (and labs), (4) the level of support they have
received and how they garnered support, and (5) their perceived evidence of the
success of their efforts.
Two themes emerged via the analysis of interview data. One focuses on the
adaptation of supervisory techniques used by a teacher through over twenty
years of industry experience, the other on the ability and willingness to
ferret out existing information from a variety of sources and adapt it for
instructional use.
In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE) produced a report, A Nation at Risk, which was very critical about the quality of education in American schools. Among the issues raised by the report was concern that schools no longer produced graduates who met the challenges of the changing workplace. Vocational education came under criticism for producing graduates who were trained for specific jobs that no longer existed. A common theme in the report, and other commentaries in support of it, was that schools must yield graduates who could adapt to the changing workplace and face the competitive challenge being posed by other nations. The vocational community reacted to the NCEE's report by producing their own report, The Unfinished Agenda (National Commission on Secondary Vocational Education [NCSVE], 1984), providing strong points in defense of vocational education with appropriate solutions. One of NCSVE's recommendations was to integrate vocational with academic education because the former provided an applied setting that would make learning more meaningful to students. The NCSVE report stated the following:
What is really required today are programs and experiences that bridge the gap between the so-called "academic" and "vocational" courses. The theoretical and empirical bases as well as the practical and applicative aspects of academic courses and vocational courses must be made explicit and meaningful. (p. 14)
From a vocational education standpoint, the major initiative to come out of
the reform movement was the integration of vocational and academic education.
The primary aim of integration was to strengthen vocational education through
applied academics to improve the reading, writing, and computational skills of
noncollege-bound students. For college-bound students, vocational education
would complement academic education by providing an applied environment that
would make learning more realistic.
Several approaches have been used in implementing integration of vocational
and academic education in secondary schools. Grubb, Davis, Lum, Plihal, and
Morgaine (1991) used interview and observation techniques to identify the
following eight "models" of integration:
Roegge, Galloway, and Welge (1991) interviewed vocational teachers and
observed classes in ten Illinois schools. They found a variety of individual
and collaborative strategies being employed such as cross-teaching, consulting
(i.e., providing expertise on content and/or applications to other teachers),
student consulting (i.e., students providing assistance to other students), and
various formal and informal "content alignment" strategies.
Schmidt, Finch, and Faulkner (1992) analyzed the results of over 100
interviews with school personnel to classify vocational and academic
integration activities into six themes:
For several years, schools in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB)
consortium have employed and evaluated integration approaches involving the
incorporation of academic content in vocational courses, administrative
policies to encourage integration, applied instructional approaches,
collaboration, and counseling (Bottoms, Presson, & Johnson, 1992).
The prevailing opinion appears to be that more complex and formal integration
approaches have the best potential for creating and sustaining meaningful
reform (Grubb
et al., 1991). As practitioners seek to introduce
integration strategies, they have often encountered resistance as well as
frustration in attempting to implement this rather nebulous concept.
Among vocational education practitioners, a common response to calls for integration is, "but I've been doing this for years." What do they mean by "this?" It has often been suspected that "this" means business as usual--an effort to find and justify integration in the status quo. But they may also be referring to an "infusion" strategy--that is, incorporating academic content into their vocational instruction (Grubb et al., 1991). The infusion strategy is believed to have limited capacity to stimulate broader reform and has, therefore, been largely passed over in recent integration efforts. There is no reason to doubt, however, that valuable insights into actually "integrating in the classroom" may be gained from those who practice infusion. Further, there is evidence to suggest that teachers often go beyond infusion and interact and collaborate with one another, on their own, to integrate vocational and academic instruction (Roegge et al., 1991). In search of large treasures, small individual gems are sometimes overlooked.
The purpose of this pilot study (Phase I) was twofold. The primary purpose
was to test and thereby refine instruments and procedures for use in a
multistate study of informal, teacher-initiated integration to be conducted
during the second year of the project (Phase II). In addition to testing
instruments and procedures, data gathered from Illinois teachers would comprise
the initial dataset for Phase II. Both phases of the study seek to examine
individual teachers who have successfully integrated vocational and academic
instruction on their own rather than as a part of a larger school, state, or
national initiative.
This study is framed in previously cited description and classification of
integration done by Grubb et al. (1991) and Schmidt et al. (1992). The study
focused specifically on two elements of those earlier NCRVE works, namely the
"infusion of academic content into vocational courses" model(s) identified in
the Grubb study, and the "instructional strategies" theme identified in the
Schmidt study. Within this framework, the objectives of the study follow:
This pilot study tested methods and procedures for exploring teacher-initiated integration efforts, employing qualitative interview and observation methodologies designed to provide detailed descriptions of how integration is accomplished in classrooms. Patton (1990) identifies "clarifying a model or treatment" (p. 107) as an appropriate application of qualitative methodologies. This study examined the so-called infusion model of vocational and academic integration in detail.
