Essentials of High School Reform: New Forms of Assessment and Contextual Teaching and Learning

Essentials of High School Reform:New Forms of Assessment and

Contextual Teaching and Learning

Edited by Betsy Brand

September 2003

American Youth Policy Forum

Bridging Youth policy, practice and research


- Bridging Youth Policy, Practice, and Research

The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), a nonprofit, nonpartisan professionaldevelopment organization, provides learning opportunities for policymakers, prac-titioners, and researchers working on youth issues at the national, state, and locallevels. AYPF’s goal is to provide participants with information, insights, and net-works on issues related to the development of healthy and successful young peo-ple, productive workers, and participating citizens in a democratic society. Ourwork focuses on: secondary and postsecondary education, out-of-school and at-risk youth, juvenile justice, national and community service, service-learning, andrelated forms of youth development, transition to careers and career development,training, and preparation for employment.

Since 1993, AYPF has conducted an average of 40 events per year for thousandsof policymakers, including lunchtime forums, out-of-town field trips, and foreignstudy missions with a thematic focus. Forum participants include Congressionalstaff, officials of various federal agencies, state and local government officials,policymakers from national non-profit and advocacy associations, and members ofthe media who report on youth issues. AYPF publishes a wide variety of policyreports and material on youth and youth policy issues. Many of these publicationsmay be found on our website at www.aypf.org.

Funders

AYPF events and policy reports are made possible through the support of a con-sortium of philanthropic foundations: Carnegie Corporation of New York, FordFoundation, Ford Motor Company Fund, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,William T. Grant Foundation, George Gund Foundation, J & M Foundation, W.K.Kellogg Foundation, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Charles S. Mott Foundation,Joseph and May Winston Foundation, and others. The views reflected in this pub-lication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the fun-ders.

Copyright

American Youth Policy Forum, Washington, DC, 2003.

This publication is copyrighted, but may be cited without permission providing thesource is identified as: Essentials of High School Reform: New Forms Assessmentand Contextual Teaching and Learning. Washington, DC: American Youth PolicyForum, 2003. Reproduction of any portion of this report for commercial sale isprohibited. For additional copies of this publication, see back cover, or visit ourwebsite, www.aypf.org. ISBN #1-887031-86-3

Essentials of High SchoolReform: New Forms of

Assessment and ContextualTeaching and Learning

Edited by Betsy Brand

American Youth Policy ForumSeptember 2003

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) wishes to acknowledge a number of individuals who helpedmake this publication possible. First, our partners in this project, Joan Wills, Director, and BarbaraKaufmann, Senior Associate, Center for Workforce Development, Institute for Educational Leadership,contributed by identifying the issues to be researched, framing the topics, identifying panelists, serving asmoderators for the two roundtables, and reviewing this publication.

Next the authors of the papers, who include Sri Ananda of WestEd and Elliott Medrich, Sarah Calderon,and Gary Hoachlander of MPR Associates, Inc., did a masterful job of taking a very complex issue, pre-senting the major policy issues in a clear and concise manner, and providing well-conceived recommen-dations for policy and practice. At each of the two roundtables, the researchers presented their paper andserved as a resource to the participants during the panels and general discussion. Lastly, thanks go to FranRothstein, Rothstein Consulting, for writing the summaries of the two roundtables.

Thanks also go to our funders, who make all of our work possible. In particular, the Carnegie Corporationof New York and the former National School-to-Work Office deserve special acknowledgement and thanksfor supporting the roundtables and development of the papers.

Lastly, thanks to my colleagues at AYPF, particularly Glenda Partee, Co-Director, who helped in framingthe topics, organizing the roundtables, serving as a moderator, and for reviewing this document.

Betsy Brand

Co-Director

September 2003

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Supporting High School Students Through Assessment of Academic and Industry-Valued Skills: WhatHave We Learned?by Sri Ananda, WestEd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Summary of First Roundtable – Improving Teaching and Learning Through Assessment . . . . . . . . . . .26

Contextual Teaching and Learning Strategies in High Schools: Developing a Vision for Support andEvaluation, Elliott Medrich, Sarah Calderon, and Gary Hoachlander, MPR Associates, Inc. . . . . . . . . .35

Summary of Second Roundtable – Instructional Strategies and Structures for Improved Learning in HighSchools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77

Summary of Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85

AYPF’s and IEL’s perspective on high schoolreform starts from the position that every studentshould be prepared to face the challenges oftoday’s global, knowledge-based economy whichnow requires some postsecondary education. Inorder for young people to be prepared both forpostsecondary education and high skill careers,they need not only strong academic skills, but alsothe “ability to apply academic concepts and skills,to solve complicated interdisciplinary problems,to work collaboratively, to understand systems,and to communicate effectively.”1 High schoolstudents also need to learn about potential careers,have a familiarity with the world of work beyondthe classroom walls, and develop some occupa-tional competencies.

Many high schools do not prepare their studentswell for the challenges of the global labor market.One has only to look at the poor performance ofU.S. high school students on the NationalAssessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)reading and mathematics tests, as well as the stag-gering dropout rates in some urban school sys-tems. In addition, many employers complain thatthey cannot find skilled employees or that theiryoung workers lack the rudimentary communica-tion, interpersonal, and analytic skills desired inthe workplace.

Since the report A Nation At Riskwas released in

1983, policymakers have focused on increasingacademic course taking and improving the aca-demic competencies of youth (without as muchimprovement as hoped for). This attention onacademic skills is appropriate, and hopefully thenew stage of standards-based reform fueled by theNo Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) will result ingreater academic achievement. But this attentionon improved academic outcomes in a limitednumber of core competencies has meant littleattention has been paid to how best expand therange of expected outcomes that include other val-ued skills, such as communication, teamwork,analytical, and interpersonal skills, that youth alsoneed to be successful. And only recently has therebeen any policy interest in providing alternativelearning approaches to those provided in compre-hensive high schools most students attend.

Research indicates that the important attitudinal,behavioral, and occupational skills needed forwork and life are best learned in the workplace orthrough applied, contextual settings which mirrorworkplace environments, as opposed to tradition-al classrooms.2 This argues for creating muchstronger relationships between high schools, theircommunities, and employers to provide a range ofauthentic learning opportunities.

Over the past decade, reform-minded career andtechnical education, school-to-work, and alterna-

Introduction

The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) and the Center for Workforce Development, Institutefor Educational Leadership (IEL)are committed to raising awareness of policies and practices thatwill lead to improved learning opportunities for youth in high school. Career and college prepara-

tion for all students has always been an important policy goal for AYPF and IEL. Both organizations havefocused their policy work on how to make high school more rigorous, meaningful, and connected to stu-dents’ needs and future plans. AYPF and IEL have long recognized that in order to meet this goal, thestructure and design of high schools and of the teaching and learning that takes place in those high schoolsneed to change. Both organizations recognize that schools alone cannot be expected to prepare youth forthe challenges of the global marketplace, thus partnerships with communities and industries are needed toassist in redesigning and restructuring of high schools.

Essentials of High School Reform 1

1 Medrich, Elliott, Sarah Calderon, and Gary Hoachlander. Contextual Teaching and Learning Strategies in High Schools: Developing a Vision for Support andEvaluation.MPR Associates, Inc. Berkeley, CA: 2002

2 American Youth Policy Forum

tive education programs have created new learn-ing options for high school students that (1) helpmeet their learning needs, (2) facilitate learning awide range of skills, and (3) offer different peda-gogical approaches. Many of these learningoptions are described in two previous publica-tions, Looking Forward: School-to-WorkPrinciples and Strategies for Sustainability(AYPF and IEL, 2000) and High Schools of theMillennium (AYPF, 2000). These two publica-tions provide a case for reforming large compre-hensive high schools into smaller, more personal-ized schools, with more adult contact and morerigorous academics and high standards for all stu-dents set in the context of a career or a theme (e.g.the arts). Teaching and learning that is connectedto the real world, that incorporates how knowl-edge is applied in work settings, and that leads tothe development of academic, occupational, andemployability skills are critical aspects of theseeffective high schools.

To build on the earlier work identifying effectiveeducation policies and practices that result inimproved learning and outcomes for high schoolstudents, AYPF and IEL organized two roundtablemeetings on aspects of high school reform criticalto helping students develop the range of skillsneeded to be successful and that take into accountthe varied learning styles, preferences, and needsof youth today. The topics for the roundtableswere new forms of assessments (held on May 9,2002) and contextual teaching and learning (heldon July 23, 2002). Both practices support andenhance the development of academic competen-cies, as well as help students acquire and demon-strate other skill attainment. The two practiceshave led to the creation of new forms of learningoptions and instructional reform that have positivebenefits for students.

