Integrating Academic and Vocational Education: Changes in Teacher Education. Fourth in a Series.

Overview & Synopsis

The purpose of this document is to suggest ways in which teacher education in Florida could be changed in order to facilitate and promote the successful integration of academic and vocational education in schools throughout the state. The introduction includes a definition of the term "integration," a discussion of the assumptions underlying integration, and a rationale for integrating academic and vocational education. The following topics are discussed in a section on the basic approaches to implementing integration: reinforcing academics in vocational education, tying academics to real life and using applied learning, achieving vocational and academic teacher collaboration, using major projects and themes, and planning major restructuring of schools. The remainder of the document consists of a listing of 17 recommended changes in Florida's system of both pre- and inservice teacher education and discussions of each of the individual recommendations. The recommendations, which are discussed in the context of the overall problem of achieving integration and were developed on the basis of observations of numerous academic and vocational educators who were in the process of integrating their instruction. (Contains 16 references.) (MN)