Finding the right people to interview is critical to a descriptive, qualitative study of this nature and was therefore a major focus of the pilot study. The following multiple-stage process for identifying the sample was developed:
Three sites were selected for the pilot study based on the data obtained on the telephone interviews. The programs selected for examination in the pilot study were in the areas of technology education, home economics, and vocational agriculture.
The focus of qualitative research is detailed or "thick" description. In this
case, the aim is to describe what individual teachers do and how they do it in
terms of integrating vocational and academic content via instructional
techniques. For the pilot study, an instrument was developed which was
semistructured, focusing on major anticipated themes while allowing for these
(or alternative themes) to emerge during the course of the interview. The
on-site teacher interview instrument, therefore, was developed and structured
very broadly around the following organizers: (1) nature (general description)
of the integration activities; (2) focus (e.g., was integration being
accomplished primarily through the teaching method, instructional materials,
applications such as lab activities, work-based learning experiences, special
projects, or a combination of the above); (3) the implementation of the
integration strategy and its acceptance into the school culture; and
(4)
the evaluation of integrated learning. These guides were adapted from
protocols used in previous studies (e.g., Grubb et al., 1991; Roegge et al.,
1991).
The instrument was researcher designed and borrowed in style from an
instrument developed by Schmidt et al. (1992). The draft was examined by
faculty and graduate students in the Department of Vocational and Technical
Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for relevance,
consistency, and clarity of questions. The instrument contained open-ended
questions that were expected to help in leading the discussions with teachers
during the interview process (see Appendix C).
The pilot study interviews were conducted during November of 1993. Though the intent was to follow the interview guides rather closely, it was discovered that a more unstructured approach succeeded in allowing the subjects to tell their stories from their own perspective. Though the aforementioned interview guides were used, the format remained largely unstructured, and the interviewers only referred to the guides if the interviewees failed to address specific points. The interviews were recorded on audiotape, averaging approximately three hours in length. Interviewer notes supplemented the tapes, and program documentation was also collected at the time of the site visits.
The audiocassettes from the site interviews were transcribed and typed out for content analysis. Narrative reports were written from the data collected in the interviews and through observations. When all narratives were completed, they were content-analyzed to identify any existing commonalties in nature, focus, implementation, acceptance, and evaluation methods.
The purpose of this pilot study was to develop and refine methods for exploring individual teacher initiatives regarding the implementation of classroom integration strategies. This purpose was accomplished by using instruments and procedures to interview a small sample of teachers in Illinois. The remainder of this section reports the findings of the pilot study.
A list of 49 teachers was obtained from the Illinois State Board of Education. Forty-six interviews were completed. Table 1 shows the summary of the results from the interviews.
Table 1
Summary of Results from Telephone Interviews with Illinois Teachers
| Vocational Program |
Number of Schools Contacted |
Number of Interviews Held |
Teacher- Initiated Integration |
Tech Prep or Other Formal Program |
0-2 years Integration Experience |
3-4 years Integration Experience |
5-10 years Integration Experience | >10 years Integration Experience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture | 10 | 10 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Business | 10 | 10 | 7 | 2 | - | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| Health | 10 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 | - | 3 |
| Home Economics | 10 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 2 | - | 3 |
| Industrial | 9 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Total | 49 | 46 | 27 | 17 | 8 | 14 | 9 | 13 |
Twenty teachers indicated that their integration activities were
self-initiated. However, it was observed that nearly all of the business
teachers who integrated in their teaching did so because of the structure of
their programs. For example, written and oral communication skills are an
inherent part of job search skills instruction (e.g., application and
résumé writing, interviewing). Computational skills are a
necessary component of accounting. A typical response from a business
instructor on why he or she initiated integration was that it was "just part of
the coursework. . . ." This implied that the business education curriculum was
inherently integrated and that no purposeful innovation (particularly one that
centered on instruction) had taken place to initiate or improve
integration.
Nearly half of the nominated teachers had been integrating for four years or
less, mostly as part of Tech Prep or because of its influence. Seventeen
teachers indicated that their programs were part of the Tech Prep initiative.
Some teachers, however, indicated that even though their programs were now part
of Tech Prep, they had been integrating vocational and academic content in
their instruction prior to the emergence or influence of Tech Prep.
