This article describes a 21st century how-to model for successful career and technical education (CTE) programs. The Geometry in Construction program is the brainchild of two educators, a CTE and a math teacher, who wanted to design a rigorous geometry course taught through a project-based curriculum. This article discusses how they did it, and…

Today's vocational education program can be traced to basic principles established during the formative period of vocational education. Although the implementation of vocational education may change, basic principles continue to stand. Four points of view, randomly selected from the past 200 years, which seem to be present in vocational education…

This study was undertaken to determine a set of belief statements that, when validated, would serve as principles for vocational education. The instrument selected was a modified version of the Q-sort technique, referred to as a card-sort. The final instrument included 91 statements of belief selected from the literature, and was validated through…

A study identified four principles, based on transfer of learning research and cognitive theory, for guiding curricular decisions, instructional development, and teaching practices in ways that support transferable learning. The principles were as follows: (1) emphasize intermediate-level knowledge in curricular decisions; (2) create in the…

Although tech prep is becoming widely accepted by educators and the business community, the jury is still out regarding whether its anticipated student, school, and community outcomes are being realized. In theory, tech prep's focus is primarily on school-based learning, whereas school-to-work programs also include work-based learning and linkages…

This guide provides information and guidelines to community college personnel who are administering and coordinating programs designed to prepare paraprofessionals to work with individuals with developmental disabilities in community settings. The guide is specifically for individuals managing the "Paraprofessional Curriculum for Community…

This research synthesis reviews how employers, educators, and professional and labor organizations have adapted general work readiness, industry core, occupational cluster, and specific occupational skills to design and implement a skill standard system. Its primary goal is to describe and analyze a continuum of alternatives for conceptualizing…

The term "contextual learning" refers to the type of learning that has also been called experiential learning, real-world education, active learning, and learner-centered instruction. Unlike traditional school learning, which is based on the principles of individual learning in a manner that is independent of tools and dependent on…

This publication provides guidance to state and local administrators responsible for planning and implementing comprehensive school-to-work systems for all students, including youth with disabilities, under five key federal laws: (1) School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994; (2) Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as amended in…

The book deals with postsecondary vocational education and the training of the middle-level worker and his occupational role in our society. It suggests that vocational schools and community colleges must combine in some kind of new institutional configuration and postulates an occupational core approach to vocational programs. The first part of…

Community-based learning (CBL) is a structured approach to learning and teaching that connects meaningful community experience with intellectual development, personal growth, and active citizenship. Enthusiasm for CBL is emerging in Australia and elsewhere because it is seen as the following: strategy for whole-school reform, especially in…

The Second World Conference on Cooperative Education, held in April 1981, in conjunction with the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Cooperative Education Association in Boston, emphasized that the need to relate education and work is a worldwide concern. Summaries of the Conference's major presentations and selections from the rest are reproduced…

This text is intended to provide new and practicing professionals with an introduction to the strategies necessary to support the transition of students with moderate and severe disabilities from school to community life. It offers recommendations for designing and implementing middle school, high school, and post-high school programs, addressing…

The objectives, curriculum, and role of higher education and key policy and practice issues were reassessed against the backdrop of recent and predicted demographic, economic, and political changes and trends in Great Britain. Special consideration was given to the fact that "mature" learners now constitute the majority of entrants into…

This publication is part of the study materials for the distance education course, Curriculum and Competencies, in the Open Campus Program at Deakin University. It contains 39 papers on the nature, historical development, and delivery of competency-based training (CBT) and on the Australian and international debates surrounding CBT. The following…