More and more educators are learning about the power of integrated curriculum to better engage students and teach them how to apply academic knowledge and skill to problems in the workplace. However, as the popularity of student projects and other forms of integration grows, it is easy to forget that integration is simply a means to an end and not something to be done for its own sake.
Academic and industry skill standards can keep integration activities focused on clear, well-defined educational objectives. By insisting that integration specify the knowledge and skill that a particular activity is designed to teach, we can avoid projects that, while probably fun and even challenging, are not well linked to the current curriculum and may merely repeat subject matter that students have already learned.
For the past twelve months, MPR Associates, a site of NCRVE, has been conducting a series of workshops with states and localities teaching educators how to use academic and industry skill standards to develop integrated curriculum. The workshops use the national academic standards that have now been developed for math, science, English, history, and social studies, as well as the industry skill standards produced by the 22 projects sponsored by the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor. Where appropriate, state standards for both academics and selected industries are used as substitutes or supplements.
In a typical one-day workshop, we work with teams of academic and vocational teachers, as well as representatives of business and industry. Teams consist of six to ten members, usually focused on a particular industry and academic discipline. For example, we might construct a team of math and technology teachers using math and manufacturing standards to design an integrated project. In Maryland recently, just such a team was joined by a representative of a manufacturer of corrugated boxes, and the team designed a fascinating project that developed the mathematics of box making-- algebra, plane and solid geometry, and trigonometry.
Using MPR's guidelines, each team is given one academic standard and one industry skill standard and instructed to develop a project that will help students master these two objectives. The team is also expected to determine how they will assess whether students have in fact mastered these objectives when the project is complete.
Teachers working with these two standards created an exceptionally innovative project using a laundry detergent powder to simulate radioactive contamination throughout the high school. The detergent, which is visible under ultraviolet light, was lightly sprinkled in various places throughout the school as though spread by breeze, foot traffic, and hand contact with a wide range of surfaces. Students then used portable ultraviolet lights to locate the "contamination," collect the "radioactive" dust (a "dustbuster" works fine!), measure the concentration, and map the distribution throughout the school.
To aid with their analysis and understanding of how contamination occurs, its consequences, and strategies for containing it, students read a variety of texts. These included Madame Curie: A Biography, The Hot Zone, and The Andromeda Strain. Teachers also considered including the movie Outbreak to encourage students to generalize their work on radioactivity to properties of contamination in general.
Second, this kind of thoughtful interaction between academic and vocational/technical teachers, as well as industry representatives, can elevate substance and practice among both groups. The academic standards become more concrete and accessible to more students; the industry standards can be raised well beyond the entry-level focus that has typified most of these efforts to date. Moreover, academic and vocational teachers gain some new respect for each other's substantive domains and instructional practices. Both groups are essential to the success of this process; neither academic nor vocational teachers can accomplish successful, rigorous integration alone.
Third, this process of using standards as the foundation for discussion and guidance is a relatively fast, efficient way to pursue development of integrated curriculum. In no more than a day, these groups were able to design reasonably well-defined, targeted integration activities; get critical but constructive feedback from other workshop teams; and refine their projects for actual implementation in their schools. Such a process can be easily replicated in any school with an interested group of academic and vocational teachers and can lead rather quickly to rich scenarios that give students the opportunity to apply a wide range of academic knowledge and skill to work-based situations.
Integration's greatest strength-- the potential to connect learning to almost any kind of "real world" subject or activity--is also its greatest weakness. Able to link learning to anything, we can be tempted to make links to everything, or simply to make connections for their own sake. Academic and industry skill standards can help us keep explicit educational objectives clearly in mind and ensure that we are developing integrated activities, which by design, help students achieve the knowledge and skills we want them to master.
For more information on NCRVE's Getting to Work, workshops on using standards to design integrated curriculum, and the upcoming fall conference on "Reinventing the High School," contact Jane Sanborn at MPR Associates, (510) 849-4942; you can also visit us on the web at http://www.mprinc.com.
Gary Hoachlander is an NCRVE site director and president of MPR Associates, Inc.