The Future of CTE: Programs of Study
This article describes one of the NRCCTE’s two qualitative
investigations of POS, Six Stories About Six States: Programs of
Study. This project, now concluded, focused on how POS were
developed, and especially on how technical assistance was
provided to strengthen and improve them.
The Six States project report noted the power of project-based
learning (PBL) and hands-on, active participation in both
classrooms and in the community/workplace to sustain student
interest, engagement and understanding. In study sites, skills
and knowledge were also developed and enhanced through
instruction that met both academic and workplace competency
expectations. Such strategies led to improvements in student
achievement outcomes. Districts and states in the study were able
to cite data that showed that CTE students were doing well and
even outperforming average, non-CTE students in their states.
District and state data also showed that students in POS had
higher high school graduation rates.
The study supported what has been known for a while:
Relationships matter. Good collaborations between educators and
business and industry stakeholders were especially important to
ensuring rigorous academic and career-related POS curricula that
would be relevant for the workplace. The successful development
of these important instructional materials was considered a
by-product of the cooperative, friendly relationships between
education and business.
Shumer, R., & Digby, C. (2012). The future of CTE: Programs of study. Techniques, 87(1), 36-39.