As a team, we first had to develop an understanding of the worksite. We made many visits to worksites, and we conducted interviews with employees about work, education, training, and opportunity in order to relate instruction in context and connect school and work. The writing of a multidisciplinary curriculum also required that we develop collaboratively beyond the content and structure of the program. The multidisciplinary curriculum was to be a new paradigm. Thus, we found that we would also have to deal with how other teachers would function under this new paradigm. Functioning as a self-directed team through the 1991-1992 school year, we worked to create a curriculum with sufficient work-based projects for the first year.
Teachers from the six pilot sites were introduced to our curriculum in the summer of 1992 at a workshop conducted at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. During the 1992-1993 school year, we continued to work every afternoon at LRDC and produced the curriculum for the senior year of the program. At the annual Pennsylvania Department of Education Training Workshops at Shippensburg University in July of 1993, the senior-year curriculum was introduced for the first time to the six pilot teaching teams. At the same workshop, teaching teams from ten new sites were introduced to the curriculum. In 1994, teaching teams from ten more school districts were trained in "Integrating Academics and the World of Work." Teaching teams throughout the state continue to meet four times during each school year in Harrisburg to share ideas and collaborate.
The following are excerpts from the philosophy section of the PYAP curriculum, as well as the course descriptions and the introduction to the project section. It is easy to see how AAI ideas are embedded within the initial PYAP curriculum. For example, from the beginning, one of PYAP's goals was to help students learn about the many different aspects of the industry in which they worked. Interviews with workers in other departments, company owners, supervisors, and so on, are encouraged and even required by some projects. The PYAP "product" is a smart worker who is flexible, learns well, and understands the industry in which he or she works. The general curriculum description and excerpts (described below) illustrate the flexibility allowed by the curriculum. Later in the case study, we will feature one particular project, "A Bridge to Learning Project," which grew directly out of the introduction of AAI to our team. It is also a perfect example of how a teaching team can blossom an idea into an interdisciplinary experience whereby students can learn with an AAI focus. Key features of our curriculum are as follows.
Team Teaching
The structure of the PYAP fosters a total learning experience which allows the student the opportunity for exploration, response, and a sense of control and ownership of what they learn.
Preparing students for a school-to-work transition requires that school learning is connected to the world of work. Our writing team included English, mathematics, science, social studies, and coop/vocational education teachers. As a team, we first had to learn how to interact in a multidisciplinary learning environment in order to develop a curriculum based on work experiences and collaborative teaching of the embedded academic principles. Only when we could shed our own old paradigms of learning could we create new paradigms of integrated learning in the world of work.
The curriculum encourages PYAP students and teachers to spend a large block of time together. We used the time flexibly to introduce projects, discussions, and assignments, and to respond to the needs of students and employers. All teachers were to have common planning times in order to collaboratively develop and plan activities and lessons which would allow flexibility, initiative, and discovery. Unfortunately, in the 27 school districts in Pennsylvania now using this model, few have come close to the ideal of block programming and common planning time.
Portfolio Assessment
PYAP is dedicated to preparing students for success. Since we learn better, faster, and retain more knowledge when taught in context, PYAP provides an environment in which work acts as an introduction to discovering the academic principles needed to be vocationally and socially secure. The portfolio is the bond which connects all experiences from school and work so that the students can recognize, appreciate, improve, and reflect upon them. The PYAP portfolio demonstrates to the students that they have substantial, meaningful records of their achievement which are recognized by all involved in the experience.
The portfolio is the vehicle which permits the student to produce, conceptualize, and reflect as he or she proceed through the PYAP experience. Entries can represent examples of the student's work, whether academic or work assignments. The students, teachers, and employers agree as to what is acceptable to place in the portfolio, notebook, or file. The criteria for what is acceptable come from locally determined transitional outcomes which are developed in conjunction with the regional stakeholders.
The work submitted contains demonstrations of competencies normally associated with academic proficiency and thus satisfy local and state school district requirements. The portfolio also reflects the student's achievement of agreed-upon outcomes. The outcomes are aligned with the outcomes specified by the Board of Education of the State of Pennsylvania. Demonstrations of work competency reflect recognized professional and industrial standards or employer satisfaction. The coop teacher assists students in maintaining the documentation. The entries include academic and work assignments, certifications, awards, and so on. The teaching team members review all of the students' work and accept for credit those achievements demonstrated in areas outside their own. Certain assignments contain components which can be interpreted and assessed by more than one or all of the disciplines. Unlike traditional curriculum approaches, this curriculum is a dynamic entity. Teaching teams feel free to adapt and change the curriculum to fit their needs.
Junior Year Introduction
Not only are block programming and common planning time important to the goals of this curriculum, the ownership of space within the school building by the students and teachers is needed for the effective integration of academics and the development of projects. The start of the school year sets the tone; projects are neither familiar nor obvious to students or teachers. Our team has learned to structure the first days of the school year around activities which would provide its students with a familiarity and comfort with the following ideas:
Focus Project: Workplace Issues
The focus projects offer flexibility to teachers and students to incorporate the disciplines of English, social studies, science, mathematics, and technology. We think an appropriate project can be conducted during a nine-week grading period. It is also important that the student introduction to the projects be a team effort. The projects provide ample opportunity for self-discovery and self-direction. As teachers, we act as resources and guides, directing student discussion and eliciting student input to determine the direction the project will take. Project examples include "Why Is Work Important?" "Why Is Safety Important?" and "Getting Along at Work."
Core Subject Areas
Readings should range from Puritan to contemporary works, include all genres, and be chosen with the theme of work in mind. Suggested readings which follow each unit are commonly found in secondary anthologies and illustrate the work theme. The units are arranged by genre, and can, therefore, be thematic, but it would certainly be possible to combine approaches and teach a period through a genre.
The above components comprise the explicit curriculum--the tool that allows the development of project-based and integrated teaching and learning. Implicit in the PYAP students' experiences is the synergism between issues which arise in the workplace and the core curriculum material.
One of the tools that facilitates this synergism is the journal kept by each student. These journals are also an integral part of the core curriculum. In this original curriculum, the ideas of AAI were implied by the manner in which the relationship between school and work was structured. A more formal or explicit set of definitions and descriptions of AAI now provides the students and teachers with scaffolding to support a more meaningful development and understanding of the relationships between school and the work experience.