Education and Work: Toward an Integrated Curriculum Framework. A Report on the Integrated System for Workforce Education Curricula Project.

Overview & Synopsis

This paper describes the rationale, direction, and progress of the Integrated System for Workforce Education Curricula (ISWEC), a project sponsored by a 25-state consortium that is designed to accomplish two primary objectives: (1) integration of academic and vocational education in a curriculum framework for grades 9-14 and (2) development of a process through which educators can elaborate upon the framework to adapt it to their schools' needs and strengths. The following topics are discussed: rationale for integration, consensus about education and work; pedagogical advantages to integration; role of standards in the ISWEC project; rationale for a comprehensive curriculum project; purpose and content of an integrated curriculum standard (ICS); process of grouping ICSs into clusters and career majors; role of assessment in the ICS framework; technique for using ICSs to develop curricula; process being used to develop the ICS framework; and relationship between integration and higher-order thinking skills. Contains 13 references. Appended are sample integrated curriculum standards and a list of steps toward integration using work force, academic, and occupational standards. (MN)