Thirteen teachers had more than ten years experience with vocational and
academic integration, with one teacher claiming to have been integrating for
twenty and another for twenty-four years respectively. Teachers cited various
reasons for initiating integration in their instruction. There did not seem to
be one universal reason for initiating integration.
The following are quoted examples of reasons given by teachers who had been
using vocational and academic integration strategies for a long time. Shown in
parentheses is the number of years the teacher had been integrating:
Teachers in business (and to a lesser extent in agriculture) seem to have been using integration in their instruction as a requirement of their courses. Agriculture teachers stated that using biology content is a necessary component of their instruction, while business teachers included math and communication as part of their instruction without considering this process as unique or as innovative teaching. However, in programs such as home economics, technology, and health occupations, teachers needed to make a deliberate effort to introduce academic subject content in their instruction. In these disciplines, skill components appear to have traditionally been taught separately.
Of the three interviews conducted, two are reported here. They are labeled "Real-World Experience" and "Whatever It Takes," respectively, to denote the central theme embodied by each. The two are reported in narrative style and include the following sections: Background, Overall View of Integration, How Integration Was Accomplished, Support for Integration, Evidence of Success, and Summary.
The setting was most unremarkable. The industrial education program was
housed on the ground floor of an older, multiple-story school building on the
main thoroughfare through the town (of about 8,500 citizens). Upon entering
the room, the immediate impression was one of a sense of disorganization.
Tables were arranged in a loose circle in the center of the room, and the walls
were bordered with cabinets and shelves piled high with reference manuals and
equipment in various states of disassembly. An adjoining room was overflowing
with used electronic components salvaged by the teacher. There was a quiet
buzz of activity as students moved about working on projects. The atmosphere
was very informal and seemingly unstructured.
The primary focus of this case was the teacher, who for the sake of anonymity
is referred to as Paul. Paul was a unique individual who appeared to have
"done it all" in his life. He spent twenty years in private industry as an
electrician, aerospace technician, electrical contractor, surveyor, and
business consultant. He has been both an employer and an employee. In the
early 1980s, he began teaching technical courses part-time at a nearby state
university. While he was teaching, he also earned a Master's degree in
Vocational/Technical Education and applied for a position as a teacher of
industrial education at the local high school, a position which he held for
fifteen years. He also continued to operate an independent consulting
business, and on weekends he taught other secondary teachers how to implement
and use the Principles of Technology course. Paul was addressed as "Chief" by
his students.
Paul saw nothing special, new, or unusual about integration or his own involvement with it. To him it was a natural outgrowth of the subject matter. Electronics requires mastery of certain aspects of mathematics. It also requires knowledge of various laws and theorems from physics and chemistry. When viewed through the lens of his vast work experience, these "integrated" components were actually a natural part of the course content. Paul also taught Principles of Technology, which is a purposefully integrated physics course, but again, he did not view the application of physics principles as anything worthy of special attention--it was just the proper way to learn the principles. From his own experiences in industry, Paul was very much a proponent of "learning by doing." He claimed that much of what he learned as an electrical contractor was learned via on-the-job experience. Also, not having spent his formative career years within the academic culture, he did not hold a traditionalist's view of "academic" vs. "vocational" tracks (nor did he speak in educational jargon, which was refreshing). He was focused on what he believed students needed to succeed in the workplace, and that is what he sought to provide for in his classes. It is this researcher's opinion that this would hold true regardless of his subject matter specialty.
The integration that occurred in Paul's program stemmed from the subject
matter and, more importantly, the teaching approach which he employed. He
epitomized the "teacher-as-facilitator" genre because, as he said during the
interview, "I've run a business for ten years, and I know what it is to get
production." In his view, a teacher "gets production" by allowing (or forcing)
the students to be active participants in the teaching/learning process.
His electronics course was totally project-oriented. Students were assigned
to project teams of two to five persons. The basic instructional format which
was used faithfully is as follows: (1) project pretest, (2) review and
recording of project learning objectives, (3) guided team research of project
learning objectives, (4) mini-lecture and recording of lecture notes, (5) team
consensus on proposed solutions to project questions, (6) team lab work to
determine actual answers to project questions, (7) project posttest for group
grade, and (8) project examination for individual grade. The focal point for
all class activities was the Daily Work Journal. The impetus for the journal
came, not surprisingly, from Paul's business experience. As an electrical
contractor, he supervised up to three different crews on different jobs
simultaneously. By requiring each crew to keep a journal, and keeping one
himself, he was better able to coordinate supply needs, crew schedules, and so
on. The student journals themselves were nothing more than a common
composition book, which were, according to Paul, "$1.17 at Wal-Mart, if you buy
100 of them they give you a reduction in price, and they always have
engineering conversions in the back, everything they need. . . ." All student
work was recorded in a journal, following very specific guidelines developed
and copyrighted by Paul. Students were required to write at least three
complete statements of conclusion at the completion of each project.
