| Bailey, T., & Merritt, D. (1997). School-to-work for the college bound (MDS-799). Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California. |
A good deal of the skepticism of school-to-work is a result of misconceptions about its characteristics. School-to-work has three basic elements. The first is referred to as "learner centered" or "authentic" teaching. The second is guided educational experiences outside the traditional classroom in the surrounding community and particularly the workplace. And the third is a structured approach to help young people begin to form ideas about their interests, to think about the work that they would like to do, and to understand how they can achieve their aspirations.[9] Each of these elements will be discussed in more detail below.
Over the last decade, school reformers have advocated a shift from a "teacher-centered" pedagogy, in which the teacher transmits information to the student, toward a "learner-centered" approach in which the student is much more actively engaged in learning and in the discovery or "construction" of their own knowledge. This is referred to as "constructivism" or "authentic" teaching and has been made popular in particular by the Coalition of Essential Schools. In a recent report published by the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools, Fred Newmann and Gary Wehlage (1995) argue that authentic pedagogy "emphasizes teaching that requires students to think, to develop in-depth understanding, and to apply academic learning to important, realistic problems" (p3). Linda Darling-Hammond, the Co-Director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST), contends that teachers are "focusing on more challenging and exciting kinds of learning, helping students to actively construct, use, and generate their own knowledge . . . They are creating communities of learners engaged in research and reciprocal teaching that empower students to seek their own answers and to pose their own questions. And they are finding new ways to reach diverse learners more effectively, developing personalized structures and adaptive teaching strategies to support their success" (1996 AERA Presidential address). In practice, authentic teaching often involves long-term projects, usually done in groups, about difficult issues that require some complex written, symbolic, or oral final presentation.
Newmann and Wehlage (1995) state that authentic learning involves the three components described below:
In the literature on education reform, there are now many examples of authentic learning. Students design a roller coaster after a visit to an amusement park and discover that the ride they wanted to build would not be safe; teams of students representing loyalists, federalists, plantation owners and other stakeholders draft their own constitutions followed by debates among the teams about the changes that each team has proposed in the original constitution; students working in teams have six weeks to complete a contemporary interior design for an historic Victorian house (Newmann and Wehlage 1995, Berryman and Bailey 1992, Stasz et al .1993, Darling-Hammond 1995).
Although there are wide-ranging benefits to authentic teaching, this approach is not free of controversies and disagreements regarding teaching styles and content coverage; for example: "if we spend a month arguing over the Constitution, we will never get a chance to discuss the Civil War." It takes a great deal of time for students to "construct" their own knowledge, and it is difficult to know and evaluate exactly what it is that they will construct. Anderson, Reder, and Simon (1996) argue that much knowledge can be taught more efficiently using more traditional methods rather than in "complex learning situations." Hunt (1995) points out many practical problems associated with planning a curriculum based on the project approach. But these critics tend to argue against the most ambitious claims of education reformers, not the basic principles. In most cases they agree that a more modest constructivist pedagogy, often making use of project-based learning, does have an important place in education even if it must also coexist with more traditional approaches.
Thus, the learner-centered approach to teaching is now widely, although not universally, accepted as at least a desirable objective and is not seen as being in conflict with learning academic skills. For example, it plays an integral part in New York State's New Compact for Learning that addresses curriculum and teaching strategies for all students throughout the state. Moreover, there is no conflict between authentic teaching and school-to-work. Indeed, the arguments in favor of authentic teaching particularly support the school-to-work approach. For example, New York's Career Development and Occupational Studies Framework (part of the New Compact) is seen as "both supporting the preceding six (academic) frameworks and being a delivery system for them" (The University of the State of New York 1995, piii).[10]
The second central element of school-to-work is guided educational experiences outside the classroom, in the community, and particularly in the workplace. The best-known approach to this involves internships or apprenticeships in which students spend some time employed at a worksite. To carry this out, program operators must find placements for their students, which is often difficult (Bailey 1995). Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize the wide variety of possibilities that exist. The programs that demand the most of employers are youth apprenticeships in which students spend most of their time on the job with some related classroom instruction. While this is the German model that indeed inspired much of the early experimentation with school-to-work, there are very few youth apprenticeship programs in the U.S., and the vast majority of the current projects funded under the School-to-Work Opportunities Act are much less intensive. Most often students receive organized and guided work experience in short-term internships that meet a few hours a week during the junior or senior years, or in some cases alternate periods of full-time work with periods of full-time school. In some programs students have a variety of three- or four-week rotations in different worksites or departments. In addition, there are experiences that require even less of employers including job shadowing, mentoring relationships with adults, community service activities, school-based enterprises, and in-school simulations of work experiences. One interesting approach includes attempts to enhance the educational value of the jobs that many young people already have. This involves using seminars and other in-school activities to analyze and reflect on situations and experiences that students encounter at work or in other activities. Some high schools end the senior year early in the spring and send students out to internships.[11]
One of the most common approaches, especially in large cities, is the development of high schools based on occupational or industry themes. New York City has high schools organized around health occupations, aviation, financial and business services, and many others (Heebner, et al. 1992). In smaller communities industry- oriented programs are often organized as schools-within-schools. Philadelphia and areas in California have established career academies that combine academic content with the technical skills necessary to obtain entry into certain industries or clusters of occupations. To be sure, students often hope to find work in these areas after high school, or at least during college, but educators who organize these programs believe that the industry orientation provides a context and coherence to the curriculum and stronger connections to the world outside the classroom. Learning benefits accrue to all students, not just those seeking employment upon high school graduation (Stern, Raby, and Dayton 1992; Tsuzuki 1995; Katz et al. 1995). At its best, workplace experiences can provide the setting for addressing authentic problems and a clear connection to "value outside the classroom," as Newmann and Wehlage (1995) put it. Using the workplace to teach academic skills can also be a motivational tool for students, showing them how their academic skills can be used outside of the classroom.
