The purpose of this pilot study was to develop and refine methods for exploring individual teacher initiatives regarding the implementation of classroom integration strategies. This purpose was accomplished by using instruments and procedures to interview a small sample of teachers in Illinois. The remainder of this section reports the findings of the pilot study.
A list of 49 teachers was obtained from the Illinois State Board of Education. Forty-six interviews were completed. Table 1 shows the summary of the results from the interviews.
Table 1
Summary of Results from Telephone Interviews with Illinois Teachers
| Vocational Program |
Number of Schools Contacted |
Number of Interviews Held |
Teacher- Initiated Integration |
Tech Prep or Other Formal Program |
0-2 years Integration Experience |
3-4 years Integration Experience |
5-10 years Integration Experience | >10 years Integration Experience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture | 10 | 10 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Business | 10 | 10 | 7 | 2 | - | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| Health | 10 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 | - | 3 |
| Home Economics | 10 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 2 | - | 3 |
| Industrial | 9 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Total | 49 | 46 | 27 | 17 | 8 | 14 | 9 | 13 |
Twenty teachers indicated that their integration activities were
self-initiated. However, it was observed that nearly all of the business
teachers who integrated in their teaching did so because of the structure of
their programs. For example, written and oral communication skills are an
inherent part of job search skills instruction (e.g., application and
résumé writing, interviewing). Computational skills are a
necessary component of accounting. A typical response from a business
instructor on why he or she initiated integration was that it was "just part of
the coursework. . . ." This implied that the business education curriculum was
inherently integrated and that no purposeful innovation (particularly one that
centered on instruction) had taken place to initiate or improve
integration.
Nearly half of the nominated teachers had been integrating for four years or
less, mostly as part of Tech Prep or because of its influence. Seventeen
teachers indicated that their programs were part of the Tech Prep initiative.
Some teachers, however, indicated that even though their programs were now part
of Tech Prep, they had been integrating vocational and academic content in
their instruction prior to the emergence or influence of Tech Prep.
Thirteen teachers had more than ten years experience with vocational and
academic integration, with one teacher claiming to have been integrating for
twenty and another for twenty-four years respectively. Teachers cited various
reasons for initiating integration in their instruction. There did not seem to
be one universal reason for initiating integration.
The following are quoted examples of reasons given by teachers who had been
using vocational and academic integration strategies for a long time. Shown in
parentheses is the number of years the teacher had been integrating:
Teachers in business (and to a lesser extent in agriculture) seem to have been using integration in their instruction as a requirement of their courses. Agriculture teachers stated that using biology content is a necessary component of their instruction, while business teachers included math and communication as part of their instruction without considering this process as unique or as innovative teaching. However, in programs such as home economics, technology, and health occupations, teachers needed to make a deliberate effort to introduce academic subject content in their instruction. In these disciplines, skill components appear to have traditionally been taught separately.
Of the three interviews conducted, two are reported here. They are labeled "Real-World Experience" and "Whatever It Takes," respectively, to denote the central theme embodied by each. The two are reported in narrative style and include the following sections: Background, Overall View of Integration, How Integration Was Accomplished, Support for Integration, Evidence of Success, and Summary.
The setting was most unremarkable. The industrial education program was
housed on the ground floor of an older, multiple-story school building on the
main thoroughfare through the town (of about 8,500 citizens). Upon entering
the room, the immediate impression was one of a sense of disorganization.
Tables were arranged in a loose circle in the center of the room, and the walls
were bordered with cabinets and shelves piled high with reference manuals and
equipment in various states of disassembly. An adjoining room was overflowing
with used electronic components salvaged by the teacher. There was a quiet
buzz of activity as students moved about working on projects. The atmosphere
was very informal and seemingly unstructured.
The primary focus of this case was the teacher, who for the sake of anonymity
is referred to as Paul. Paul was a unique individual who appeared to have
"done it all" in his life. He spent twenty years in private industry as an
electrician, aerospace technician, electrical contractor, surveyor, and
business consultant. He has been both an employer and an employee. In the
early 1980s, he began teaching technical courses part-time at a nearby state
university. While he was teaching, he also earned a Master's degree in
Vocational/Technical Education and applied for a position as a teacher of
industrial education at the local high school, a position which he held for
fifteen years. He also continued to operate an independent consulting
business, and on weekends he taught other secondary teachers how to implement
and use the Principles of Technology course. Paul was addressed as "Chief" by
his students.