To provide the context for the roundtables, paperswere developed on each subject. The paper by SriAnanda, WestEd, on Supporting High SchoolStudents Through Assessment of Academic andIndustry-Valued Skills,addresses four assessment-

related questions that need to be considered aseducators and policymakers refine and build uponexisting assessment systems, given the require-ments of NCLB. The paper looks at issues suchas: the impact of high stakes testing on career andtechnical education programs and the studentsthey serve; the success of using additional assess-ments beyond academic-focused tests; howcareer-related and other employability skills canbe incorporated into states’ academic standardsand assessments; and how assessments can helpsupport and improve contextual teaching andlearning.

The paper for the second roundtable by ElliottMedrich, Sarah Calderon, and Gary Hoachlanderof MPR Associates, Inc., Contextual Teaching andLearning Strategies in High Schools: Developinga Vision for Support and Evaluation,concentrateson one possible approach for strengtheninginstructional practice – contextual teaching andlearning – with particular attention paid to itspotential role in high school reform. The paperaims to define more clearly what contextual teach-ing and learning is; looks at the roots of contextu-al teaching and learning and how it has evolved;examines the research on the effectiveness of con-textual teaching and learning; and concludes witha discussion of the role public policy might play inbetter assessing contextual teaching and learningas a school improvement strategy.

Other major issues raised by the roundtable par-ticipants focused on what skills should be meas-ured, how they should be measured, and theimpact of using new forms of assessments andcontextual teaching and learning on students. Forexample, most recently developed high schoolexit exams and state tests measure academicskills, generally with multiple choice tests. Thistrend is reinforced by NCLB. As such, they havenot been designed to measure employability, tech-nical, or occupational skills. Without other typesof assessments to supplement and complementstandardized tests, measuring student performancein these other skill areas will be nearly impossible.

2 Education Development Center. The Teaching Firm: Where Productive Work and Learning Converge. Newton, MA: 1998


Standardized tests, particularly multiple choicetests, also limit the way students express theirknowledge and competencies. Alternative assess-ments provide an opportunity for students todemonstrate a wider array of knowledge in per-formance-related ways. Having a range of assess-ments, from multiple choice tests to demonstra-tions of work products to portfolios, leads to amore complete picture of what students havelearned and are able to do. Poor test-takers maybe more motivated to know there are otheravenues than standardized tests to showcase theirskills and knowledge. Carefully designed formsof assessment can measure the attainment of awide range of student competencies and engagethe student in the demonstration of those skills ina more meaningful way than standardized tests.

Additional forms of assessments are also neededto determine how much learning occurs throughcontextual teaching and learning. Because con-textual teaching and learning is delivered throughmodels such as work-based learning, servicelearning, and cooperative learning, it does notalign well with standardized tests. Using assess-ments that are more closely aligned to the learningobjectives and the pedagogy will result in a betterunderstanding not only of student performance,but teacher competence as well.

Contextual teaching and learning is based on theabundant research that shows that we learn in avariety of ways and that when new information isset in a familiar context or applied to actual prob-lem solving, the learning process is more success-ful. There is also evidence that contextual teach-ing and learning supports students and keeps themengaged, motivated, and coming to school.Contextual teaching and learning can also helpstudents learn attitudinal and behavioral skills thatwill help them succeed in postsecondary educa-tion and the workplace.

Ensuring the alignment of contextual teaching andlearning strategies with more standardizedaccountability systems is a challenge, particularly

given the press of NCLB and was discussed at theroundtables. As author Sri Ananda notes, “Whilestates and localities have made progress over thepast decade in expanding contextual learningchoices for all students (such as expanding careeracademies and service learning, creating smalllearning communities and using communities asclassrooms), a major source of tension is how toensure these choices are consistent with accounta-bility-driven assessments.”3

The issues of additional forms of assessment andcontextual teaching and learning are very muchintertwined, as we found during the presentationof the papers and the ensuing discussion at theroundtables. Assessment and teaching and learn-ing are at the heart of high school reform. Theyinfluence teacher preparation and quality, thestructure of classes and of schools, and the con-nections to experts in the wider community, mostparticularly employers. AYPF and IEL believethese issues need to be closely linked in policydiscussions, which is why they are addressedtogether in this report.

The two papers and the summaries of the roundta-bles are presented here. The papers include manyexcellent policy recommendations as well as prac-tical advice on how to structure contextual teach-ing and learning and alternative assessmentsactivities at the high school level. The summariesof the roundtable discussions provide a multi-faceted look at the two topics, based on input fromthe authors, panelists, and participants, and howthey relate to educational leadership, professionaldevelopment, and federal education policy. Thesummaries also include descriptions of effectivepolicies, practices, and programs for improvingstudent learning. The publication ends with asummary of the recommendations that emergedfrom the papers and the roundtable discussions.

3 Ananda, Sri. Supporting High School Students Through Assessment of Academic and Industry-Valued Skills: What Have We Learned?San Francisco, CA. WestEd.2002

ABSTRACT

High school reforms that incorporate industry-val-ued skills — integrating academics with “real-world” teaching and learning — have led toimportant lessons for improving student assess-ment systems. Drawing on that knowledge, thispaper addresses four assessment-related questionsthat need to be considered as states and localitiesrefine and build upon existing assessment sys-tems:

• What is the likely impact of increased high-stakes testing on industry-valued high schoolprograms and the students they serve?

• What success has there been in using addition-al assessments — beyond state-mandated, aca-demic-focused tests — for career-technicaleducation (CTE) and other high school reformefforts?

• How can career-related and other SCANS-likeskills be incorporated into states’ academicstandards and assessments?

• How can assessment help support and improvecontextual teaching and learning?

After addressing each of these questions based ona review of data and current state practices, thispaper concludes with specific assessment-relatedrecommendations to support industry-valued highschool reform.

INTRODUCTION

Current assessment pressures pose significantchallenges to advocates of industry-valuedreforms for high schools, reforms that integrateacademics with “real-world” teaching and learn-ing. Efforts to assess industry-valued standardsthrough large-scale, comprehensive systems thatoffer portable skill certificates for high school stu-dents have yet to reach fruition. Meanwhile, high-stakes, academic assessment and school accounta-bility increasingly dominate the policy landscape.Kane, Staigar, and Geppert (2001) note that inspring 2000, 40 states used statewide student testscores to evaluate school performance, with 20 ofthem basing rewards and sanctions on a school’stest performance. The recently enacted No ChildLeft Behind Act of 2001,which requires states tomeet new and far-reaching federal mandates forstudent assessment and school accountability, for-malizes as a national mandate what the majority ofstates have already begun on their own. Yet, suchhigh-stakes, academic assessments for high schoolstudents do not systematically and formally incor-porate work preparation (WestEd, 2001a) andskills such as those identified by the Secretary’sCommission on Achieving Necessary Skills, orSCANS (1991).

There is much support among policymakers andeducators across the nation for the philosophyembodied in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.Nonetheless, there is also widespread concernamong states and districts about how to meet the


Supporting High School Students ThroughAssessment of Academic and Industry-valued Skills:

What Have We Learned?by Sri Ananda, WestEd

June 28, 2003

This paper was produced by WestEd in part with funds from the Office of Educational Research andImprovement,U.S. Department of Education (contract number ED-01-CO-0012) and theAmerican Youth Policy Forum. Its contents do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of either

the Department of Education or the American Youth Policy Forum. The author wishes to thank Joan Wills,Betsy Brand, Stanley Rabinowitz, Barbara Kaufmann, and Glenda Partee for their valuable feedback onprevious drafts of this paper.


law’s myriad assessment and accountabilityrequirements. The new law calls for states by2005–06 to implement annual testing in mathe-matics and reading for grades 3 through 8 as wellas testing at least once in these subjects duringhigh school. By 2007–08, states also need toimplement testing in science at the elementary,middle, and high school levels. Based primarilyon student performance on these assessments,starting in 2002–03, a state must also set up a sin-gle accountability system whereby all studentsscore at the “proficient” level by the end of 12years and demonstrate annual, incrementalprogress toward this goal. A common fear withinhigh school reform circles is that the increasedattention to academic, high-stakes testing andschool accountability mandated by this new lawmay negatively impact some of the studentsserved by high school reform programs — partic-ularly minority students, low socioeconomic-sta-tus students, English language learners, and spe-cial education students — and constrain the pro-grams themselves.

