Curriculum Integration for Alternative Education and Adult Learners

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Curriculum Integration for Alternative Education
and Adult Learners

• Why It Hasnt Worked and How We Can Make It
  Effective
• John M. Dirkx
• Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education
• Michigan State University
• dirkx_at_msu.edu
• www.mac2.org

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Our Focus

• At risk youth and academically underprepared
  adult learners
• Prepare them to enter postsecondary education
  and/or the world of work

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The Problem We Face

• Growing importance of postsecondary education for
  economic well-being
• Number of adults and young adults academically
  under-prepared for college-level work

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Academically Under-prepared

• Lacking basic skills in at least one of the three
  basic areas of
• reading, writing or mathematics
• Levels of skill necessary to do college-level
  work

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The Need

• How to help transition academically underprepared
  young adult and adult learners for college-level
  work
• Educational approaches that prepare young adults
  and adults for college-level academic work

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Importance of Postsecondary Education

• Cherry Commission Report
• Michigan must forge an expectation that all
  students will achieve a postsecondary degree or
  credential.
• Stephen Reder
• High school diploma or its equivalent is no
  longer an adequate credential for most jobs in
  todays market
• Carnevale Fry
• 70 of all new jobs created by 2008 will require
  at least some postsecondary education

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Implications For Our Learners

• In todays economic climate, a high school
  diploma is no longer sufficient to secure a job
  that will provide financial security and upward
  mobility.
• More and more jobs require a postsecondary
  education, even jobs that 10 years ago did not.

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Population of Academically Under-prepared
Learners

• National high school dropout rates continue to
  hover around 33
• Graduation rates vary by region and race
• Detroit 21
• Baltimore County 38.5
• Virginia Fairfax County 82.5
• African American grad rates lower than whites
• Hispanic grad rates lower than African American

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Under-prepared Learners

• Approximately 350,000 540,000 10th 12th
  graders leave school each year without completing
• Close to 4 million young adults not enrolled in
  high school and have not completed high school
• Major reason for dropping out
• Most were passing when they dropped out
• Most said classes were too boring

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Levels of Academic Under-preparedness

• 53 of students entering our colleges and
  universities are under-prepared
• Higher for many community colleges and career
  colleges
• Lower for research 1 universities
• Since 1996, a 33 increase in the number of
  academically under-prepared students
  --AACU

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Consequences of Academic Underpreparedness

• Lack of success in postsecondary education
• Dropouts have 30 higher unemployment than grads
• Increased likelihood of incarceration
• Increased reliance on public assistance

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Approaches to the Problem

• Traditional
• Nontraditional

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Traditional Approaches to the Problem

• Adult basic education/adult literacy
• GED preparation
• Developmental/remedial education

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Assumptions of Traditional Approaches

• Underpreparedness is a literacy problem
• Curricular structures similar to what students
  left
• Pedagogy and advising more personal and intense

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Challenges for Traditional Programs

• Dropout rates remain high for major second
  chance programs (40 70)
• ABE, adult literacy, GED prep
• Developmental education
• Many graduates of these programs are not
  academically prepared for college

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Nontraditional Approaches

• Alternative high schools
• Middle college or early college concepts
• Career academies

• Workplace literacy programs
• Family literacy/Even Start programs
• Cognitive apprenticeships
• Learning communities

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Assumptions of Nontraditional Approaches

• What students left will not necessarily work for
  them now
• Learning needs to be more experience-based
• Social dimension of learning is critical
• Relationship between the curriculum and the real
  world

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A Key Assumption Learning as Meaning-making

• Learners are motivated by things that interest
  them
• Themes can be used to help connect the learners
  interests with the content
• Learning involves using the content being studied
  to help make sense of ones experiences and ones
  world

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Curricular Integration

• A way to help learners make sense of themselves
  and their worlds

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One Approach to Curricular Integration

• Integration of academic and occupational
  curricular
• Addresses strong career and occupational
  orientation of many young adult and adult learners

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What Does This Mean?