Paul saw nothing special, new, or unusual about integration or his own involvement with it. To him it was a natural outgrowth of the subject matter. Electronics requires mastery of certain aspects of mathematics. It also requires knowledge of various laws and theorems from physics and chemistry. When viewed through the lens of his vast work experience, these "integrated" components were actually a natural part of the course content. Paul also taught Principles of Technology, which is a purposefully integrated physics course, but again, he did not view the application of physics principles as anything worthy of special attention--it was just the proper way to learn the principles. From his own experiences in industry, Paul was very much a proponent of "learning by doing." He claimed that much of what he learned as an electrical contractor was learned via on-the-job experience. Also, not having spent his formative career years within the academic culture, he did not hold a traditionalist's view of "academic" vs. "vocational" tracks (nor did he speak in educational jargon, which was refreshing). He was focused on what he believed students needed to succeed in the workplace, and that is what he sought to provide for in his classes. It is this researcher's opinion that this would hold true regardless of his subject matter specialty.
The integration that occurred in Paul's program stemmed from the subject
matter and, more importantly, the teaching approach which he employed. He
epitomized the "teacher-as-facilitator" genre because, as he said during the
interview, "I've run a business for ten years, and I know what it is to get
production." In his view, a teacher "gets production" by allowing (or forcing)
the students to be active participants in the teaching/learning process.
His electronics course was totally project-oriented. Students were assigned
to project teams of two to five persons. The basic instructional format which
was used faithfully is as follows: (1) project pretest, (2) review and
recording of project learning objectives, (3) guided team research of project
learning objectives, (4) mini-lecture and recording of lecture notes, (5) team
consensus on proposed solutions to project questions, (6) team lab work to
determine actual answers to project questions, (7) project posttest for group
grade, and (8) project examination for individual grade. The focal point for
all class activities was the Daily Work Journal. The impetus for the journal
came, not surprisingly, from Paul's business experience. As an electrical
contractor, he supervised up to three different crews on different jobs
simultaneously. By requiring each crew to keep a journal, and keeping one
himself, he was better able to coordinate supply needs, crew schedules, and so
on. The student journals themselves were nothing more than a common
composition book, which were, according to Paul, "$1.17 at Wal-Mart, if you buy
100 of them they give you a reduction in price, and they always have
engineering conversions in the back, everything they need. . . ." All student
work was recorded in a journal, following very specific guidelines developed
and copyrighted by Paul. Students were required to write at least three
complete statements of conclusion at the completion of each project.
The basic format outlined above was printed on a display board on the wall of
the classroom. This format, along with the prescribed guidelines for recording
journal information, was the first thing the students learned in Paul's
classes. Steps 1 and 2 were completed by the entire class together. From that
point, each team was on its own until the project was completed. When a team
had completed its independent research of the project objectives, Paul provided
feedback and delivered mini-lectures of pertinent content. He opined that it
was easier to lecture directly, across-the-table, to a small group rather than
to an entire class. Teams were required to complete eight projects during the
electronics course. If a team finished early, the students were able to work
on "special projects" for the class, school, or community. For example, one
student had installed conduit and wired additional lighting for the school
auditorium; another had built a computer control for a neighborhood light
display.
A key component of Paul's instructional strategy was organizing all student activities to be conducted in teams. Whether his students were working in the laboratory or making presentations about their program it was always done in teams. Paul said of this strategy, "Everything I do is teams. . . . Two, three, four, or five is a team and then I have to work with these teams everyday to see how well they mesh together." Working in teams was an important way to improve interpersonal skills among the students. It was also a reflection of the modern workplace where problem solving in teams is considered to be more effective. Inevitably, when people work together differences are bound to occur. Paul explained how he builds student teams and how conflicts are handled:
I pick them at random then I see how it works . . . I will force for two or three weeks, I'll say look, if you can't get along with any of them, what are you going to do on the job . . . If I got a problem child, then I've got to try them with another team.
While the primary source of student motivation was the activity-oriented approach, two other motivational tools were used by Paul. One was the portfolio, which each student was required to keep. Though portfolio evaluation is in vogue right now, Paul claimed that his motivation for requiring them was that he himself kept one for all of his twenty years of business experience. Ring binders and plastic page jackets were provided through Tech Prep funding. In their portfolios, students accumulated information related to career planning, their curriculum/course of study, results of student assessments, and student-produced materials. One portfolio which was reviewed also contained letters to the student from a number of colleges expressing interest in having the student apply.
The other motivational tool which doubled as a public relations/marketing strategy was public presentations. Paul had been approached by a number of professional organizations, agencies, conferences, media outlets, and individual schools to make presentations about the program. Rather than making the presentations himself, he established a "traveling team" of students. These students (usually in small groups) presented and demonstrated the project work they had completed in class, their portfolios, or journals. According to Paul
. . . it's ridiculous for me to go to a workshop and stand up there and say "now this is what I do, what I do, what I do." The kids take portfolios and journals and labs and they tell them what they do. They don't want to hear it from me, I'm boring.
Students worked very hard for the opportunity to be on the traveling team.