Despite these new and formidable assessmentchallenges, high school education reform effortsthat incorporate work-related requirements andindustry-valued skills have led to important les-sons that could serve to improve student assess-ment systems. It is important for policymakers,educators, and trainers involved with high schooland youth programs to be aware of these lessonsas well as other assessment-related issues thatimpact the youth they serve. The high schoollevel, in particular, faces assessment needs thathave yet to be met. Specifically, some programsare intensifying their work-related curriculum,thus requiring assessments that are reflective ofthis shift. Furthermore, increasing numbers ofschool districts and states are beginning to exploreand undertake substantial high school reforms thatwill require additional enhancements to theirassessment strategies.

To that end, this paper addresses some of the fun-damental assessment-related questions that needto be considered as states and localities refine and

build upon existing assessment systems:

• What is the likely impact of increased high-stakes testing on industry-valued high schoolprograms and the students they serve?

• What success has there been in using addition-al assessments — beyond state-mandated, aca-demic-focused tests — for career-technicaleducation (CTE) and other high school reformefforts?

• How can career-related and other SCANS-likeskills be incorporated into states’ academicstandards and assessments?

• How can assessment help support and improvecontextual teaching and learning?

This paper poses answers to each of these ques-tions based on a review of data and current statepractices. The paper concludes with specificassessment-related recommendations to supportindustry-valued high school reform.

WHAT IS THE LIKELY IMPACT OFINCREASED HIGH-STAKES TEST-ING ON INDUSTRY-VALUED HIGHSCHOOL PROGRAMS AND THESTUDENTS THEY SERVE?

There are good reasons for concern that theincrease in high-stakes testing may have a nega-tive impact on high school reform efforts and thestudents they serve. First, high school reformefforts serve a range of students with differentlearning and response styles. These students’skills might not be best demonstrated throughpaper-and-pencil standardized testing. High-stakes tests are typically limited to multiple-choice items only or multiple-choice items plus alimited number of constructed-response items thatrequire written responses (typically, short-answeritems or essays). Other test formats (e.g., hands-on, performance-based assessments; portfolios)are too resource intensive to administer and scoreon a statewide basis (Ananda & Rabinowitz,2000; Rabinowitz & Ananda, 2001). Multiple-choice testing, in particular, is inconsistent with


the constructivist teaching and learning focus ofmany high school reform efforts. Thus, studentswho are benefiting from constructivist, contextu-alized learning situations may not be expected toperform as well on multiple-choice testingbecause of its emphasis on isolated, fragmentedconcepts. Moreover, many statewide academicassessment systems rely extensively on norm-ref-erenced tests (NRTs) that are designed to measurehow well students have achieved relative to eachother and relative to national norms. NRTs areoften not well-aligned to a particular curriculumand hence may not measure what a student haslearned in the classroom.

Yet another concern about the possible effects ofhigh-stakes academic testing on students is thatsuch testing may deter them from fully participat-ing in applied learning courses and industry-val-ued programs. Prior to the most recent wave ofincreased high-stakes academic testing, declineshad already occurred in the number of high schoolstudents taking a concentrated number of career-technical education (CTE) courses. A recent studyreported that the portion of students who tookthree or more courses in a single occupational pro-gram area decreased from about 33 to 25 percentamong high school graduates from 1982 to 1994(Levesque et al., 2000). This trend was found to beaccompanied by increases in academic course-taking and is also thought to be linked to increas-es in high-stakes academic testing (NationalDissemination Center for Career and TechnicalEducation, 2001).

High school exit exams are suspected to be themeasures that would have the most negativeimpact on student participation in industry-valuedprograms. Specifically, it is thought that studentswho do not initially pass the high school exit examwill be targeted for remediation in academic sub-ject areas and, consequently, will be discouragedfrom participating in CTE and other industry-val-ued programs. More significantly, a common fearis that the implementation of challenging highschool exit exams will result in an increaseddropout rate, especially among specific sub-

groups of students (i.e., minority students, lowsocioeconomic-status students, English languagelearners, special education students). Althoughsome research studies suggest a link betweenincreased dropout rates and high school exitexams, such studies often do not adequately con-trol for potentially confounding variables (forexample, student background factors and pro-grammatic changes, such as more rigorous contentstandards and curricula). Thus, the evidence thatlinks increased dropout rates of subgroups of highschool students to high school exit exams is notconclusive (Rabinowitz, Zimmerman, &Sherman, 2001).

On the other hand, there is also a lack of definitivedata to support the often-cited claim that partici-pation in industry-valued high school reform ini-tiatives leads to increases in student academicachievement. Indeed, while the available datafrom high school innovations that provide a the-matic focus (e.g., career academies, career mag-nets) demonstrate higher student attendance,fewer discipline problems, and higher likelihoodto attend college as compared with traditional highschools, there is little evidence of the significantincreases in student achievement anticipated byproponents of industry-valued high school reformefforts (Katz, Jackson, Reeves, & Benson, 1995;Lynch, 2000). In fact, some data seem to suggestlower performance of students in industry-valuedprograms on academic achievement tests.However, in their study of Arizona high schoolstudents’ Stanford-9 scores, Elliot and Knight(2002) found that when they statistically con-trolled for extraneous variables (e.g., dispropor-tionately large numbers of students from specialpopulation groups in CTE programs), apparenttest score deficits for CTE students were negligi-ble. Nevertheless, the authors warned that schoolleaders need to take care to control for such vari-ables when conducting analyses of CTE programsand general education tracks; otherwise, CTE pro-grams may face discrimination as the nation rush-es ahead with implementation of high-stakes aca-demic testing.


High Schools That Work (HSTW) embodies apossible exception to the lack of evidence ofincreased student academic achievement associat-ed with industry-valued high school reformefforts. HSTW is designed to increase the aca-demic achievement of career-focused high schoolstudents by combining the content of a collegepreparatory curriculum with CTE. Administeredby the Southern Regional Education Board,HSTW was 1 of 24 nationwide school reform ini-tiatives reviewed in a recent study by theAmerican Institutes for Research (AIR). In itsreview, AIR found few studies of student out-comes for the 24 school reform initiatives thatwere based on rigorous research designs (Hermanet al., 1999). However, cumulative evidence overmore than a decade suggests that HSTW schoolshave increased student achievement. More specif-ically, a study conducted by MPR Associatesunder the auspices of the National Center forResearch in Vocational Education demonstratedincreases in HSTW assessment scores from 1996to 1998 in reading, math, and science (Kaufman,Bardby, & Teitelbaum, 2000).

In summary, the data to date on the potentialimpact of high-stakes testing on industry-valuedprograms and the students they serve are incon-clusive. However, the data suggest that the conse-quences of high-stakes testing on these programsand the students being served warrant concertedattention for both positive and negative outcomes.

WHAT SUCCESS HAS THEREBEEN IN USING ADDITIONALASSESSMENTS — BEYONDSTATE-MANDATED, ACADEMIC-FOCUSED TESTS — FORCAREER-TECHNICAL EDUCATIONAND OTHER HIGH SCHOOLREFORM EFFORTS?

During the past decade, states and localities haveinvestigated and developed a range of assessmenttools, in part spurred by national efforts and sup-ported by the federal government. The School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 (STWOA) calls

for standards-based assessment that leads toportable skill certificates for high school studentswho master important industry-valued and relatedacademic skills. Similarly, the National SkillsStandards Act of 1994envisions a comprehensivenational system of standards-based assessmentsand certification, encompassing both entry-levelworkers as well as the full range of adult workersin major industry sectors. More recently, theNational Association of the State Directors ofCareer Technical Education Consortium has beenexploring system-wide options for high schoolend-of-course assessments to underscore career-technical education (CTE) as an integral part ofthe total education system (Wills, 2002).

To date, the above-mentioned goals of large-scalesystems of career-related assessments and certifi-cation for high school students still remain mostlyelusive at the state and national levels. There aremany formidable obstacles precluding states fromendorsing and using instruments that lead toportable skill certificates. Among them is the dif-ficulty of identifying any single assessment instru-ment that is appropriate within and across careermajors, schools, and districts. The wide range oflocal programs with different instructional focisuggests a need for different assessment approach-es and instruments to meet local needs. On theother hand, allowing for different assessmentswould make it hard to achieve portability, where-as implementing a single, common statewideassessment would virtually assure the portabilityof skills certificates or credentials.

Because of the difficulty in finding a single, hencefully portable, assessment instrument that wouldfit well with different programs, many states haveeither explicitly or implicitly encouraged localprograms to devise their own assessment and cer-tification models to support locally endorsedindustry-valued models. Given this local flexibili-ty, a number of promising assessment modelshave emerged. While some of these involveselected-response (i.e., multiple-choice) assess-ment, many feature performance-based assess-ment. Performance-based assessments require


examinees to construct or produce a response toan assessment item or task, as opposed to multi-ple-choice testing in which examinees must selectthe correct response. At its best, performance-based assessment includes cognitively demand-ing, hands-on activities that aim to stimulatelearners to think, react to new situations, review,revise, and evaluate their work, and communicatein verbal and visual ways. Examples of perform-ance-based assessment methods include problem-solving scenarios, performance events, and com-puter simulation tasks.