The importance of experience outside the classroom is incorporated into New York State's New Compact for Learning. The curriculum required to engage students in this integrated learning process includes hands-on opportunities to learn about the relationships between academic knowledge and technical skills as well as time to report upon and/or demonstrate what has been learned and how it can be applied to other situations. The authors of the compact argue that the "ability to make connections with and across disciplines and between school tasks and real-life tasks is an essential skill to manage one's personal and professional life effectively." Achieving the integrated-learning standard, one of the three standards set forth under New York's New Compact for Learning, and an integral part of its framework, requires that "students will understand and demonstrate how academic content is applied to real-world and workplace settings" (The University of the State of New York 1995, pp. 4, 15).
Packer and Pines (1996) argue that many traditional educational practices focus on contrived applications of academic material that are never encountered in the workplace. The use of more realistic workplace applications will result in better, more prepared learners and workers. This is particularly true of traditional applications in mathematics and science. Both the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science are encouraging the integration of examples of workplace problem-solving into the academic standards they have established.[12] More and more individuals are beginning to understand the natural applications in the world of work for academic curriculum. Although more data need to be collected on the learning outcomes of using an applied approach to teaching, many are starting to see that this connection strengthens the amount of knowledge that is learned, understood and retained (Packer and Pines 1996).
Susan Forman and Lynn Steen (1995), the Director of Postsecondary Programs and the Executive Director of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board, argue that "mathematics in school should closely resemble mathematics at work," and that "mathematics required for work can provide strong preparation for college" (p221). Work-oriented mathematics is more consistent with current innovative approaches to mathematics teaching.
Mathematics at work in ordinary contexts typically involves real data with realistic measurements expressed in common units. The technical skills required to deal with these data are relatively elementary--measurement, arithmetic, geometry, formulas, simple trigonometry. The problem solving strategies, however, often require a cognitive sophistication that few students acquire from current school mathematics: planning and executing a multi step strategy; consideration of tolerances and variability; anticipation and estimation of relevant factors not immediately evident in the data; and careful checking to assure accuracy (p221).
In comparing the roles of school-based and workplace learning in the acquisition of knowledge, Scribner and Sachs (1988) investigated the non-formal educational activities embedded in work practices. They found suggestive evidence that both formal study and practical work experience make educational contributions and in some cases actually function equivalently in preparing individuals for certain aspects of work performance. Their study, although not conclusive, went "a great distance toward showing that, without higher education or extensive training, people can achieve conceptual understanding on the job" (p50). In their observations of both formal and informal training activities in the stockroom of an electronics firm, Scribner and Sachs illustrate how the larger social world of the organization and the complexity of the industrial setting actually "require workers to operate within a number of knowledge and practice domains . . . (and) . . . furnish an unplanned yet crucial way for workers to learn to be workers and to master the non-routine, beyond-the-ordinary aspects of their jobs" (p53). Although school-to-work advocates do not call for work experiences without coordinated classroom work, the research by Scribner and Sachs suggests the potential for using work-based pedagogy to teach even theoretical and conceptual material. Nonetheless, the authors do warn of the limitations of training that is not designed to fulfill one of the basic educational goals of maximizing human development.
Work-based education has a long history in the United States. Programs such as cooperative education were first recognized by federal authority in 1917 in the Smith-Hughes Act. A Government Accounting Office survey of state directors of cooperative education in 1989/90 estimated "about 430,000" students were involved in some form of high school cooperative education program nationwide (Stern et. al. 1995, Chapter 2). In addition, over 200,000 people are enrolled in construction and other types of registered apprenticeships, a form of guided work experience which has existed since the medieval guilds. These apprentices are often in their late 20s and many are even college graduates (Bailey 1993). But neither cooperative education nor apprenticeship is perceived to be effective in teaching academic material or preparing students for college.
