Our development sites and their work will provide formative data, answers to the "what is it" "how to do it" questions, and a process for identifying additional issues and questions for further study. With this information, we can create and provide richly informed descriptions, evaluations, and strategies. Ultimately, development activities will create success stories that are exemplars of policy translation, and will develop a cadre of leading practitioners.
A particular focus of the development work is to provide NCRVE with opportunities to test, refine, clarify, and more deeply understand the reform principles and ideas advocated and mandated in 1990 Perkins Act and the 1994 School-to-Work Opportunities Act. The central points are (1) integration of vocational and academic curriculum, (2) combination of work-based with school-based learning, and (3) creation of links between secondary and postsecondary education.
We have established the following benchmarks to assess our success in meeting this purpose. Through development activities we will
To this end, researchers and practitioners play a variety of roles in the development of self-sustaining sites and the simultaneous study of reform. For researchers, this includes coaching, mentoring, planning, training, evaluating, and developing local infrastructure. For practitioners, in addition to actual innovation, the list includes defining questions and design, and documenting change through data collection or journal writing. Equally important to development is an iterative process, cycling repeatedly between design, implementation, testing the design efficacy, and then redesigning once again.
Four different types of development activities are funded:
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The purpose of this project is to identify, analyze, and synthesize information from several sources in order to develop new designs for two-year institutions of higher education. The new designs will deal with such important issues as learner outcomes, learning processes, organizational structures, approaches that encourage partnerships and collaboration, staffing patterns, and cost.
The deliverables will be an executive summary and final report describing the educational specifications and supporting rationale for new designs for two-year institutions of higher education. The executive summary and final report will be produced at the end of 1996.
The basic plan for dissemination will begin at the start of the project and continue through each phase given the nature of the process used and individuals collaboratively involved. A major effort will be made specifically to plan the dissemination of the new designs for two-year institutions of higher education widely and boldly across the country. While the primary market will be institutions of higher education with opportunities for major restructuring and renovation or new buildings, the designs will also have implications for institutions with more modest improvements in mind. Another market will be policymakers, state and national agencies and organizations, and national leaders influential in the design of two-year institutions of higher education.
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Over the past three decades, the occupational programs of community colleges and technical programs have increased and multiplied. The "mainstream" certificate and Associate programs have been joined by such initiatives as contract education, Tech Prep linkages with high schools, short-term job training programs, and "economic development" programs for firm-specific training. Reforms have been experimented with, including among others the integration of occupational and academic education, performance measures, school-to-work and work-based learning, TQM, student tracking and follow-up, and business partnerships.
These developments have produced a "workforce landscape"--a complex of programs and initiatives--that is often difficult to understand, even for community colleges themselves. Programs often don't communicate with one another, the varying purposes for students enrolling in various programs is difficult to surmise, and the effects of all this activity are sometimes unclear.
Because knowing what the workforce landscape looks like is difficult in many community colleges and technical institutes, institutions often have difficulty in responding to these different pressures, in setting priorities, or in taking legislative initiative in their states. To remedy this, as part of a joint effort among NCRVE, the League for Innovation in the Community College, and the National Council on Occupational Education, this project, in its second year, will "map" the workforce landscape at up to eight community colleges and technical institutes in order to describe the changing pressures for states and federal governments and from employers, and to clarify the alternative directions community colleges might take. While this small number of community colleges is too few to be representative of the many institutions, states, and local labor markets across the country, we anticipate that this kind of analysis could lead to more general surveys of community colleges in the future, once we know the right kinds of questions to ask.
Mapping the Workforce Landscape
The initial phase of the study will seek to draw as comprehensive a picture as possible of the variety of workforce programs being offered in particular community colleges. Data will be collected about every occupational and workforce program in the small sample of community colleges, including such information as enrollment, completion, student intentions, and student follow-up data. The fiscal incentives, enrollment trends, labor market conditions, institutional imperatives, and other causes of the programs' patterns will also be examined. In order to see how colleges know what they are doing and how readily they can respond to various demands for accountability, the extent of institutional research will also be detailed.
Examining External Pressures
A second stage will gather information about those forces which are now changing the provision of occupational education of all kinds. An attempt will be made to amass information of several different kinds, and from several different sources. This process will include interviews with state-level officials about state trends, an examination of state responses to consolidation of federal funds, an analysis of enrollment and labor market trends, interviews with college administrators about local pressures and politics, and interviews with local business representatives about labor market patterns.