Described below are selected examples of assess-ment and certification models being developed orimplemented in CTE and other industry-focusedcontexts. They have demonstrated promise in thefield as alternatives for the assessment and certifi-cation models espoused by the STWOA and otherrelated legislation. They range from specificinstruments (WorkKeys), to performance-basedassessment methods (problem-solving scenarios,projects, portfolios), to innovative assessmentframeworks and delivery modes (national indus-try-endorsed credentials, computer-based assess-ment).

WorkKeys

Developed by ACT, Inc., WorkKeys is a systemfor instruction and testing of general workplacecompetencies and employability skills. It is anassessment tool that shows students their levels(assessment profiles) in eight foundational skills:applied mathematics, applied technology, listen-ing, locating information, observation, readingfor information, teamwork, and writing. It alsoprovides a job analysis system that identifies skilllevels that employees need to perform compe-tently in specific jobs. While it is primarily apaper-and-pencil assessment, WorkKeys is nowincluding computer-based delivery for some of itscomponents. Nearly 14,000 companies nation-wide have used WorkKeys for initial hiring, train-ing, and employment (Lynch, 2000). In the pastfew years, thousands of high school students havebeen tested with WorkKeys. For example,Oregon’s Certificate of Advanced Mastery

assessment includes specific local options tomeasure student performance relative to theCareer-Related Learning Standards (CRLSs).WorkKeys was included as part of a pilot study todetermine valid measurement of CRLSs.Similarly, Michigan’s Department of CareerDevelopment has proposed using WorkKeysthroughout the state as a measure of generalworkplace skills for secondary-level students andwelfare-to-work program participants. Illinoisalso has incorporated part of the WorkKeys bat-tery in its state-mandated Prairie State Exam forgrade 11 (Wills & Kaufmann, in progress).

There are many benefits to using the WorkKeyssystem for assessment of high school students’proficiency on workplace readiness and employa-bility skills. Most significantly, WorkKeys is astandardized assessment package that is based onextensive research. Thus, it is appropriate for usein a range of educational settings and has empiri-cal, psychometric data to justify its use. However,some WorkKeys users have also suggested a fewlimitations. Specifically, WorkKeys assesses arange of workplace skills, from rote to more com-plex. As such, some teachers find WorkKeys notfully aligned with their curriculum which inte-grates workplace readiness and challenging aca-demics. Others suggest that the video and audiostimuli for some of the WorkKeys assessmentitems seem removed from high school students’experiences and interests. Despite these apparentlimitations, few, if any, other assessment packagesfor workplace readiness skills are as comprehen-sive and well-researched as WorkKeys.

Problem-solving scenarios

Scenarios represent a popular approach to assess-ment of career-related skills. They depict complexand realistic problems in a work-related or other“real-world” situation. An examinee’s response tothe scenario demonstrates his or her ability toapply previous knowledge to generate solutions torealistic problems. Table 1 shows an example of ascenario that requires a written response from highschool students studying animal science.


A number of skill standards projects have usedscenarios to either frame the skill standards them-selves or as a preferred method to assess masteryrelative to skill standards. For example, theBioscience National Skill Standards, developedby Education Development Center (EDC), includescenarios as routine procedures and unanticipatedproblems that the student must master (Malyn-Smith & Leff, 1997). These scenarios are used forlearning as well as evaluative purposes. Similarly,the Family and Consumer Sciences NationalStandards, developed by the Vocational-TechnicalEducation Consortium of the States (V-TECS),include scenarios for at least two occupationalareas. The Manufacturing Linkage Project, anoth-er project led by V-TECS (and co-directed by thestate of Indiana), has also developed assessmentscenarios with significant industry participation(Border, 1998).

Furthermore, Indiana is using locally developedassessment scenarios on a statewide basis to

award individuals with Certificates of TechnicalAchievement. Certificates are awarded to stu-dents, incumbent workers, and adults whose per-formance on scenarios meets specific criteria. TheIndiana Department of Workforce Developmentmonitors individual assessment sites to protect thevalue and credibility of each certificate awarded(Wills & Kaufmann, in progress).

There are many benefits to scenario assessment.Compared to other assessment methods thatrequire students to construct rather than select aresponse, scenarios are fairly easy to administerand score. Scenarios are discrete and versatiletasks. They can be incorporated into large-scalepaper-and-pencil (as well as computer-based)assessments with both multiple-choice and open-ended response options. Using a scenario to elicitboth multiple-choice and open-ended responsescan result in more comprehensive content cover-age and more efficient and reliable measurement.In addition to their use in large-scale testing, sce-

Species Selection

SCENARIO

A neighbor has inherited 500 acres of sparselyforested range land and has decided to start alarge animal livestock operation. Your neighbordoesn’t have much experience with livestock,so he has asked you to help him choose whatanimals to run on his property.

The property includes rolling hills. The primaryvegetation is annual grasses and small shrubs.There is a wooded portion of the property,which contains mostly coastal live oak. There isa seasonal, natural water supply. The wintersare mild and wet, but the summers can be veryhot. There is perimeter fencing around the prop-erty.

[adapted from the Career-TechnicalAssessment Program (Ananda, 1999)]

INSTRUCTIONS

Think about animal production. Select whichspecies or combination of species could beused, given the conditions of your neighbor’sproperty. Give reasons for what you suggest..

To receive a Proficient rating on this task, youmust show all of the following:

1. Knowledge of:

• Earning potential in animal production

• Range management

• Animal facilities

2. Ability to propose a solution to this scenario

3. Ability to communicate effectively in writing

Table 1: Example of a written scenario prompt in animal science


narios can also be used for classroom instruction-al and assessment purposes.

There are some limitations to scenarios, however.First, it is difficult to develop useful, relevant sce-narios in generic workplace readiness contextsthat are meaningful to all students. It is much eas-ier to develop scenarios that reflect a more spe-cialized occupational context, such as marketingor home health care. Moreover, although scenar-ios are more amenable to inclusion in large-scaleassessment than many other performance-basedassessment options, scenarios are still much moreexpensive to develop and score than typical multi-ple-choice items.

Project assessments

A project is an in-depth, hands-on exploration of atopic, theme, idea, or activity, resulting in a prod-uct, performance, or event for assessment (Katz &Chard, 1989). The objective of a project is for thestudent to delve more deeply into and learn abouta topic of interest. A project takes place over asubstantial period of time (e.g., weeks, months)and represents the best of what a student can do,given constructive feedback and opportunities torevise his or her work. As such, projects focus ondepth of knowledge and result in substantial workproducts.

Although projects are considered an innovativeassessment method, many teachers have used a

form of project assessment at one time or another— particularly at the high school level. Projectsare a powerful tool for assessing a blend of hands-on skills and challenging academic contentbecause they require students to demonstrate in-depth content knowledge, evaluate their ownwork, solve problems, plan and carry out complexactivities, and (often) communicate findings to anaudience. The senior project is a form of assess-ment that is commonly used in high schools acrossthe country. Typically adopted as a requirementfor high school graduation, almost all senior proj-ects include background research, a researchpaper, development of a product related to thepaper, and an oral presentation of the research andproduct to an audience. Table 2 provides briefdescriptions of senior projects.

The use of project assessments as an integral partof teaching and learning activities can have manyeffects on student learning and teacher practices(Long & Crepeau, 2000). On the positive side,students can increase and deepen their knowledgeand skills on a particular topic of interest to them.Many students show increased autonomy andresourcefulness as they engage in active, ratherthan passive, learning. High schools with seniorprojects also report higher rates of homeworkcompletion, increased self-reflection, andincreased student competence in writing andresearch skills. At the same time, project assess-ment can be difficult and frustrating for some stu-

Neighborhood Project: Student identifies a topic of concern to his or her neighborhood, conducts aneighborhood survey on attitudes toward that topic (e.g., a new freeway construction measure on anupcoming city election), analyzes the results, and summarizes their implications.

The Plant Science Experiment:Student conducts research on the factors contributing to the growth of arare plant, develops some hypotheses that can be tested, designs a plant experiment to test thesehypotheses, then summarizes findings on a poster board and in a written report.

Computer Software Manual:Student investigates computer software questions that are most frequentlyasked by beginning users and develops a software reference manual to help users find answers to theirquestions.

The Infomercial:As a group project, students research the infomercial trend, select a product to adver-tise, and create a videotape infomercial.

