What Are Essential Attributes to Quality School-to-Work Curriculum Materials?
The NCPQ Offers Identified Curricular Attributes and a Contextual Curriculum Design
Work in Progress at the University of Wisconsin
Barbara Dougherty and Margaret Ellibee
What are essential attributes of quality school-to-work curriculum materials? What makes a good school-to-work curriculum? Questions like these have been posed increasingly by educators, especially those practitioners in the throes of school-to-work implementation activities.
As a project of the NCRVE and the Center on Education and Work at the University of Wisconsin -Madison, the National Consortium for Product Quality (NCPQ) provides educators with a focus on school-to-work (STW) curriculum review and design. The NCPQ has defined standards which focus on benchmarks or attributes of quality school-to-work curriculums. These standards will be helpful to educators with questions about curriculum design and content.
The NCPQ standards and indicators have been categorized as curriculum content, instructional strategies, student assessment. Embedded within the three standards are equity and diversity considerations. The work of the NCPQ has been predicated on the need to identify and adopt standards for STW curriculum material based upon educators' desire to:
- ensure curriculum quality
- indicate goals pertaining to both curricula content and pedagogy
- and enhance the integration of academic and vocational education.
Recent project activity focused on the identified attributes of quality curriculums and their relationship to a school-to work curriculum design.
Attributes of Quality Curriculum: The Views and Voices of the Field
In support of the establishment of the NCPQ Standards, project staff recently undertook a study that looked at the fields' understanding of quality STW curriculums. The voices of school-to-work practitioners (i.e, administrators, instructors, and students) concerning their perspectives on what constitutes specific quality curriculum attributes within those contexts has often been omitted from curriculum discussions. Accordingly, as staff designed the NCPQ study, the focus of the work was premised on two basic questions:
- from a practitioner perspective what are the essential attributes of quality school-to-work curriculums
- how do these attributes interface with content, instruction, student assessment, and equity and diversity?
From the practitioners. discussions regarding the posed questions, instructors and students communicated attributes essential to quality school-to-work curriculums at both the program and classroom level. The attributes were then grouped according to three NCPQ Standards. Some of the specific attributes include:
Content:
- Personal Skills and Issues Relevant to Students (i.e., values,
ethics, and problem solving).
- Integration of Academic and Occupational Skills.
- High Order Thinking Skills.
- Career Education Concepts.
Instructional Strategies:
- Generating High Student Expectations
- Student Centered Focus
- Applied or Hands-On Learning Activities
- Utilization of Technology
Student Assessment:
- Individual Student Assessments
- Group Assessments
- Performance Assessments
- Practice Skill Assessments
These attributes can be used to inform the evaluation and design of curriculum. A holistic curriculum requires a theoretical context, including:
- an enhanced learning climate
- collective participation in curriculum activities
- a systematic structural approach to achieving the goals of school-to-work curriculum, instruction, and student assessment.
Just as the desired attributes can help inform building a theoretical context, said theory in turn, provides a framework for designing future STW curriculum with appropriate attributes.
Future Directions for STW Curriculum Attributes
Without a sound curriculum how do programs approach the development of school-to-work content, related instructional strategies, and student assessment? Looking toward the future, what are the evolving attributes for instructional materials used by local partnerships implementing school-to-work initiatives? In this light, without curriculum attributes being identified, the national education goals and skill standards currently being posited by federal policy have limited prospects for affecting student learning experiences at the program and classroom levels. By identifying the quality attributes for school-to-work curriculums, instructional products can more effectively develop a positive interface between curriculum design, content, pedagogy, and student assessment. Envisioning a successful interface and connection is critical for the beneficiaries of school-to-work programs: the learners who will live and work in a highly complex, interdependent, global society.
NCPQ Continuation Activities
NCPQ activities planned for the upcoming year include a study of nationally reviewed curriculum products. The study will examine how instructors implement and adapt curriculum materials that have been disseminated on a national basis. Perspectives from students, administers, curriculum coordinators, and curriculum committee members will be sought on the curriculums* intended design, suggested pedagogy, and learning impact.
Field testing of the NCPQ Curriculum Reviewers Manual and Training Packet will continue through the end of 1995. The NCPQ will also continue reviewing submitted curriculum materials and disseminating product profiles on those reviewed materials. If you are interested in submitting materials for review, please contact the NCPQ office.
For additional information, please contact:
Barbara Dougherty, Senior Outreach Specialist
Margaret Ellibee, Outreach Specialist
The Center on Education and Work
University of Wisconsin-Madison
964 Educational Sciences Building
1025 W. Johnson St.
Madison, WI 53706-1796
Phone: 1-800-446-0399
e-mail: bdougherty%cew@soemadison.wisc.edu
mellibee%cew@soemadison.wisc.edu
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