A Collaborative Research Approach
This research stage will ideally be carried out as a collaborative process. The institutional research office, dean of occupational education, and other interested individuals at the institutions selected will collect much of the local information, guided by protocols developed by the Berkeley staff. Berkeley staff will conduct those interviews that might be biased if carried out by institutional researchers (e.g., interviews with local employees and state officials). The goal will be to combine information available only to those working within particular community colleges with information more easily collected by "outsiders."
Interpreting the Results (Deliverables)
A crucial step in this project will be interpreting the information collected and clarifying its implications for the future development of occupational preparation in community colleges. This stage will initially involve the researchers and administrators at the specific local colleges, and then the advisory committees from NCRVE and the League.
A monograph will be published jointly by NCRVE, the League, and NCOE. Other articles and shorter summaries also are anticipated.
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The purpose of this project is to deepen and intensify NCRVE's relationship with schools and institutions around the country engaged in the implementation of integration in (1) vocational and academic education, (2) classroom-based and work-based learning, and (3) secondary and postsecondary institutions. Building upon the efforts of the Urban Schools Network, we will (1) expand our teams to deepen the capacity of the entire school and district, (2) intensify our assistance to schools through field consultants and cross-team work, (3) unite our efforts with other organizations to better assist the teams, and (4) make better use of performance data to document school progress and create a culture of continual learning and improvement.
This project will have several deliverables. In addition to reports from each Urban Schools Network site, there will be three briefings within NCRVE publications about our lessons from network schools. Briefing examples include the development of products that provide blueprints for action; provide a firsthand view of workable models of reform; organize exemplary communities as a clear and forceful voice in policy; or integrate study communities into all aspects of NCRVE advocacy, further research, or technical assistance. Briefings will prepare the field and inform policy of central design elements and expansion strategies, provide detailed profiles of key features and change strategies of study sites, function as "how to" guides on design, or report on research findings to add to the NCRVE data bank on strategies that work. We need deliverables that effectively convey the rich body of information and results discovered in these schools. There will also be an end-of-year report that links both summative and formative data about the Urban Schools Network. This document can form the basis of a proposal to secure more funds, market our successes, and redesign our efforts for the following year.
Dissemination of information regarding the Urban Schools Network will be a major responsibility of this staff. The primary avenues for dissemination of information will be direct mailing; the Center newsletter; and Urban Update, the Network newsletter.
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The NCPQ seeks to build a curriculum service system through the development and advancement of three key objectives: (1) to demonstrate and evaluate standards for quality curriculum products designed for secondary and postsecondary school-to-work programs; (2) to identify, review, and disseminate information on quality curriculum products through extensive curriculum reviews and product profiles that detail quality curriculum and its implementation in the field; and (3) to provide technical assistance to the field that emphasizes curriculum enhancement through the utilization of the NCPQ Standards, cutting-edge integration strategies, and concepts of authentic pedagogy.
Deliverables
The deliverables available within the fourth year of the project include the following:
Individual Presentations/Workshops--American Vocational Association; American Vocational Education Research Association; Vocational Instructional Materials Section (AVA); Midwest Leadership Conference; Urban Schools Network (NCRVE); and Work Now and in the Future Conference.
Technical Assistance Activities/Inservice--as requested by local, state, and national school-to-work administrators and staff. Activities will be dictated by budget and time constraints.
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The importance of student exposure to all aspects of the industry (AAI) has been clearly emphasized in the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Act of 1990. This legislation provides educators with opportunities to design and implement AAI curricula. Unfortunately, even though AAI has evolved from a rich historical and conceptual base, many educators have been reluctant to incorporate AAI into their schools. To some degree, this difficulty is being addressed by the All Aspects of the Industry Coalition Project funded by the Joyce Foundation. The AAI Coalition Project objectives include documenting and clarifying models in use to implement AAI; preparing a resource guide that informs teachers, administrators, and policymakers about industry work; and conducting workshops and disseminating findings.
The present activity builds directly on the AAI Coalition Project. Drawing from the AAI implementation models and industry work guide produced by the coalition, this project will focus on three areas: (1) identifying curriculum practices and processes that focus on AAI in the long term (two to four years); (2) preparing a practitioner guide that describes these long-term curriculum practices and processes, the ways they are utilized, and under what conditions they have the potential to be most effective; and (3) assisting educators at selected school sites in the implementation of long-term AAI curricula. Information about AAI curricula will be gathered via interviews with educators at selected locations around the United States where AAI long-term curricula are operational.