Table 2: Examples of senior project ideas


dents who are not accustomed to an assessmentthat requires a high level of initiative and commit-ment. Moreover, in practice many senior projectstend to sacrifice academic rigor for showy presen-tations. This is especially true during the earlyyears of project assessment implementation whenstudents are not yet accustomed to projects as avehicle for showcasing their knowledge and skillson key academic and industry-valued standards.

There are benefits and drawbacks associated withproject assessment not only for students, but alsofor teachers. Some teachers welcome the shift intheir roles from lecturer to mentor, coach, andadvisor that accompanies incorporation of projectassessments into the curriculum. For others, thisshift is uncomfortable and somewhat difficult.Moreover, certain logistical aspects of projectassessment can be overwhelming to teachers, suchas identifying and bringing in a larger audience(parents, other teachers, community members) towatch students present their projects. Nonetheless,project assessments have great potential for inte-grating academic and hands-on learning — theyhelp create and foster interdependence betweenlearning that is hands-on and minds-on (Long &Crepeau, 2000).

Portfolios

A portfolio assessment involves the structuredcollection of student work that documents stu-dents’ application of knowledge and skills in avariety of authentic contexts. In contrast to proj-ects that typically require students to produce oneproduct related to a few standards or themes, port-folios generally require a variety of student workrelated to multiple standards or themes. Therefore,portfolio assessment can usually provide a morecomprehensive view than projects of students’standards-based knowledge and skills (Ananda,2000).

There are many examples of portfolios in placetoday across all levels of the education system.Writing portfolios abound at the elementary, mid-dle, and high school levels. Math portfolios,although less popular than writing portfolios, are

used not only as an assessment tool, but also toencourage students to work with and engage inmathematics in meaningful and nontraditionalways.

Although the use of portfolios to promote aca-demic content learning has received the lion’sshare of attention in education circles, manycareer-related portfolio models have also beendeveloped over the last 12 years or so. Michigan’sEmployability Skills Assessment Kit (ESAK) isconsidered a pioneer effort in career-related port-folios for secondary-level students (MichiganState Board of Education, 1993). Although nolonger in statewide use, it is briefly described herebecause it was one of the first career-related port-folio models to gain widespread visibility andrecognition. This portfolio model was designed toassess students’ attainment of 12 employabilityskills benchmarks and provide feedback to stu-dents about their work readiness. ESAK used a“legal approach” — students were presumed“innocent until proven skilled.” They acted astheir own “prosecuting attorneys” and gatheredevidence to prove they were skilled, basing their“case” on evidence related to the set of 12employability skills benchmarks.

A career-related portfolio is the centerpiece ofCalifornia’s Career-Technical AssessmentProgram (C-TAP). C-TAP’s original purpose wasto certify and formally recognize students demon-strating mastery of important career-technical andrelated academic skills consistent withCalifornia’s Model Curriculum Standards for pro-grams in Agriculture, Business, Health Careers,Home Economics, and Industrial and TechnologyEducation. Because it was intended as part of astatewide skills certification system, the C-TAPportfolio is somewhat prescriptive in comparisonto other high school portfolio models. It consistsof five required sections (table of contents; letterintroducing the portfolio; career developmentpackage of resume, completed college or jobapplication, and letter of recommendation; worksamples; and writing sample) and one optionalsection (evaluation of employability skills by

supervisor). Beginning in the mid-1990s, thou-sands of career-technical students in Californiaproduced C-TAP portfolios. However, because ofthe high cost of large-scale implementation, cou-pled with California’s move away from statewideperformance-based assessment, C-TAP never wasimplemented statewide as a skill certification sys-tem (Ananda, 1999).

Despite the fact that the C-TAP portfolio wasnever incorporated into a statewide system, the C-TAPmodel and variants of it took hold in districtsand schools throughout California as well as inArizona and Oregon. Specifically, the C-TAPmodel gave rise to the Career PreparationAssessment (CPA), a portfolio designed to meas-ure learning relative to generic workplace readi-ness skills (Personal Skills, Interpersonal Skills,Thinking and Problem Solving, Communication,Employment Literacy, and Technology Literacy)and academic standards. This more generic meas-ure of workplace readiness was aimed at a largercross-section of high school students, includingthose involved in career-technical education,career academies, and school-to-work, as well asstudents not involved in such programs. As moreand more sites began using the CPA, they soughtto tailor the general model to their own localneeds. Hence, CPA evolved into the CustomPortfolio (CP), which allows for some variationfrom the general model, while maintaining theadvantages of a largely standardized portfoliomodel (e.g., use of common portfolio scoringrubrics, use of common exemplars of studentwork).

The evolution of the C-TAP portfolio illustratessome of the strengths and limitations of the port-folio as an assessment tool. A major strength is itsinherent appeal to a range of programs that seek tointegrate academic and “real-world” learning.Numerous sites across California, Oregon, andArizona were attracted to C-TAP and its variants.In many ways, the career-related portfolio repre-sents an ideal curriculum-embedded assessmentbecause of its ability to address multiple standardsin interesting, meaningful, and compelling ways.

Like projects, students typically take pride in theirportfolios, demonstrating increased autonomy,self-reflection, and initiative as they develop theirown unique collection of work.

However, as the C-TAP experience demonstrates,portfolio models in general have not proven sus-tainable for statewide assessment purposes. Theyare very expensive to administer and score, andraise a host of logistical issues (e.g., where to storeportfolios). Use of portfolios also requires signifi-cant professional development for teachers. Andsometimes portfolios do not survive public scruti-ny. That is, some factions in the general publicconsider portfolios as intrusive, non-rigorousmeasures. Nevertheless, for local instructional andassessment purposes, portfolio assessments fill aniche not easily addressed by other methods.

Incorporation of national indus-try-endorsed credentials

Given the significant development and adminis-tration costs associated with new assessments thatattempt to address industry-valued skills, somestates have decided to meet assessment needs bydrawing directly from industry. For example,Vi rginia has developed a multifaceted process toincorporate industry-validated assessments intothe state assessment system and provide studentswith portable credentials. Substantial effort hasbeen made in systematically identifying the aca-demic requirements embedded in nationally vali-dated skill standards certification programs. Usingan instrument called the Snyder Taxonomy, madeavailable through the Vocational-TechnicalEducation Consortium of the States (V-TECS),Vi rginia cross-referenced (or cross-walked) indus-try standards with its own state academic stan-dards. Although this effort required some invest-ment in software, it avoided substantial assess-ment development and implementation costs.

In short, Virginia’s approach is to address aca-demic standards through their state tests andensure linkage to industry requirements by usingthe assessments developed by industry. Thisapproach has provided additional benefits for



career-technical education programs. The state,through the documentation of academic require-ments in materials based on industry standards,has also been able to expand dual enrollmentopportunities for some students in post-secondaryinstitutions. While this assessment approach iscertainly promising, one possible limitationrelates to its total reliance on industry-endorsedcredentials for measurement of SCANS-likeskills. Just as high-stakes academic assessmentsmay not represent the most instructionally sensi-tive measures of student learning, industry assess-ments may be too focused on a single occupationto reflect the broader, industry wide focus of manyhigh school programs.

Computer-based assessment

Some of the performance-based assessment meth-ods described above (projects, portfolios) haveexperienced success at the local level, but haveproven harder to implement as high-stakes assess-ments at the state level because of cost and admin-istration considerations. Now, with the advent ofcomputer-based assessment, comes the potentialfor vastly improving how assessments are deliv-ered and scored as well as the quality of informa-tion they generate. There are several advantagesof computer-based assessment over the traditionalpaper-and-pencil mode of assessment delivery. Acomputer-based delivery system makes it possibleto include a range of assessment methodologiesthat allow for dynamic interaction between stu-dents and assessment items, including differentstimuli for questions that are difficult or cost-pro-hibitive to use with a paper-and-pencil assessmentsystem (e.g., complex diagrams, color photo-graphs, audio and video clips). With use of com-puter-adaptive models, assessment administrationtime is cut short and the assessment process is bet-ter targeted to the individual student’s needsbecause each student is presented with assessmentitems tailored to his or her ability level. Furtherefficiencies are achieved because computer-administered tests require no printing and ship-ping of test booklets and answer forms. Moreover,computer-based tests can produce instantaneous

results, even for assessment programs that requirestudent writing because of new breakthroughs inartificial intelligence and other models that allowtimely computer scoring of essays. (For a full dis-cussion of the benefits and drawbacks of comput-er-based assessment, see Rabinowitz & Brandt,2001.)