They were chosen based primarily on their work attitude, and the teams
consisted of students of all ability levels. Paul took the researchers to the
self-contained behavioral disordered room and introduced us to a
behavioral-disordered student who had made a presentation the previous evening.
The student spoke very excitedly about the presentation. It was obvious that
he had never had this kind of opportunity before.
Paul's method of involving his students with everyday activities was evident
when this research team visited with him. The interview was conducted right in
the classroom with all the clutter of students working on their projects in the
background. From time to time Paul would shout out instructions to groups of
students. When an interview question touched on a particular part of his
teaching, rather than tell you what he does, he would bring out students to
respond by showing you their journals, portfolios, or describing their
experiences directly.
The support that Paul has received for his program resulted largely from the
fact that, from early on, he has been active and even aggressive in seeking
publicity and support. After he implemented his project-oriented teaching
approach, he was eager for others to see it. Administrators were hesitant to
endorse his techniques at first because they were so different from the usual
"stand-and-deliver" lecture approach. The academic teachers "just thought he
was standing around doing nothing all day." Their approval was won partly
through persistence--"I kept asking the principal to come down and said we want
to give you a one-hour presentation on what we do. He got tired of coming
down"--and partly through success. Once his methodology was established and he
felt confidence in it, Paul began encouraging his students to enter their
projects in school science fairs and competitions, and they began winning.
This, he reported, validated his approach and got others to sit up and take
notice. He continued to work almost daily at developing relationships with
academic teachers. He succeeded in convincing an English teacher to implement
applied communications. He also convinced the biology teacher to try applied
biology/chemistry. The teacher subsequently reported that he was going to use
applied teaching in all of his courses.
Another event which greatly influenced acceptance and support, and which also
occurred because of the teaching approach and its success, was the awarding of
a Principles of Technology pilot site grant. This brought the program to the
attention of the entire community. Since that time, Paul has taken every
opportunity to publicize his program through print and television outlets, as
well as through live presentations (discussed earlier).
While no "hard" evidence was presented of increased achievement levels or the like, several examples point to an approach that was succeeding. Among these were the following: virtually no discipline problems, expanding enrollment, success in competitions, requests of others to visit the program, identification by the state as an exemplary program, requests to make presentations, requests to teach other teachers in applications-based methods, the inquiry letters from colleges in one student's portfolio, and the respect of peers and administration.
The key to success in this case appears to be the extent and--perhaps more importantly--the nature of Paul's work experience. Twenty years in the workplace was certainly beyond the norm for high school teachers, regardless of their field. What was striking, however, was that a large portion of the work experience was supervisory and entrepreneurial in nature. This raises further issues. Because of his entrepreneurial nature, was Paul better able to visualize how he wanted his class to perform and point them in the appropriate direction? Was he more willing to go out on a limb with his instructional technique, either in the hope of finding something better or something to market? Was he better at facilitating learning because of his supervisory experience? In other words, does the limited degree of control a supervisor exercises over his or her workers better prepare them to be facilitators? One of the issues always raised in regard to applications-based instruction is that teachers are resistant to relinquish control over their students. Paul appeared to regard the degree of control he exercised over his class as sufficient and certainly tighter than what he experienced in the workplace, even though, by traditional education standards, it seemed very loose indeed. Paul seemed to have empowered students in his class to take responsibility for the learning.
Case 2 was a two-teacher home economics program in a school of approximately
650 students in a town of 10,000. Again, the physical setting indicated
nothing out of the ordinary. In contrast to Paul's classroom, this one had
orderly rows of tables and chairs--a very traditional arrangement. As the
interview took place after school hours, student activity was not observed but
was discussed and is examined later in this report.
Both of the home economics teachers were interviewed simultaneously. This
turned out to be most appropriate because the two appeared to work in concert
most of the time. This case study, however, does not focus on the private
sector experience of the teachers, but on the way they complemented one another
and on their resourcefulness in gathering, developing, and/or adapting
instructional materials and other resources to make their teaching more
integrated and effective. For the sake of anonymity, they are referred to as
Cheryl and Diane. Cheryl was the lead teacher in the department, with twenty
years of experience. Diane, who had fourteen years of experience, had been a
free-lance artist and an art teacher before becoming a home economics
teacher.
Like Paul, Cheryl and Diane viewed vocational and academic integration as a
necessary function of their particular subject area and had been consciously
integrating their instruction for many years. Unlike Paul, they both were more
cognizant of and active in the broader "integration movement." It also
appeared that they had, in the past, held to a more traditional educator's view
of separate "vocational" and "academic" curricula and were more content-driven.