The basic format outlined above was printed on a display board on the wall of
the classroom. This format, along with the prescribed guidelines for recording
journal information, was the first thing the students learned in Paul's
classes. Steps 1 and 2 were completed by the entire class together. From that
point, each team was on its own until the project was completed. When a team
had completed its independent research of the project objectives, Paul provided
feedback and delivered mini-lectures of pertinent content. He opined that it
was easier to lecture directly, across-the-table, to a small group rather than
to an entire class. Teams were required to complete eight projects during the
electronics course. If a team finished early, the students were able to work
on "special projects" for the class, school, or community. For example, one
student had installed conduit and wired additional lighting for the school
auditorium; another had built a computer control for a neighborhood light
display.
A key component of Paul's instructional strategy was organizing all student activities to be conducted in teams. Whether his students were working in the laboratory or making presentations about their program it was always done in teams. Paul said of this strategy, "Everything I do is teams. . . . Two, three, four, or five is a team and then I have to work with these teams everyday to see how well they mesh together." Working in teams was an important way to improve interpersonal skills among the students. It was also a reflection of the modern workplace where problem solving in teams is considered to be more effective. Inevitably, when people work together differences are bound to occur. Paul explained how he builds student teams and how conflicts are handled:
I pick them at random then I see how it works . . . I will force for two or three weeks, I'll say look, if you can't get along with any of them, what are you going to do on the job . . . If I got a problem child, then I've got to try them with another team.
While the primary source of student motivation was the activity-oriented approach, two other motivational tools were used by Paul. One was the portfolio, which each student was required to keep. Though portfolio evaluation is in vogue right now, Paul claimed that his motivation for requiring them was that he himself kept one for all of his twenty years of business experience. Ring binders and plastic page jackets were provided through Tech Prep funding. In their portfolios, students accumulated information related to career planning, their curriculum/course of study, results of student assessments, and student-produced materials. One portfolio which was reviewed also contained letters to the student from a number of colleges expressing interest in having the student apply.
The other motivational tool which doubled as a public relations/marketing strategy was public presentations. Paul had been approached by a number of professional organizations, agencies, conferences, media outlets, and individual schools to make presentations about the program. Rather than making the presentations himself, he established a "traveling team" of students. These students (usually in small groups) presented and demonstrated the project work they had completed in class, their portfolios, or journals. According to Paul
. . . it's ridiculous for me to go to a workshop and stand up there and say "now this is what I do, what I do, what I do." The kids take portfolios and journals and labs and they tell them what they do. They don't want to hear it from me, I'm boring.
Students worked very hard for the opportunity to be on the traveling team.
They were chosen based primarily on their work attitude, and the teams
consisted of students of all ability levels. Paul took the researchers to the
self-contained behavioral disordered room and introduced us to a
behavioral-disordered student who had made a presentation the previous evening.
The student spoke very excitedly about the presentation. It was obvious that
he had never had this kind of opportunity before.
Paul's method of involving his students with everyday activities was evident
when this research team visited with him. The interview was conducted right in
the classroom with all the clutter of students working on their projects in the
background. From time to time Paul would shout out instructions to groups of
students. When an interview question touched on a particular part of his
teaching, rather than tell you what he does, he would bring out students to
respond by showing you their journals, portfolios, or describing their
experiences directly.
The support that Paul has received for his program resulted largely from the
fact that, from early on, he has been active and even aggressive in seeking
publicity and support. After he implemented his project-oriented teaching
approach, he was eager for others to see it. Administrators were hesitant to
endorse his techniques at first because they were so different from the usual
"stand-and-deliver" lecture approach. The academic teachers "just thought he
was standing around doing nothing all day." Their approval was won partly
through persistence--"I kept asking the principal to come down and said we want
to give you a one-hour presentation on what we do. He got tired of coming
down"--and partly through success. Once his methodology was established and he
felt confidence in it, Paul began encouraging his students to enter their
projects in school science fairs and competitions, and they began winning.