There are many possible variations of computer-based assessment models, many of which arebeing explored and developed to measure career-related and other SCANS-like skills. For example,the Sales and Services Voluntary Partnership,facilitated by the National Retail Federation withsupport from the National Skill Standards Board,is in the early stages of implementing a computer-based assessment to measure customer serviceskills. This assessment uses a multiple-choiceitem format exclusively, but includes video andaudio clips as stimuli for some of the questions.Another national skill standards-related project isdeveloping an online, computer-adaptive assess-ment based on the National Health Care SkillStandards. With a U.S. Department of Educationgrant, the National Consortium on Health Scienceand Technology Education has partnered withBrainbench to develop this assessment, which fea-tures the adaptive capability of branching to hard-er or easier assessment questions based on theindividual examinee’s answers to previous ques-tions.

In conclusion, the field has demonstrated a rangeof assessment methods that can be used for partic-ular assessment purposes. Some of these purposesare about reinforcing good teaching and learning,whereas others emphasize student recognition andcertification. Unfortunately, the current focus onhigh-stakes, large-scale academic testing maydeter attention from these other purposes andforms of assessment (American Youth PolicyForum, 2000).


HOW CAN CAREER-RELATEDAND OTHER SCANS-LIKE SKILLSBE INCORPORATED INTOSTATES’ ACADEMIC STANDARDSAND ASSESSMENTS?

It is commonly acknowledged that the so-called“soft” skills, including work readiness and career-related skills (e.g., those identified by theSecretary’s Commission on Achieving NecessarySkills, or SCANS) are neither broadly nor system-atically covered in the vast majority of state coreacademic standards and assessments (WestEd,2001a). Instead of being addressed in states’ corestudent assessment systems, workplace readinessand career-related skills have typically been rele-gated to third-party assessments, such as statelicensure exams offered by the NationalOccupational Competency Testing Institute;industry-sponsored certification exams, such asAutomotive Service Excellence; and more recent-ly, workplace readiness assessments, such asWorkKeys (Wills, 2002).

However, some state systems are exceptions.They include workplace readiness and career-related skills in their state core academic standardsand assessments. A few of these states are listedbelow.

California. Although workplace and other softskills are not addressed in California’s coreassessments for grades 3 through 8, the statewideassessment system includes end-of-course/end-of-program exams at the secondary level in academ-ic areas as well as five broad CTE areas(Agriculture Core, Computer Science andInformation Technology, Food Service andHospitality, Health Care Core, Technology Core).These CTE exams are part of the Assessments inCareer Education program.

Kentucky. This state assesses PracticalLiving/Vocational Skills core content for all stu-dents as part of its school assessment and account-ability system.

Maryland. Maryland’s state assessment system

includes World of Work and Survival Skills.However, plans are currently underway to replacethe Maryland high school exit exam (where thesecareer-related skills are covered) with end-of-course exams in English, government, algebra,geometry, and biology (Education Commission ofthe States, 2000).

Virginia. As previously described, Virginia incor-porates national certification programs and theirassessments into its overarching state assessmentframework, allowing students to earn portable cre-dentials.

Why aren’t more states incorporating workplacereadiness skills into their core standards andassessment systems? One reason is that whilethere has been growing public concern for theneed to increase student learning with respect tochallenging academic standards, there has been nocomparable outcry from the general public forraising student achievement relative to workplacereadiness or other SCANS-like skills (WestEd,2001a). Nevertheless, employers in many states,along with like-minded policymakers and educa-tors, continue to voice concern about the lack ofworkplace readiness competencies or SCANS-like skills. Many are advocating for formallyincorporating SCANS or SCANS-like skills intocore academic assessments so that all students areassessed on these important skills.

However, “adding on” SCANS-like skills mayplace a significant burden on these statewideassessments whose primary purpose is to measurestudent learning relative to academic standards.Moreover, it is not clear that the resources andwidespread support needed to effect such a sub-stantial change in these assessments would beforthcoming from the federal government, theeducation community, or the general public. Evenif support and resources were available, it wouldtake years to overhaul the existing state academicassessments in order for them to adequatelyaddress workplace readiness skills. First, the stan-dards and curriculum upon which the assessmentsare based would need to formally incorporateSCANS-like skills. Then, students would need


sufficient exposure to these new standards andcurriculum before being subjected to high-stakesstatewide testing on this new content. A final con-sideration is that the multiple-choice and short-answer format of statewide academic assessmentslimits their ability to adequately cover key aspectsof SCANS-like skills, such as teamwork, exercis-ing leadership, and other interpersonal skills. Forall these reasons, it may be unrealistic to expect

that state academic core assessments serve as theprimary vehicles for assessing SCANS-like orother career-related skills (WestEd, 2001a).

However, these tests can and should serve to rein-force SCANS skills in a limited, yet purposivefashion. In fact, a recent analysis of a statewideacademic assessment system showed that someacademic assessment items are already cast in aworkplace (or other “real-world”) context or

Procedures for Answering a Call in Your WorkplaceDo you know what to say when you answer the phone? Follow these guidelines:

• Identify yourself. State your workplace and your name. Say something like, “Apple Appliances,Sam speaking.”

• Speak clearly and slowly because the caller cannot see you.

• Give the caller your full attention. Stop what you are doing before you answer the phone. Don’twork and talk on the phone at the same time.

• Listen carefully to what the caller says.

• Take notes on your message pad. Write the caller’s name and why he or she is calling.

• Ask questions if you aren’t sure what the caller wants.

• At the end of your call, summarize what the caller has said. You can use your notes.

From Communication, Steck-Vaughn Company

1. According to the passage, what is the first thing you should do when you answer the phone ormake a call?

A. take careful notes on your message pad

B. invite the caller to identify himself or herself

C. give the caller your full attention

D. say who you are and where you work

2. The passage says that because your caller cannot see you, you need to

A. identify yourself.

B. ask polite questions.

C. speak slowly and clearly.

D. make a good impression.

3. What is the best reason to have guidelines for answering a business call?

A. to monitor the phone etiquette of employees

B. to increase business through customer satisfaction

C. to summarize a caller’s request for assistance

D. to practice taking complete notes over the phone

Note: the correct answers are: 1-D; 2-C; 3-B. This example was adapted from released items from theNevada Proficiency Examination.

Table 3: Reading comprehension prompt and multiple-choice items


address SCANS skills (WestEd, 2001a). Althoughthe study found that coverage of SCANS skills onthe state tests was limited and uneven, it noted thatacademic assessment instruments could beinfused with such items in a systematic way bybuilding them into the assessment blueprints (i.e.,assessment plans) for academic tests. Describedbelow are three examples of items on statewideacademic assessments that measure student learn-ing relative to academic standards and highlightworkplace contexts or reinforce SCANS skills.

Example 1: Multiple-choice read-ing comprehension item

Table 3 shows an example of a functional readingpassage – that is, one that contains proceduralinformation for real-world tasks. Specifically, thepassage details procedures for answering a busi-ness telephone call, followed by items testing stu-dents’ comprehension of those procedures. Notethat the first two items require students to com-prehend details from the passage. In contrast, thethird item requires students to draw an inferencefrom what they read about the best reason for hav-ing telephone answering guidelines. As a group,this cluster of items is both cast in a workplacecontext and shows a partial match to the SCANSreasoning skill.

Example 2: Multiple-choice math-ematics item

Table 4 shows an item adapted from a high schoolexit exam. It is a carpentry problem that asks stu-dents to determine the appropriate factor forsketching the measurements of an entertainmentcenter to scale. Students must use the accompany-ing graph to figure out a solution to the problem.Like the first sample item, this math item is bothcast in a workplace context and requires the stu-dent to use the SCANS reasoning skill.

Example 3: Performance task inlaboratory science

While the first two examples are multiple-choiceitems, this final example is a performance task inlaboratory science. It is an excerpt from a releaseditem from one of California’s end-of-course highschool assessments, the Golden State Exam (GSE)in Laboratory Science. Besides multiple-choiceitems, GSE science exams feature multiple-partperformance tasks. This example is cast as a prob-lem farmers face as they endeavor to producehealthy rice plants. It requires students to applytheir understanding of biology and genetics toexplain disease resistance in rice. Moreover, stu-dents must use the scientific method to carry outand record observations and results of this lab taskand, based on their findings, provide recommen-

A carpenter sketched to scale the pattern for the decorative top for a new entertainment center. If theentertainment center is to be 72 inches wide, how many decorative tops could be cut from a 4’ x 8’ sheetof plywood?

A. 1

B. 2

C. 4

D. 12

Note: the correct answer is B. This example was based on a released item from the Kentucky CoreContent Test.

Table 4: Mathematics multiple-choice item

dations to farmers. Table 5 shows the first threequestions of this nine-part task.

