Swansea High School is a public school located in Swansea, South Carolina, a rural setting near Columbia. Approximately 627 students are enrolled in the school, with the following ethnic breakdown: 73% Caucasian, 27% African-American, and less than 1% Hispanic. The mathematics department consists of 5 math instructors while the vocational-technical education department has 6. Swansea High School is an Advanced Integration Model site with the Southern Regional Education Board's High Schools that Work program (SREB) and features career paths in business, engineering, arts, and health services.
In 1988, the picture at Swansea High School (SHS) was not encouraging. High dropout rates, low rates of transfer to postsecondary institutions, high pregnancy rates, and low test scores characterized the times. Further, there was a wall between vocational and academic teachers. Academic teachers believed that "vocational education was for those students who couldn't do anything else." Needless to say, teacher morale was very poor. Drastic measures were needed to address this situation. With a new superintendent, the Board of Trustees mandated significant changes and in 1989 asked the Director of Vocational Education at the State Department of Education to study and evaluate the school programs. The results indicated that the equipment in the vocational department was obsolete and that teachers lacked appropriate pedagogical training. Seeking new direction, the school became aware of the High Schools that Work program supported by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). In 1989, the school volunteered to participate in a SREB pilot study to implement various changes under a five-year plan. During a six-month period beginning in January of 1990, the school and a steering committee developed this plan. Five groups were created to work on public relations, curriculum and instruction, staff development, acceleration and remediation programs, and evaluation. Further, these groups and the steering committee worked on six major areas of schoolwide interest: (1) changing attitudes toward change; (2) improving staff development; (3) revising curriculum to meet NCTM, SCANS, and business and industry skills standards; (4) reviewing instructional strategies; (5) reviewing assessment practices in the classroom; and (6) eliminating academic and vocational tracks. Initially, only four academic teachers believed in these restructuring efforts. To gain the support of instructors, the school's strategy focused on involving everybody in the conversation about school changes. The Associate Superintendent made sure to invite both believers and nonbelievers to meetings, send them to conferences on school reform, and ensure that all teachers were aware of even the smallest successes. This strategy paid off, and many nonbelievers began to support restructuring efforts. In particular, teachers appreciated being taken to conferences and meetings, especially when they had the opportunity to share their success stories with their peers. Interacting with motivated peers has been an effective way to bring new instructors into the integration discussion and to reward those who are already participating.
Following the five-year plan, all general and remedial courses were eliminated; and beginning in 1990, the school planned to emphasize instructional strategies under Tech Prep principles, focusing on preparing students for further education and work while maintaining the rigor of the coursework. Many teachers were still reluctant, especially mathematics teachers who were still defending the value of the math tracking system. The turning point came when the president of a local tool and die company sat in on a curriculum meeting and said he did not want to employ Swansea High School students because they lacked employability and appropriate math and science skills. From that meeting, it became clear that all students needed an opportunity to participate in rigorous coursework preparing them for further education and work.
Under the old system, there were six levels of mathematics: advanced placement (AP), college preparation, general, basic, remedial and basic remedial. By 1990, all general math classes were eliminated, and applied mathematics classes were implemented that same year. The next step was to provide consistent professional development opportunities focusing on integration. The district began requiring new applicants to have at least one year of experience in applied instructional practices or to agree to be trained in an applied institute to learn how to use applied materials in any subject. Another critical juncture came during the academic year 1992-1993 when the school began serving as an Advanced Integration Site with the SREB's High Schools that Work program. The school was selected because of the restructuring efforts and integration activities already taking place as well as the school's continuous contributions to SREB conferences and workshops. Through this participation and exposure to nationally noted educators, teachers furthered their understanding and working knowledge of integration issues. Finally, the support of area administrators, specifically the school superintendent at the time, was vital to initial efforts. The superintendent's commitment to promoting restructuring efforts was especially important when the board of trustees came under tremendous pressure from some teachers reluctant to adopt proposed changes. Anticipating this situation before curriculum integration efforts began, the superintendent had arranged presentations to educate the board members about how and why certain things were happening. As a result, board members were aware of the issues, convinced of the need to implement radical changes, and confident in responding to teachers reluctant to change. This early administrative support was crucial to the implementation and maintenance of the goals of the five-year plan.
Fostering the integration process at this site is a constant and varied process. Creating an environment where integration is supported and creating the space and time for teachers to meet and share ideas appear to be key ingredients for success and above all, willing and eager participants. While at present there is state and federal support, the commitment and reinforcement provided by the district office has guided and maintained the continuous improvement of the integration efforts.
Integration Formats
Integrating mathematics across the curriculum occurs primarily under the applied mathematics series available to all students. These courses include Applied Mathematics for the Technologies I & II and Applied Geometry. Three of the five mathematics teachers are involved in integration efforts, focusing on integrating mathematics with occupational content using hands-on, real-world problems relevant to mathematics skills used in the workplace. According to the Associate Superintendent, "initially, mathematics was the least integrated discipline at SHS." Even though the focus was on contextualizing mathematics, integration efforts consisted of individual teachers integrating content, using systematic sequences of real-world examples for problem-solving. One of the teachers, for instance, collected examples of real-world problem situations involving mathematics from local business/industry and used them in her class.
Team teaching is another form of integration that is slowly taking place. A math instructor, for example, is collaborating with a technology instructor. Through co-op learning, they integrate mathematics and automotive technology to improve students' understanding of electronics and connections with science and mathematics. Occasionally, larger projects require various disciplines to collaborate. One project, "The Trail of Champions," involved planning and constructing a walking trail on campus, involving teachers from various disciplines (e.g., mathematics, English, and automotive/ engineering). Students participated in planning and designing of the trail, surveyed the site, drew blueprints using CAD programs, budgeted costs, produced reports, and constructed the trail. Basic mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, English, engineering, and social studies were integrated into this project.