This, he reported, validated his approach and got others to sit up and take
notice. He continued to work almost daily at developing relationships with
academic teachers. He succeeded in convincing an English teacher to implement
applied communications. He also convinced the biology teacher to try applied
biology/chemistry. The teacher subsequently reported that he was going to use
applied teaching in all of his courses.
Another event which greatly influenced acceptance and support, and which also
occurred because of the teaching approach and its success, was the awarding of
a Principles of Technology pilot site grant. This brought the program to the
attention of the entire community. Since that time, Paul has taken every
opportunity to publicize his program through print and television outlets, as
well as through live presentations (discussed earlier).
While no "hard" evidence was presented of increased achievement levels or the like, several examples point to an approach that was succeeding. Among these were the following: virtually no discipline problems, expanding enrollment, success in competitions, requests of others to visit the program, identification by the state as an exemplary program, requests to make presentations, requests to teach other teachers in applications-based methods, the inquiry letters from colleges in one student's portfolio, and the respect of peers and administration.
The key to success in this case appears to be the extent and--perhaps more importantly--the nature of Paul's work experience. Twenty years in the workplace was certainly beyond the norm for high school teachers, regardless of their field. What was striking, however, was that a large portion of the work experience was supervisory and entrepreneurial in nature. This raises further issues. Because of his entrepreneurial nature, was Paul better able to visualize how he wanted his class to perform and point them in the appropriate direction? Was he more willing to go out on a limb with his instructional technique, either in the hope of finding something better or something to market? Was he better at facilitating learning because of his supervisory experience? In other words, does the limited degree of control a supervisor exercises over his or her workers better prepare them to be facilitators? One of the issues always raised in regard to applications-based instruction is that teachers are resistant to relinquish control over their students. Paul appeared to regard the degree of control he exercised over his class as sufficient and certainly tighter than what he experienced in the workplace, even though, by traditional education standards, it seemed very loose indeed. Paul seemed to have empowered students in his class to take responsibility for the learning.
Case 2 was a two-teacher home economics program in a school of approximately
650 students in a town of 10,000. Again, the physical setting indicated
nothing out of the ordinary. In contrast to Paul's classroom, this one had
orderly rows of tables and chairs--a very traditional arrangement. As the
interview took place after school hours, student activity was not observed but
was discussed and is examined later in this report.
Both of the home economics teachers were interviewed simultaneously. This
turned out to be most appropriate because the two appeared to work in concert
most of the time. This case study, however, does not focus on the private
sector experience of the teachers, but on the way they complemented one another
and on their resourcefulness in gathering, developing, and/or adapting
instructional materials and other resources to make their teaching more
integrated and effective. For the sake of anonymity, they are referred to as
Cheryl and Diane. Cheryl was the lead teacher in the department, with twenty
years of experience. Diane, who had fourteen years of experience, had been a
free-lance artist and an art teacher before becoming a home economics
teacher.
Like Paul, Cheryl and Diane viewed vocational and academic integration as a
necessary function of their particular subject area and had been consciously
integrating their instruction for many years. Unlike Paul, they both were more
cognizant of and active in the broader "integration movement." It also
appeared that they had, in the past, held to a more traditional educator's view
of separate "vocational" and "academic" curricula and were more content-driven.
They sought out and received grants for integrated curriculum development, and
had attended several state and national conferences, both as members of the
audience and as presenters. In fact, it was this participation which appeared
to have been their initial impetus for finding and gathering curriculum
materials related to integration and adapting them for inclusion into their
program. Through this process they also found that some desired topics had not
been covered; therefore, they began to develop their own curriculum materials.
Therein lays the major difference between Cheryl and Diane's integration and
Paul's. While Paul's was more tied to instructional methodology, Cheryl and
Diane's was more a matter of curriculum development.
Cheryl and Diane began integrating to meet a specific need--lack of ability by
students to write coherently. Both were distressed by the spelling, grammar,
and sentence structure they were seeing in written work, so they began to
emphasize these skills more in their curricula. Some of their concerns with
weaknesses in their students came through contact with employers, something
both teachers viewed as important.
Cheryl and Diane emphasized the curricular aspects of integration as opposed
to teaching methods, particularly the development of integrated curricula.
Both women emphasized the importance of finding high-quality "canned" materials
and using them with as little modification as possible, due to the constraint
of time. As Cheryl put it, "High school education does not allow think time.
Four minutes between classes, we both are teaching six different preps a day .
. ." This lack of "think time" was what led them to begin writing for small
curriculum development grants. The grants allowed the district to buy some of
their time so that they were free to "think" and develop integrated materials
of their own.