Compared to the previous examples of multiple-choice items, this performance task showsstronger connections to SCANS skills, due large-ly to the open-response format of this task as com-pared to the selected-response nature of multiple-choice items. Specifically, this excerpt of the per-formance task:

(1) is cast in a workplace context and

(2) shows a full match to the SCANS skill ofReasoning in Questions 1 and 3 and a par-tial match to the skill of Acquires andEvaluates Information in Question 2.

The point of showing these sample items is simplythat more of such items could be included in stateacademic core assessments in a purposeful, ratherthan happenstance, fashion. In order to accom-plish this, the assessment blueprints for state coreassessments should be updated to specify that


Genetic Relationships in Rice PlantsSome farmers have crossed plants that are resistant to the bacteria with those that are not. After cross-ing the plants, they counted the number of offspring that had resistance to the bacteria (healthy) andthose that did not (diseased/dying). Their results are shown below.

Cross

Parent plants (P) Resistant to disease X Not resistant to diseaseNumber of plants resistant to Number of plants not resistant to

disease (healthy) disease (disease/dying)

First generation (F1): 0 987

1. The farmers were disappointed with the results of the cross. use your understanding of genetics to provide a

possible explanation for these results.

A child of one of the farmers had been learning about genetics in biology class and suggested that it was impor-

tant to continue the experiement by crossing the offspring (F1) plants with each other. the results are show

below.

Cross

Offspring (F1) Resistant to disease X Not resistant to disease

Number of plants resistant to Number of plants not resistant todisease (healthy) disease (diseased/dying)

Second generation (F2): 227 760

2. Use your understanding of genetics to explain these results.

3. Describe a process the farmers might use to obtain a crop of rice that is entirely resistant to disease. explain

why this process would be successful.

Note: This is an excerpt from a released item from the Golden State Examination in Labroratory Sciences.

Table 5: Laboratory science performance task


some percentage of items should meet one or bothof the following criteria:

(1) portray workplace or other “real-life” con-texts and

(2) reinforce SCANS skills (or other similarskills that overlap with academic skills),such as Reasoning, Acquires and EvaluatesInformation, and Creative Thinking.

State-sponsored content and development com-mittees that include academic and CTE educatorsas well as community and business representa-tives should determine the appropriate percentageof items in a state assessment that should meet theabove criteria for each content area and gradelevel.

In addition to infusing workplace readiness andother SCANS-like skills into existing statewideassessments, it is equally important that evalua-tion criteria be developed to measure these skills.To effectively assess such skills within existingtest instruments, evaluation criteria and rubricsshould be amended to explicitly specify the tar-geted skills. For example, to accurately evaluatestudent performance on the SCANS dimension ofImproves and Designs Systems, the work productwill need to be assessed in terms of how well thestudent has demonstrated this ability. Reliableassessment of such skills involves explicit incor-poration of skills into the scoring system asopposed to merely assuming that a particularassessment item implies the use of certain skills.

Before incorporating SCANS-like skills into for-mal academic assessments, these skills must beinfused into the core academic curriculum. Thereare many different ways of doing so. One waywould be via curriculum-embedded instructionaland assessment tasks that integrate learning ofacademic content and SCANS skills. Such cur-riculum-embedded tasks either could be added toexisting academic standards and curriculum docu-ments or be featured in new supplemental curricu-lum support materials. Tasks that explicitly inte-grate academic and workplace skills are much

more commonly found in career-technical curric-ula than in core academic curricula (WestEd,2001a).

Curriculum-embedded tasks that integrate aca-demic learning and workplace preparation couldtake many forms. For example, a middle or highschool language arts task could ask students towrite a letter introducing themselves and theirskills to prospective employers. A project assess-ment is a curriculum-embedded task of largerscope. An example would be a group communityservice project, such as organizing and executinga fund-raising drive to beautify a neighborhoodpark. Group projects of this sort require studentsto use their knowledge of civics as well as keySCANS interpersonal skills, such as teamworkand leadership.

Arguably, portfolios represent the most extensivetype of curriculum-embedded assessment task.The aforementioned Career PreparationAssessment (CPA) portfolio is an example of aportfolio model that has been tailored to localneeds and then incorporated into the curriculum ofseveral districts and schools in California,Arizona, and Oregon. The CPA (and its mostrecent incarnation, known as the CustomPortfolio) is designed to measure generic work-place readiness standards that are SCANS-like,including Personal Skills, Interpersonal Skills,Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills,Communication Skills, Occupational Safety,Employment Literacy, and Technology Literacy.In tailoring the CPA to their own specific educa-tion objectives and needs, many local sites havechosen to infuse higher levels of academic learn-ing with workforce preparation by explicitly link-ing portfolio components to their own challengingacademic standards.

In summary, there is a range of possible curricu-lum-embedded assessment tasks that could helpteachers effectively link academic and workforcepreparation skills in their instruction. By featuringmodels of such tasks in core academic curriculumsupport documents, all students will benefit frommeaningful reinforcement of academic learningthrough “real-world” applications.


HOW CAN ASSESSMENT HELPSUPPORT AND IMPROVE CON-TEXTUAL TEACHING ANDLEARNING?

Assessment can either support contextual teach-ing and learning or hinder it. The significant mis-match between existing state assessment systemsand contextual teaching and learning represents amajor obstacle. Most state assessments consistmainly of decontextualized multiple-choice andshort-answer items that address academic corecontent, whereas contextual teaching and learn-ing emphasizes hands-on, integrated learning ofacademic and real-world skills. Until stateassessment systems embrace tasks that measureSCANS-like and academic skills in context,large-scale core assessments will not be support-ive of contextual teaching and learning.Nonetheless, there are specific ways in whichassessment can be supportive of contextualteaching and learning. Described below are twostrategies for fostering such support.

“Mixed” state-local assessmentmodel

One strategy is to design an assessment frame-work that combines local and state assessments(Rabinowitz & Ananda, 2000). As statewideassessments focus increasingly on high-stakes stu-dent and school accountability concerns, they tendto rely on more conservative assessment methods,primarily multiple-choice tests. The draw of theseinstruments is their ability to reveal patterns of rel-ative strengths and weaknesses across largegroups of students in a valid, reliable, and efficientmanner. However, they generally do not yield spe-cific-enough data to use in targeting instructionfor individual students. Moreover, for the reasonscited above, it is somewhat unreasonable toassume that such measures could be the primaryvehicle for assessing SCANS-like skills.

Nevertheless, the limitations of state academicassessments suggest an important function forlocal assessment: assessing SCANS-like skills incontextually appropriate ways and providing diag-

nostic information about what students do well,where they are having difficulty, and how instruc-tion might be adjusted to address their specificneeds. Because they are not constrained by thesame issues as state-level programs, local assess-ment programs have greater potential for generat-ing such measures that are specifically tailored tolocal needs. Thus, the incorporation of localassessments into an overall statewide frameworkcould strengthen the statewide system. However,it is important to note that under a mixed state-local assessment model, the state maintains criti-cal responsibilities. Specifically, the state mustprovide oversight and monitoring of local effortsas well as professional development support, tech-nical assistance, and dissemination of informationon best practices.

There is precedent for a model that combines fea-tures of local and state assessments to measureSCANS-like skills. Oregon is designing such anapproach for its Certificate of Advanced Masteryassessments. Under this model, substantialresponsibility for assessment of SCANS-likeskills would be delegated to local programs andschools, with the state’s role being that of over-sight, approval, and technical assistance. That is,the state would provide parameters and models forassessments that measure SCANS-like skills,allowing schools and local programs a choice forwhich assessment tools to select or develop.Specifically, the Oregon Department of Educationwould develop a list of approved assessmentmethods ranging from checklists up through moreformal, curriculum-embedded methods (e.g., sen-ior projects, portfolios). The list would includesufficiency criteria against which potential meth-ods and instruments would be evaluated. Thedepartment of education would include approvedinstruments within each category of assessmentmethods. These instruments, reviewed against thecriteria, could be locally developed or commer-cially available.

Data-driven decision-making

Despite the mismatch between state core academ-ic assessments and contextual teaching and learn-


ing strategies, the data from such assessmentsshould not be ignored. In fact, the results fromstatewide and local assessments should be used toinform and guide curricular and instructional deci-sions — including programs that emphasize con-textual teaching and learning. Data-driven deci-sion-making is a strategy that can help support andimprove contextual teaching and learning. It refersto using quantitative and qualitative data to guideprogrammatic and instructional decisions. In adata-driven school or program, educators collectand use data on an ongoing basis to gauge theirinstructional practices and refine their strategies,as needed.

Data for program and instructional improvementshould be broad-based and include indicatorsabout students, teachers, parents, and others.Although assessment data are generally the majorfocus of analyses, consideration of the “whole pic-ture” is necessary to make informed decisions.This entails interpretation of multiple data ele-ments together (WestEd, 2001b).

