Emerging Curriculum Strategies
Alaska: Crosswalking State Academic Standards to SCANS Skills
In
1993, Alaska developed content standards in ten core subject areas. These areas
include: English/language arts, mathematics, science, history, geography,
government and citizenship, skills for a healthy life, arts, world languages,
and technology. During 1994 and 1995, the Alaska State Board of Education
adopted standards in the ten core areas to 
serve as voluntary guidelines for Alaska's
schools. As part of its state-level technical assistance program to help
schools and districts in the implementation of the state's standards and the
development of integrated curriculum, the Alaska Department of Education staff
are in the process of developing "curriculum crosswalks" between the state's
academic standards to the employability skills identified by the Secretary's
Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS). These crosswalks will help
educators identify where Alaska skill standards are matching SCANS skills,
providing the basis for both developing curriculum content and assessments to
integrate subject matter or content specific skill standards with more general
employability standards.
Arkansas: Course Content Frameworks for Technical, Academic, and Workplace Standards
Over
the last several years, Arkansas has been in the process of developing a
taxonomy of workplace and academic skills which have been used as the basis for
detailed content standards in each of the state's vocational courses. Content standards are being developed for 167 courses in all of the state's vocational program areas. By providing detailed content standards that include technical, academic, and workplace 
standards, the "Curriculum Content Frameworks" give both academic and vocational instructors a clear road map of what is expected from students on a course by course basis. For example, Curriculum Content Frameworks for Family and Consumer Sciences Education have been developed in ten courses. One of the eleven units in the Food and Nutrition course is "Menu Planning." Content standards within each unit are organized on a grid under two broad headings: "Vocational and Technical Skills" and "Academic and Workplace Skills." To illustrate how the content standards are organized, the following table
reproduces two of the five standards within the Menu Planning unit (the numbers
refer to specific Arkansas content standards):
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Maine: Mapping State Academic Standards to Vocational Courses and Programs
In
conjunction with initiating the identification of industry skill standards for
vocational program areas in the state of Maine, the Department of Education's
Workforce Education Team will be "mapping" the state's academic standards or
"Learning Results" to all workforce education and related programs. The goal of
this process is to assist educators in identifying the academic skills that are
or can be embedded in the content of their courses. The Workforce 
Education team intends for the mapping process to be comprehensive and will include not only workforce education and the Maine Pre-Apprenticeship Program in the process, but all technology education courses, family and consumer sciences education courses, cooperative education programs, applied academics courses licensed by the Maine Tech Prep Consortium, and the Jobs for Maine's Graduates curriculum.
Nebraska:
Sharing Innovative School-to-Work Strategies
In
1997, Nebraska produced a document recognizing innovative activities taking
place in School-to-Work programs. The strategies in the document reflect the
efforts of schools and teachers to embed real-world relevance into the
educational programs of all students. The document is divided into three
sections: [1] school-based 
learning, [2] work-based learning, and [3] connecting activities. A contact for each activity is also provided. Under the school-based heading, activities are divided into assessment, courses/programs/units, career exploration, and curriculum design. Field trips, guest speakers, job shadowing, school-based enterprises, studios/laboratories, and work-site learning are described in the work-based learning section. Connecting activities include articulation, marketing and public relations, community service, and teacher internships/inservice. A form to submit innovative school-to-work strategies is also included at the end of the guide.