They sought out and received grants for integrated curriculum development, and
had attended several state and national conferences, both as members of the
audience and as presenters. In fact, it was this participation which appeared
to have been their initial impetus for finding and gathering curriculum
materials related to integration and adapting them for inclusion into their
program. Through this process they also found that some desired topics had not
been covered; therefore, they began to develop their own curriculum materials.
Therein lays the major difference between Cheryl and Diane's integration and
Paul's. While Paul's was more tied to instructional methodology, Cheryl and
Diane's was more a matter of curriculum development.
Cheryl and Diane began integrating to meet a specific need--lack of ability by
students to write coherently. Both were distressed by the spelling, grammar,
and sentence structure they were seeing in written work, so they began to
emphasize these skills more in their curricula. Some of their concerns with
weaknesses in their students came through contact with employers, something
both teachers viewed as important.
Cheryl and Diane emphasized the curricular aspects of integration as opposed
to teaching methods, particularly the development of integrated curricula.
Both women emphasized the importance of finding high-quality "canned" materials
and using them with as little modification as possible, due to the constraint
of time. As Cheryl put it, "High school education does not allow think time.
Four minutes between classes, we both are teaching six different preps a day .
. ." This lack of "think time" was what led them to begin writing for small
curriculum development grants. The grants allowed the district to buy some of
their time so that they were free to "think" and develop integrated materials
of their own.
Due to the curricular emphasis, Cheryl and Diane's integration seemed more
purposeful and straightforward, and perhaps a bit less natural, than Paul's.
The infusion of academics into various topics in the food science and marketing
areas was made plain to the students, who were told that they were performing a
certain mathematical operation (e.g., a mathematical operation that they must
be able to master in order to calculate nutrient content). The food science
course had been developed to the point that students received science credit
for it and could use it as a prerequisite for Biology 2 (instead of Biology 1).
It was interesting to note, however, that not many students chose this option.
Most of the students who took the food science course followed a home economics
sequence, while "college prep" students opted for Biology 1.
Cheryl had recently begun to cross-teach certain units with the biology
teacher in the nutrition area. They had coordinated their instructional
schedules so that complementary topics occurred more or less simultaneously.
Then they exchanged classes to do "short lectures" on specific topics. For
example, the biology teacher lectured both classes on the structure and
function of lipids and triglycerides, then Cheryl taught them about fat content
in the diet.
Another approach which was used frequently was simulation. Teams of students
set up companies which developed and marketed a product. The teams developed
business plans and product ideas, and then made formal marketing presentations
to school administrators seeking official permission to carry on with their
plan. In another scenario, students were teamed, placed on a "desert island,"
and given a certain number of days to develop an economy. In both instances,
students were totally responsible for both the learning process and the
outcomes. Students learned problem-solving, interpersonal, and communication
skills.
In addition to keeping up with current developments in the broader integration
movement, both teachers had made a practice of keeping in regular contact with
local employers. These contacts served several purposes such as recruiting
contacts for work-based learning sites and guest speakers and building
political support for the program. The major purpose related to integration
was to elucidate from employers what skills were needed to perform jobs in
their businesses.
Both Cheryl and Diane reported that the school administration was very
supportive of their activities. They reported that when they had reached out
to other teachers to pursue collaborative integration efforts, they had met
with mixed reactions. Cheryl and Diane were persistent, however, and both
reported very positive working relationships with and reactions from fellow
teachers, once the ice had been broken. It appears that the key ingredients
here were persistence along with a focused intent to do what was best for the
students whether or not it had popular support. Also, their willingness to
compete for grants and their subsequent success in winning them had given them
added incentive by providing much needed "think time" and had also helped
produce positive publicity for their programs and the school.
An important point, however, was that Cheryl and Diane would have done these
same things regardless of whether or not they received any support at all.
They both gave the very strong impression that once they locked onto something
which they felt was good for students, they went after it full speed, with or
without support. While they appreciated support, they did not require it to
carry on, nor were they daunted in the least by the lack of it.
Again, the evidence was of a rather squishy nature and seemed to deal more with students' enthusiasm and motivation to learn rather than achievement in any specific area. Diane reported that students responded enthusiastically to "being in charge" during the simulations. Their approach seemed to be popular with students, as both were teaching full class loads in a school of less than 700 students.
It was reported earlier that the administration was supportive of Cheryl and Diane's efforts to integrate. But why wouldn't they be? These two teachers had taken it upon themselves to provide the very best for their students, whatever it takes. They had, of their own volition, upgraded themselves professionally through extensive reading, inservice, contact with business and industry, contact with other teachers, and exhaustive search and review of curricular materials. They were secure and flexible enough to go outside of their own discipline if the need called for it. They had spent a considerable amount of their own money to purchase materials when the funds were not available. They had not hesitated to reach out to colleagues whenever they felt that collaboration would be beneficial to their students. In short, they appeared to embody the label, "consummate professional."