Eight vocational and academic classes taught by four different teachers at three comprehensive high schools were studied to identify classroom practices that facilitate teaching and learning generic skills. The teachers studied had a mix of instructional goals for students, including subject matter knowledge and skills, complex reasoning skills and problem-solving strategies, work-related attitudes, and cooperative or group skills. The following design features proved essential to successful classrooms: situated learning (task or activity being studied/taught), culture of expert practice (participants in the environment and how they handle tasks), motivation, and cooperation. In successful classrooms, teachers supported the various classroom design features by using techniques that give students opportunities to observe, engage in, and invent or discover "expert" learning strategies. Modeling and scaffolding (guided and supported practice) proved to be especially effective techniques. Three aspects of school context were found to be especially conducive to student achievement: access to knowledge, press for achievement, and teaching conditions that empower rather than restrain teachers. New models of teacher training and staff development were determined to be increasingly important as academic and vocational education become further integrated and the distinctions between school-based and work-related learning become further blurred. (MN)