Many reformers believe that combining academic and vocational curriculum will result in more effective instruction for a broad range of students. Integration is intended to expand curriculum content in ways that bridge the academic and vocational knowledge and skills found in an occupational area. High-quality, integrated curricula can have the following characteristics. They can (1) enhance the academic content of vocational courses; (2) show the application of abstract disciplinary knowledge or concepts in work; (3) aim for broad understanding of an industry, not narrow job skills; (4) link courses in coherent sequences; and (5) incorporate instruction, to the extent possible, in all aspects of an industry.
The mini-sabbatical process addressed the first three characteristics of integrated curricula and did so in several ways. First, as just discussed, teachers visited specific worksites to gain broad knowledge about work and work activities related to their field of study. Teachers began a process of thinking about how to incorporate aspects of work practice into their curriculum planning.
In the mini-sabbatical classroom, we introduced teachers to an instructional design model that we developed in previous research. This Classrooms that Work (CTW) model specifies, first, that teachers build their curriculum around a project or investigation that results in some kind of product.[3]
The CTW model asks teachers to specify different kinds of learning goals for students. In addition to subject-matter knowledge, such as math or English, teachers needed to establish learning goals for generic skills (problem-solving, communication, and working in teams) and work-related attitudes (e.g., taking responsibility for learning).
In addition to project-based work, the CTW model suggests creating a "culture of practice" that mirrors real-work situations. Depending on the task and work situation, this might include organizing students into teams or having them take on different roles and responsibilities (e.g., one student as product designer, another as product tester). Students might be asked to make oral presentations at different stages of the project or to establish criteria for evaluating their work.
Integrated curricula in the CTW model aims to be more "authentic" than traditional curricula. One measure of authenticity concerns the learning tasks that students engage in. Tasks should require students to use and apply knowledge in contexts or problem situations that reflect their real use (Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989). Activities should require students to think, to develop in-depth understanding, and to apply academic learning to important, realistic problems (Newmann, Secada, & Wehlage, 1995).