The analyses we complete will ultimately evolve into a practitioner guide. The guide will describe what we have learned in the identification of long-term AAI curricula that are of value to those who intend to implement AAI in their schools. The guide content will include ways that AAI curriculum content may be identified and organized and sequenced in meaningful ways. Once the guide has been prepared in prototype form, it will be field tested in conjunction with our AAI curriculum assistance activities. To accomplish this we will identify three to four school sites that are ready to implement AAI curricula. If possible, these sites will be located reasonably close to the Virginia Tech site to reduce travel and time costs. In the selection of curriculum sites, consideration will be given to collaborating with a school group or consortium such as the Southern Regional Education Board's High Schools That Work consortium. During our visits, we will provide educators with assistance in a variety of AAI implementation tasks ranging from determining AAI curriculum content and sequence to helping teachers decide how they can incorporate AAI in their teaching.
Project outcomes will be disseminated in two different ways. At the conclusion of 1996, the prototype practitioner guide will be revised based on field test results and made available for purchase through the NCRVE Materials Distribution Service. Further dissemination of the guide will take place as part of the curriculum assistance activities. Additional dissemination will be conducted through presentations at national conferences (e.g., American Vocational Association and American Educational Research Association) and through the preparation of project-related manuscripts for submission to popular and refereed journals.
In terms of intended audiences, the practitioner guide will be of primary value to teachers of vocational and academic subjects in high schools and technical and community colleges. However, it will also be useful to administrators, curriculum developers, and others who are responsible for implementing AAI in their schools.
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This project is designed to work with two groups of urban educators--those who have successfully accomplished transforming/reforming their comprehensive secondary schools and those in the early stages of reformation. In 1995, a multisite qualitative case study of four urban comprehensive high schools was conducted. All of these schools have included vocational and technical education in successful reform efforts and are all members of NCRVE's Urban Schools Network.
Each step of this project is guided by a steering committee made up of researchers who focus on urban education issues and practitioners from urban schools. The steering committee conducted three telephone meetings during 1995 along with one fly-in meeting held in August of 1995. It is anticipated that a similar schedule will be maintained during 1996.
A monograph describing the case studies will be submitted to the Center by the end of February 1996 for publication. Additionally, a literature review detailing educational reform efforts involving vocational education and qualitative research methodology, entitled Case Studies of Successful Urban Schools: A Prelude, will also be submitted to the Center for publication at that time.
During 1996, the project will focus on completing the third and fourth major deliverables. The third deliverable, also an NCRVE monograph, will be a cross-site analysis of themes that appear to exist in each of the initial four case study sites. In addition, papers on the identified themes will be submitted for presentation at national conferences such as the AVA annual convention or the AERA annual conference.
A draft copy of the fourth major deliverable will also be completed during 1996. This deliverable will be a developmental handbook that we envision will address the needs of practitioners interested in developing, implementing, and evaluating educational reform initiatives in urban comprehensive high schools. This draft document will be utilized by approximately three other members of NCRVE's Urban Schools Network as a guide to implementing educational reform efforts. We anticipate the final copy of this document to be published during 1997.
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Traditional teacher training and staff development practices pose a barrier to widespread adoption of classroom design principles and teaching practices defined by classrooms that impart generic skills and attitudes. Training and staff development activities leave many teachers largely unprepared to experiment with mixing subject-specific and generic skills, designing situated learning activities, or taking on innovative flexible teacher roles. As a result, new teachers and experienced teachers rarely acquire the skills and worksite experiences they need to design classrooms that offer the perspective of a modern and high-skill workplace. The proposed project asks the question, What methods might practitioners use to assess and communicate about workplace skills? Building on previous work on learning and teaching generic skills for the workplace and our current study of skills and attitude requirements for work, the investigators propose a one-year follow-up development project to design and conduct a mini-sabbatical for high school teachers and teacher trainers. The proposed project involves redesigning our research tools for use by practitioners, conducting the mini-sabbatical, and evaluating the mini-sabbatical. The purpose of the project is twofold: (1) teachers need practical tools to introduce workplace skills into the classroom; and (2) deeper inquiry into vocational-academic integration and school-to-work initiatives is needed as these reforms catch hold.
The primary deliverable is a guide for practitioners and trainers. We will also produce a report aimed toward researchers and policymakers. Other anticipated dissemination activities include presentations at national meetings hosted by American Vocational Association, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, American Vocational Education Research Association, and American Educational Research Association. In addition, we will introduce the materials in NCRVE workshops held for its Urban Schools Network and other groups.
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This project will develop a set of training materials for dissemination nationwide. The scope and timing of work for this project has changed somewhat since the original proposal was written. The 1996 deliverables will include (1) a participant's workbook, (2) one train-the-trainer's workshop, and (3) a trainer's manual. Rather than waiting until the end of 1996 to deliver the participant's workbook, the workbook will be completed by June 1, 1996. This will allow project staff to use the completed workbook during the summer train-the-trainer workshop. The trainer's manual will be completed by December 31, 1996.