Professional Development
The "Linked" staff development model is particularly useful in promoting and maintaining a climate conducive for teacher collaboration. In this model, the five days of state required in-service time was converted to 44 hours, and the link between staff development and evaluation was emphasized. To properly focus professional development activities, fewer areas of improvement were targeted. Staff members were able to focus on areas for improvement they believed were feasible, manageable, and realistic in regard to personal or program goals. They can log 44 hours of inservice in various ways: collaborating with other teachers on integration projects, attending conferences, studying videos provided by the school, shadowing industry mentors, visiting workplaces, and so on. If a teacher logs hours for an activity such as working on developing an integration project, it is expected that the project will eventually be implemented in the classroom, rather than becoming a mere mental exercise. This model has allowed newer teachers, as well as those teachers who were "slower to come on board," to attend conferences, to work with peers who are more involved with integration efforts, and to learn about integration from a comfortable standpoint. The Associate Superintendent believes this inservice format to be particularly important because "when you have a school that's working on integration, every teacher may be at a different level of understanding about what integration is. You may still have that teacher who is struggling just to talk occasionally with the vocational teacher and integrate that content in some kind of a lesson, or you may have this teacher over here that's working with multiple teams." For those teachers further along in the process of collaborating on integration efforts, the flexibility and autonomy afforded by this model is ideal.
Scheduling
In addition to flexible and focused professional development activities, the school has implemented block scheduling to facilitate teacher collaboration. Under this scheduling strategy, teachers from different content areas can have common planning time during certain days of the week. For instance, the days of the week are marked as days A or B for scheduling purposes. On A days teachers from the same discipline meet while on B days planning periods are scattered throughout the day so that, for example, there is a math teacher available as a resource for at least one person from every other area during the day. Because they may be working at different levels with integration, teachers need a flexible schedule to work together more confidently and to learn from each other. In addition to shared planning periods, teachers have access to an "idea board" in a common area. Instead of the customary weekly lesson plans reported to the principal, all teachers write general topical outlines of their weekly lesson plans on the idea board. All teachers are then aware of what content is being taught in other areas and can identify content that might coincide with and complement what they will be teaching at the same time. Lesson plans are often revised and/or adjusted to reinforce content across areas or to work together to formulate lessons and activities.
Institutional Climate and Support
Participating teachers attribute integration's success to two factors: (1) administrators' support and (2) the school's participation in initiatives such as SREB's High Schools that Work program, allowing them to meet other teachers and keep abreast of innovative practices. For instance, after an initial integration framework was conceived on the heels of the five-year plan and after participation in some of the initial SREB projects, some teachers became accustomed to working together. A couple of teachers reported how their collaboration got started: "We see each other a good bit, and we started doing a lot of modules with SREB and that was probably the big kick off. Then it just took off from there. We started working on some ideas during and after school: I would develop an idea and he would develop another one on the same topic and we would come together to compare and contrast until we came up with a project [or unit]."
Concurrently, the administration's support for experimenting with integration ideas has been integral to teachers' efforts. "We tell the faculty all the time, we want you to go out on a limb and if you fail, its OK," the principal stated. "If [the limb] happens to break, two things are going to happen: we're going to be on the limb with you or we're going to be under the limb to catch you, one or the other." Teachers working with integration echoed the sentiment, stating that the administration provides freedom to implement new ideas which were not available before restructuring efforts started. This type of institutional climate has invited teachers to create collaborative work such as "The Trail of Champions" project.
Further, being a part of initiatives such as High Schools that Work has afforded teachers the opportunity to find out what kinds of things are going on at other schools and to present to others what is occurring at SHS. When deciding which instructors will go to conferences, the Associate Superintendent believes that at least two-thirds of the instructors should be believers of integration and one-third should be reluctant people because "if you have two positives for every negative you can usually bring those folks along." This kind of institutional environment is reflected in the students' attitudes toward applied learning, which in turn reinforces teachers' motivation. Teachers at SHS reported that the student's involvement and enthusiasm are very influential in bringing other teachers onboard. As a result of teachers' different levels of interest and involvement regarding integration efforts, teachers integrating at any level are applauded for their efforts. They are taken to conferences to learn more about possibilities, and they are often held up as an example of what others should strive towards.
Although the mathematics program has been restructured and instructional practices have changed, full integration and use of the NCTM Standards has not yet been attained. Instructors reported that prior to restructuring efforts, there were general and college preparation mathematics courses and "the two could never cross." As one mathematics instructor recalled:
I would go over homework problems for half an hour. Then you might have 10 or 15 minutes to go over new material. And then you would lecture and ask direct questions to see if they knew what they were doing. Textbook problems always came out with these nice neat little answers. And it wasn't right. Students were bored.
Students were not interested in mathematics, so instructors were charged with finding ways to hook students into an occupational context and "let them see why math was so important." As another teacher put it: "Math should have some focus on meaning. The theoretical concepts are useful and students need to understand that, but they also need to see where math is applied outside of the classroom and not just for math's sake." Presently, teachers are provided with related professional development opportunities, instructed to use the NCTM framework, and asked to focus on hands-on instructional practices. Teachers report that the NCTM Standards are embedded in their curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The primary emphasis is in using real-world contextual applications, drawing on examples provided by local business and industry or based on ideas generated by teams of math/vocational instructors. Concurrently, problem-solving and the uses of technology are also emphasized. Finally, the school still uses traditional assessment measures such as multiple choice and true/false questions, but a trend toward portfolios and rubrics is gaining momentum. Teachers are becoming more open to using open-ended questions, discussion questions, and observation of how students work. Students are given credit for defining concepts, for showing their thinking process in seeking solutions, and for coming up with additional applications for mathematics concepts.