Due to the curricular emphasis, Cheryl and Diane's integration seemed more
purposeful and straightforward, and perhaps a bit less natural, than Paul's.
The infusion of academics into various topics in the food science and marketing
areas was made plain to the students, who were told that they were performing a
certain mathematical operation (e.g., a mathematical operation that they must
be able to master in order to calculate nutrient content). The food science
course had been developed to the point that students received science credit
for it and could use it as a prerequisite for Biology 2 (instead of Biology 1).
It was interesting to note, however, that not many students chose this option.
Most of the students who took the food science course followed a home economics
sequence, while "college prep" students opted for Biology 1.
Cheryl had recently begun to cross-teach certain units with the biology
teacher in the nutrition area. They had coordinated their instructional
schedules so that complementary topics occurred more or less simultaneously.
Then they exchanged classes to do "short lectures" on specific topics. For
example, the biology teacher lectured both classes on the structure and
function of lipids and triglycerides, then Cheryl taught them about fat content
in the diet.
Another approach which was used frequently was simulation. Teams of students
set up companies which developed and marketed a product. The teams developed
business plans and product ideas, and then made formal marketing presentations
to school administrators seeking official permission to carry on with their
plan. In another scenario, students were teamed, placed on a "desert island,"
and given a certain number of days to develop an economy. In both instances,
students were totally responsible for both the learning process and the
outcomes. Students learned problem-solving, interpersonal, and communication
skills.
In addition to keeping up with current developments in the broader integration
movement, both teachers had made a practice of keeping in regular contact with
local employers. These contacts served several purposes such as recruiting
contacts for work-based learning sites and guest speakers and building
political support for the program. The major purpose related to integration
was to elucidate from employers what skills were needed to perform jobs in
their businesses.
Both Cheryl and Diane reported that the school administration was very
supportive of their activities. They reported that when they had reached out
to other teachers to pursue collaborative integration efforts, they had met
with mixed reactions. Cheryl and Diane were persistent, however, and both
reported very positive working relationships with and reactions from fellow
teachers, once the ice had been broken. It appears that the key ingredients
here were persistence along with a focused intent to do what was best for the
students whether or not it had popular support. Also, their willingness to
compete for grants and their subsequent success in winning them had given them
added incentive by providing much needed "think time" and had also helped
produce positive publicity for their programs and the school.
An important point, however, was that Cheryl and Diane would have done these
same things regardless of whether or not they received any support at all.
They both gave the very strong impression that once they locked onto something
which they felt was good for students, they went after it full speed, with or
without support. While they appreciated support, they did not require it to
carry on, nor were they daunted in the least by the lack of it.
Again, the evidence was of a rather squishy nature and seemed to deal more with students' enthusiasm and motivation to learn rather than achievement in any specific area. Diane reported that students responded enthusiastically to "being in charge" during the simulations. Their approach seemed to be popular with students, as both were teaching full class loads in a school of less than 700 students.
It was reported earlier that the administration was supportive of Cheryl and Diane's efforts to integrate. But why wouldn't they be? These two teachers had taken it upon themselves to provide the very best for their students, whatever it takes. They had, of their own volition, upgraded themselves professionally through extensive reading, inservice, contact with business and industry, contact with other teachers, and exhaustive search and review of curricular materials. They were secure and flexible enough to go outside of their own discipline if the need called for it. They had spent a considerable amount of their own money to purchase materials when the funds were not available. They had not hesitated to reach out to colleagues whenever they felt that collaboration would be beneficial to their students. In short, they appeared to embody the label, "consummate professional."
The primary purpose of this pilot study was to test and thereby refine
instruments and procedures for use in a multistate study of informal,
teacher-initiated vocational and academic integration to be conducted during
the second year of the project. In addition to testing instruments and
procedures, data gathered from Illinois teachers would comprise the initial
dataset for the larger study. The topic of integration has been studied rather
extensively in recent years, though the focus has typically been on schoolwide,
statewide, or national initiatives. This study, on the other hand, sought to
ferret out self-developed initiatives which otherwise go unnoticed beyond the
walls of the individual classroom. To do so required careful identification of
the subjects to be studied, thus the intent and purpose of this pilot
study.
Though intensive and time-consuming, the multiple-stage process used to
identify the pilot sites proved an effective means for identifying the
subjects. Personnel from the Illinois State Board of Education responded
promptly to the request to identify exemplary programs and/or teachers in each
vocational subject area, providing names, addresses, and telephone numbers of
the schools/programs and individuals. The telephone interviews with the
nominees were very time-consuming, often requiring two or more calls to set up
and complete the interviews. All respondents, however, were receptive to the
intent of the study and unfailingly cordial and thorough in the
interviews.