The same cannot be said for guided workplace experiences that come through professional education programs. Internships, guided practicum, and various types of work experience are central components of education for most professions. Indeed, these components "blend" together to form the "complex relationship between student, teacher and curriculum content that identifies formal professional education" (Schein 1972, p98). Educators do not question the premise that an education which combines school and guided work can provide a deep and broad understanding for lawyers, doctors and medical workers at all levels, teachers, architects, and professors. Indeed no one would recommend a doctor who had no practical experience even if he/she had earned A's in biology, organic chemistry, and anatomy. When we want someone to be an effective practitioner--that is, to put knowledge to use--we do not question the need for appropriate experience, yet many fear that work experience for high school students threatens their education. Furthermore, most people have fully accepted the structure established under professional education, which places an equal value on self-paced, independent and concentrated study; small-group and seminar-tutorial methods; project or problem-centered study; practicum or clinical experience; work-study programs; off-campus study; co-op programs; and internships (Schein 1972).
The third component of the school-to-work approach involves systematic exploration of student interests and possible career goals. The purpose of career exploration is not to force high school students to make irrevocable choices about future occupations. Career exploration should give young people a chance to think systematically about what might interest them and, just as important, give them more realistic information about what adults do. Young people have misconceptions about adult work and what is necessary to be able to achieve occupational or other goals. Internships and other types of experiences can help students gain a more realistic understanding of the world outside the classroom. On the job, students can see first-hand what adults are doing and can often decide that some particular activity is or is not for them. Field trips, class visits from outsiders, and research projects can also be useful. These types of activities can start before high school. With respect to college, students with some sense of their goals can make a better selection of their postsecondary activities and probably make better use of their time in college. This conclusion is supported by evidence from a study of New York City career magnet schools, which shows that graduates of the program had completed more college courses two years after graduation than similar graduates from traditional comprehensive schools. (These results are discussed in more detail below.)
In high schools, for the most part, students pursue their interests and passions outside of the classroom--on the athletic field, in their churches and communities, in the drama club, and in other extracurricular or personal activities. A key aspect of the school-to-work model is that it is designed to use those interests to promote academic learning, to integrate student aspirations into the academic pedagogy. For this to work, it is important that students get a chance to explore and reflect on their interests.
One advantage of the current school-to-work movement is that it offers an opportunity and an incentive to improve and focus the counseling and career exploration functions. Indeed, significant changes will need to be made if school-to-work is to achieve its potential. Belinda McCharen (1995) points out that "a great deal of confusion as to what constitutes a comprehensive career guidance program continues to exist today among policy makers, school administrators, and practicing school counselors." Guidance counselors face an increasingly challenging environment as the ratio of student to counselor increases and students bring in more social and economic problems. In addition, school counselors usually have little first-hand experience in the world of work--a world to which they are attempting to expose their students. To minimize these problems, some schools have successfully expanded the guidance program into the school as a whole using teachers as advisors (McCharen 1995). This approach, in addition to being logical, offers the possibility of better career counseling since teachers not only know more of the career details but have more contact with the students than do counselors. There are, however, problems with giving already overburdened teachers more responsibility.
[9] These three elements differ somewhat from the framework initially endorsed under the School-to-Work Opportunity Act of 1994. The Act was focused on three more structural components: work-based learning, school-based learning, and connecting activities. In the Act's formulation, career guidance is considered a connecting activity. We have not emphasized these three because they are not particularly relevant to preparation for college. For a review of school-to-work concepts and models see Bailey 1995; Katz et al. 1995; Stern, et al. 1995; Office of Technology Assessment 1995; Pauly, Kopp, and Haimson 1994; and Tsuzuki 1995.
[10] The Framework applies to all students; is not directed toward a specific subject area or particular group of students; and includes standards, performance indicators, and performance tasks that cut across all disciplines and are consistent with the Board of Regents Goals for Elementary, Middle, and Secondary School Students.
[11] See Stern, et al. 1995 for descriptions of alternative models.
[12] For example, one of the five student goals established by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is "becoming a mathematical problem solver." This means that "the development of each student's ability to solve problems is essential if he or she is to be a productive citizen" (NCTM 1989, p6). One of the standards developed by the National Research Council in their science standards is "science as inquiry" where students "experience science in a form that engages them in the active construction of ideas and explanations and enhances their opportunities to develop the abilities of doing science" (National Research Council 1996, p121).
| Bailey, T., & Merritt, D. (1997). School-to-work for the college bound (MDS-799). Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California. |