New Developments in Improving the Integration of Academic and Vocational Education. Program Report.

Overview & Synopsis

Challenges exist in secondary education, and new developments are being made in the area of integration of academic and vocational education. The first section of this paper focuses on the need for integration and provides a conceptual framework for viewing academic and vocational integration as well as teacher collaboration. Section two summarizes key features of some consortium-developed applied curricula intended for secondary vocational education students. In the third section successful practices in improving academic performance of vocational education students have been grouped into five categories: (1) those occurring within a single class; (2) between two classes; (3) across a school; (4) beyond the school; and (5) at the state level. Section four outlines preliminary findings, by the National Center for Research in Vocational Education, on efforts to integrate academic and vocational education. The last section examines recommendations at the district, state, regional, and national levels for vocational and academic teachers to collaborate, and for integrating the two disciplines in teacher education. (49 references) (SI)