As a result of the interviews, the telephone interview instrument will be
modified slightly for the larger study. As a result of efforts to gather as
much information as possible upon which to base the decision whether or not to
examine the teacher more closely, it was found that the instrument lacked
sufficient focus. After analyzing the data from the interviews, it was decided
that selection for further study would be based primarily on the length of the
teacher's tenure and the number of years she or he had been integrating, along
with the nature of the integration. Several extraneous items were subsequently
removed from the final telephone interview instrument. For the expanded study,
and for future studies of this nature, it is highly recommended that sample
selection interview efforts be tightly focused on the specific variable(s) of
concern.
Another area which was solidified based on the pilot test was the degree of
structure of the on-site interviews. It was originally planned for the
interviews to be highly structured, but it was decided prior to the actual
interviews to audiotape the interviews as a safeguard against missing any
important information. This decision proved fortuitous. The interviewees,
with minimal prompting or probing, were very expansive in their descriptions of
their backgrounds and experiences with integration. Much of the flavor of the
results would have been lost in a more structured setting. Thus, it was
decided to audiotape all interviews, transcribe the tapes, and perform content
analysis on the transcripts.
The initial analysis of the tape transcripts was done by hand according to
preset organizers. Due to the time and difficulty encountered, a computerized
analysis tool is being examined for use in the larger study. Also, the
organizers were modified slightly based on the results of the
interviews.
In anticipation of the expanded study, the findings provide useful direction.
Based on the findings of this study, future research in this area should focus
on teaching methodologies used to foster integration. Every attempt should be
made to locate and examine individuals like Paul in Case 1. The approaches and
activities he employed to accomplish integration also facilitated
problem-solving and teaming abilities in his students. His classroom was truly
"different" in many respects and reflected much of the current writing on
application-based instruction and integration methods. It is these types of
experiences which can contribute more substantively to practice. Another
reason for increasing the focus of the selection process is Case 3, which was
not reported. Though the telephone interview gave this program the appearance
of being innovative, the on-site interview revealed that, while it was a solid
program, essentially nothing remotely extraordinary was happening in terms of
integration or innovative instruction. This again emphasizes the importance of
focusing the selection specifically on a few components or variables.
Bottoms, J. E., Presson, A., & Johnson, M. (1992). Making high schools
work. Atlanta: Southern Regional Education Board.
Grubb, W. N., Davis, G., Lum, J., Plihal, J., & Morgaine, C. (1991).
"The cunning hand, the cultured mind": Models for integrating vocational
and academic education (MDS-141). Berkeley: National Center for Research
in Vocational Education, University of California at Berkeley.
National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE). (1983). A nation at
risk: The imperative of educational reform. Washington, DC:
Author.
National Commission on Secondary Vocational Education (NCSVE). (1984). The
unfinished agenda. Columbus: National Center for Research in Vocational
Education, Ohio State University.
Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods.
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Roegge, C. A., Galloway, J. R., & Welge, J. A. (1991). Setting the
stage: A practitioner's guide to integrating vocational and academic
education. Springfield: Illinois State Board of Education, Department of
Adult, Vocational and Technical Education.
Schmidt, B. J., Finch, C. R., & Faulkner, S. L. (1992). Teachers'
roles in the integration of vocational and academic education (MDS-275).
Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of
California at Berkeley.
February 24, 1993
Kathleen Nicholson-Tosh, Manager
Secondary Programs and
Services
Department of Adult, Vocational and Technical Education
Illinois
State Board of Education
100 North First Street
Springfield, IL
62777
Dear Ms. Nicholson-Tosh:
The National Center for Research in Vocational Education has funded a research
project, under my direction, to examine "informal" integration of vocational
and academic education by secondary school teachers. The intent of the study
is to identify and describe classroom techniques used by vocational teachers to
incorporate academic content into their teaching. The study is currently being
piloted in Illinois and will encompass several midwestern states.
I write to ask your assistance in identifying pilot sites for us to study in
Illinois. Could you and/or appropriate staff members identify what you
consider to be the top 10 programs in Illinois in each of the areas of
Agriculture/Horticulture, Home Economics, Health Occupations, Business
Education, and Industrial/Technology Education? We will then conduct telephone
interviews with teachers in your recommended programs, and eventually select
2-3 teachers for in-depth on-site interviews. The only caveat I would make at
this time is to emphasize that we are looking for informal integration.