• Learning by doing
• Master knowledge and skills by applying them to
  practical, meaningful problems of everyday life
• Subject areas are connected and interrelated
  through problems or themes
• Problems, situations and cases are work,
  occupation, or career-based

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Hardly a new idea

• Education through occupations combines within
  itself more of the factors conducive to learning
  than any other method
• --John Dewey, 1916

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Recent National Emphases

• Commissions and studies advocating stronger
  connection of vocational education to academic
  curriculum
• Carl Perkins Vocational Education Act - 1985,
  1990, 1998
• School to Work Opportunities Act

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Integration a key aspect of strategies to improve
teaching and learning

• Collaborative learning
• Case-based or problem-based learning
• Contextual and active learning
• Service learning

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Is this a firm grip on the obvious? Maybe, but
integration is

• Exception rather than the rule
• Precious little evidence for it in high schools
  or community colleges

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Why so little curricular integration?

• Power of traditional conceptions of knowledge,
  teaching and learning
• Expectations of parents, teachers, learners,
  policy-makers
• Moving from certainty to uncertainty
• Integration not an end in itself easy to lose
  focus
• Role of professional standards, competencies, and
  certifying exams
• Drives perception of set content to cover
• Accountability tied to exam performance

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Why so little curricular integration?

• Teacher identity and subject matter expertise
• Teachers are subject matter experts
• Professional identity defined through expertise
• Challenges to organizational structures
• Demanding of time, resources, expertise
• Innovative programs often discontinued after
  removal of external funding

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So, why do it?

• When done right, it makes a difference in
  learners lives in teachers experiences
• Especially effective for those who dont do well
  in traditional approaches
• Fosters multiplicity of skills helpful for both
  later study and for work

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Planning an Integrated Approach to Academic and
Occupational Curriculum
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Levels of Integration

• Course level
• e.g. writing a cover letter for a job in English
  composition
• Cross-curricular
• e.g., accounting and English science and
  automotive technology
• Programmatic
• e.g., Career clusters or majors (health)
• School-wide
• e.g., career academies professional schools

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Tips to Successful Curricular Integration

• Process is most successful at programmatic or
  school level
• Select work contexts that are meaningful and
  generative
• Subject matter is the core or center of
  integration

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Tips to Successful Curricular Integration

• Integration process should be anchored in clear
  objectives, standards, competencies
• Subject matter standards and occupational
  standards need to be cross-walked
• Teachers and other school staff need to receive
  appropriate professional development

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Things To Keep In Mind

• Be clear about objectives
• Cross-walk academic competencies with
  work-related standards or objectives
• Pedagogical strategies need to be consistent with
  curricular aims

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Example of the Development of Curricular
Integration

• Medical clinic that provides services to pregnant
  teenagers and teenage moms who had left school
• Desire to use services to also help them address
  academic goals
• Can we integrate GED competencies with their
  interests and content being provided?

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Example

• Integrated theme-based instruction
• Getting a good job

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Key Attributes of the Sample Project

• Targets a few well-defined work-related
  objectives and GED competencies
• Involves learners in project that is personally
  meaningful to them
• Work-related learning contributes directly to
  development of academic competencies
• Presents both promise and threat of tangential
  learning

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The Programmatic ApproachA Promising Level of
Intervention

• Examples
• High school program on environmental
  sustainability
• The electric car project
• Developmental education organized around themed
  learning communities
• Health career cluster

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Advantages of Programmatic Approach

• Articulation more possible (e.g., tech-prep)
• Long-term study allows enduring connections
• Easier to link academics to work-related issues
• Appeals to greater variety of student interests
  and goals (e.g., health cluster vs nursing
  assistant program)
• Allows for more generic, industry-related
  knowledge (e.g., social, economic issues
  technology organizational/HR issues, etc)

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Conclusion

• Provide transition for underprepared learners to
  postsecondary education
• Integration of occupational and academic
  curriculum as a promising approach

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Conclusion

• Need to address prior challenges and shortcomings
  of integrative approaches
• Focus on developing educational experiences
  better than in the mainstream