In other words, I am seeking teachers who integrate their instruction of their
own volition and not as part of a larger requirement or project such as a Tech
Prep initiative.
Either I or a member of my staff will follow up with you by telephone soon in
order to provide any clarification you may require and/or listen to any
suggestions you might have. I regret having to intrude on your already busy
schedule, but would greatly appreciate your assistance.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Best regards,
Chris A. Roegge
Assistant Professor and Project Director
NCRVE Integration Project
Site Selection Interview Guide
Name of Instructor:
_______________________________________________________
Name of School:
__________________________________________________________
Address & Telephone:
_____________________________________________________
Date Contacted: __________
Introduction:
Hello, my name is __________ and I am calling on behalf of Professor Chris
Roegge of the University of Illinois. You recently received a letter from the
Illinois State Board of Education explaining the research that Professor Roegge
is conducting for the National Center for Research in Vocational Education, and
that your program had been nominated as one of the ten best in Illinois. I
would like to take about ten minutes of your time to ask you for some more
information on how you integrate vocational and academic instruction.
We are interested in learning how teachers combine vocational and academic
content within their teaching. For example, a Home Economics or Agriculture
teacher may blend biology content into their lessons. We are particularly
interested in teachers who do this informally, that is, in the course of their
normal teaching rather than as part of a Tech Prep program or any other formal
activity.
1. Do you currently do anything like I have just described?
1a. If so, could you give me a brief description or example?
2. What are some examples of "academic" topics which you include in your
instruction?
3. Why did you choose to integrate your instruction?
4. How long have you been integrating your instruction?
5. What types of instructional materials do you use (commercial vs.
self-developed)? If they use self-developed materials, request an
example.
6. Have you received any recognition for your integrated teaching?
7. Who else (if anyone) in your school is doing anything similar to
this?
8. What differences have your use of these integrated methods made in your
students?
Additional Comments:
Initial Impressions:
Vocational and Academic Integration
On-Site Interview Guide
1. Date & Time:
__________________________________________________________
2. Vocational Program:
____________________________________________________
3. Interviewee Name:
_____________________________________________________
4. School Name & Location:
_______________________________________________
5. Interviewer:
___________________________________________________________
Directions
Mr./Mrs./Dr._______________________, the purpose of this research
project is to study teachers who have successfully integrated vocational and
academic subject matter in their own classes. Much has been made of more
complex integration projects and activities, but we feel that many worthwhile
individual integration activities have been overlooked. That is why we are
here. One of the major reasons you were chosen for this interview is that you
have indicated that you have been "integrating" in your teaching for ____
years. This obviously predates the "integration movement," therefore, we view
you as a pioneer in this area.
Above all else, we want you to speak your mind freely and without reservation.
With that in mind, I would like to assure that your responses will be kept
confidential. Would you mind if we recorded the interview?
With your permission, I'll turn on the recorder now.
First of all, I will ask you some general questions about vocational/academic
integration:
6. How aware are you of the so-called "integration movement?" Do you keep up
with the current writing on the subject? Do you consider yourself a part of
this "movement"?
7. What is your overall opinion of integration? Do you see it as good or bad?
What potential benefit does it have for (you/your students/your
program/vocational education in general)? What major problems do you see with
it?
8. How important is integration to instruction in your discipline? How much
integration do you feel is necessary in your discipline?
Briefly summarize respondent comments to this point.
Now, let's talk more specifically about your own experience with
integration.
9. Why have you attempted to integrate your courses? Can you recall any
specific person, event, or decision that initiated your integration?
10. Specifically, how do you integrate your own classes? (prompt for teaching
materials used, projects, and teaching methodology: What, Why, and
How)
Collect any materials available.
11. How do others impact on the way you integrate? How dependent are you on
others to facilitate your integration work?
a. administrators
b. other teachers
c. students
12. How has the integration movement affected what you do (e.g., recognition,
acceptance, invitations to inform others, and so on)?
13. What difficulties have you encountered along the way?
14. How well has your integration process worked? Can you provide examples of
specific student successes as an outcome of your integration process?
15. Right now, what do you most need to help you succeed with
integration?
16. Do you have anything else you would like to tell us?
Thank you very much. We would like to confirm some information about your
background and teaching experience.
17. Teaching Experience: _______ years 18. Administration: _______
years
19. Work Experience in Teaching Area: _______ years
20. Education (highest qualification):
_________________________________________
Many thanks for finding the time to talk to us. The information you have
provided will greatly assist in our understanding of teacher-initiated programs
that successfully integrate vocational and academic subject matter.
We have enjoyed talking with you.