Figure 1: Using data on the road to instruc-tional improvement

Figure 1 shows the major steps (or questions ofinterest) in a data-driven decision-making frame-work. Within each step, there are specific activi-ties that program or school teams use to answerthe questions posed. Through this systematicprocess, teachers working together and with oth-ers identify their programmatic data needs, engagewith and understand the implications of their stu-dent assessment data results, identify necessaryadjustments to instruction to meet goals and prior-ities, and gauge the effectiveness of the adjust-ments they make. In order to properly implementthe decision-making process, it is important toestablish both formal and informal feedbackloops. The more fully developed data-driven sys-tems include multiple data sources that combineassessment and non-assessment indicators tomake decisions about systems, instruction, andindividual students.

The strategies described here – strengtheninglocal assessments in a “mixed” state-local assess-ment model and incorporating assessment data-driven decision-making into program improve-ment efforts – are two concrete examples of waysto make assessment an integral and meaningfulcomponent of contextual teaching and learningreforms. Note that both strategies rely heavily onefforts at the local, rather than at the state andnational levels. Indeed, the various assessment-related challenges faced by high school reforminitiatives call for concerted, but differentiated,actions at the national, state, and local levels.

1. Are we ready?

2. What data do we have and need?

3. Who are we?

4. What is our student performanceand achievement?

5. Why is our achievement as it is?

6. What are our priorities?

7. What are effective strategies tomeet our priorities?

8. What is our plan for programand instructional improvement?

9. Are we doing what we said wewould do?

10. How effective was our plan?


CONCLUDING REMARKS ANDRECOMMENDATIONS

This paper has argued that industry-valued highschool reform efforts face various assessment-relat-ed challenges as well as promising options. Whilestates and localities have made progress over thepast decade in expanding contextual learning choic-es for all students (e.g., expanding career academiesand service learning, creating small learning com-munities, and using communities as classrooms), amajor source of tension is how to ensure thesechoices are consistent with accountability-drivenassessments. Despite the emergence of promisingassessment practices described in this paper, theassessment tools typically being used today tomeasure student achievement in the context ofschool accountability may not be sufficiently validto capture the learning that occurs — particularlyfor students with different learning and responsestyles. This situation is being exacerbated by thevirtually exclusive emphasis in federal educationreform legislation concerning high-stakes testingand school accountability on the “basic” skills ofreading and math.

What roles should be assumed at the local, state,and national levels to improve assessment systemsfor students in industry-valued high school reformprograms? Based on the research conducted for thispaper, specific recommendations are offered forroles that can be assumed and actions that can betaken at the local, state, and national levels. Someof these have been previously described, however,all warrant further delineation, particularly withrespect to what can realistically be accomplishedover the short and long terms.

(1) Local responsibility: Incorporate SCANS-like skills into local assessments that are sup-ported and monitored by the state.A majorobservation described in this paper is thatassessments selected, developed, and imple-mented at the local level are typically subject tofewer constraints than those at the state level.As such, local assessments have greater poten-tial for innovation beyond the conservative, butefficient, multiple-choice assessment format.

Moreover, local assessments have greaterpotential for measuring SCANS-like skills incontextually appropriate ways, and in theprocess, providing useful diagnostic informa-tion on individual students. Finally, an assess-ment system that prominently features locallydetermined assessments can better reflect localinstructional practices and priorities. For exam-ple, although career-technical portfolio assess-ments may be unwieldy to administer and scoreat the state level, they can be used effectively atthe local level to reinforce and measure inte-grated academic and industry-valued learning.Likewise, high school programs may choose toincorporate project-based assessment or com-puter-based assessment, depending on theirparticular program foci or student needs.

While this recommendation argues that astrong local assessment component is an inte-gral part of any comprehensive high schoolassessment system, it also recognizes the needfor state oversight and support to ensure theviability and quality of the local component.An appropriate state role in support of localassessment should include technical assis-tance, fiscal support, and monitoring.Moreover, state involvement can help facili-tate some degree of comparability of assess-ments across localities. Oregon’s proposedassessment model for its Certificate ofAdvanced Mastery, which allows localities toselect from state-approved assessment meth-ods to measure industry-valued skills, repre-sents a concrete example of an assessmentframework that strives to balance local auton-omy with across-state comparability.

Because many local programs and schoolsalready have specific assessments of work-place readiness skills in place, this proposedmodel of local assessments that are supportedat the state level represents a realistic andattainable framework for high school assess-ment that states should consider. Costsincurred by the state should be moderate ascompared to designing and implementing a


valid, reliable, and legally defensiblestatewide assessment of workplace readinessskills from scratch. Moreover, implementingsuch an assessment system could be accom-plished in a relatively short amount of time(e.g., within a few years). Preparation for fullimplementation could include states andlocalities researching viable assessmentmethods, localities pilot-testing these assess-ment methods, and the state establishing anetwork for support, monitoring, and techni-cal assistance (including facilitating thedevelopment of local consortia).

(2) State responsibility: Refine state core aca-demic assessments to reinforce SCANS-likeskills. In order to make large-scale assess-ment at the state level feasible, we must bewilling to sacrifice some degree of validity inassessment of workplace readiness skills fortechnical adequacy and efficiency.Obviously, assessing “real-world” skills in“real-world” contexts is a more validapproach than assessing such skills out ofcontext. However, if the goal is to incorporateSCANS-like skills in state assessment pro-grams for all students, some adjustments willbe needed to accommodate the large-scale,statewide assessment constraints. As previ-ously described, this means relegating themore ambitious performance-based assess-ment methods, such as portfolios and proj-ects, to the local level. Furthermore, it alsomeans “settling” for more decontextualizedmeasures at the state level, including multi-ple-choice and short-answer item formats.

Over the short-term, however, it may not berealistic to expect states to restructure theirhigh-stakes, core academic assessment sys-tems to serve as the primary means ofassessing workplace readiness skills. As pre-viously alluded to, the vast majority of statecore assessments are not currently set up tomeasure workplace readiness skills, andthere is currently insufficient political willto drastically overhaul state core assess-

ments to measure these skills. Even if thewill and resources were available, it wouldtake years to fully realize such overhauls ofcore state assessments.

Nonetheless, states could and should workimmediately to highlight and reinforceSCANS-like skills on these assessments. Thispaper includes examples of items that meas-ure core academic skills, while also reinforc-ing SCANS-like skills presented in work-place and other “real-world” contexts.Infusion of items that reinforce workplacereadiness skills could be phased into ongoingassessment item development and replenish-ment activities. This approach would not belikely to face public opposition because itdoes not detract from the major function ofcore assessments to measure core academicskills. In fact, this approach has the potentialto strengthen and complement the measure-ment of academic skills by encouraging theinclusion of items that are contextuallyappropriate and cognitively demanding.

While highlighting and reinforcing SCANS-like skills on state academic core assess-ments is a realistic and worthwhile objective,it falls short of the overarching and longer-term goal of formally incorporating work-place readiness skills measurement intostatewide assessment systems. In order toformally and comprehensively incorporateSCANS-like skills measurement, we mustfirst build a compelling case for educators,policymakers, and the general public to rec-ognize that SCANS-like skills matter andmake a difference in student performanceand achievement.

(3) National responsibility: Provide leader-ship and support for instruction and assess-ment of SCANS-like and contextualized skills.Strong national leadership and support areessential to improving assessment systemsfor high school students. Just as the stateshould assume a substantive role in theimprovement and support of local assessment


systems, national leadership and support areneeded to help states, in collaboration withindustries, develop viable statewide assess-ment systems that effectively address work-place readiness skills. Such systems couldbuild off of promising approaches developedthrough local and state efforts, such as incor-porating industry-sponsored assessments inthe overall state core assessment system oradopting a statewide system of end-of-coursehigh school exams, including exams thatcover workplace readiness skills. Whateverthe particular form taken by specific stateassessment systems, national leadership isnecessary to continue building the infrastruc-ture that supports connections between indus-try and education, including the collabora-tions necessary to ensure high quality assess-ment systems.

National leadership is also needed to givevoice in support of realistic, yet meaningful,ways for workplace readiness skills to beincluded in state and national assessment sys-tems, particularly at the high school level.This means aggressively and strategically“making the case” for the importance ofincorporating SCANS-like skills into highschool curriculum and assessment. Moreover,it means following the development of keyfederal legislation that affects the design ofstate and national assessment systems (e.g.,Elementary and Secondary Education Act) tohelp ensure that such legislation supportsincorporating workplace readiness skills intoassessment systems for high school students.The U.S. Department of Education’s Officeof Vocational and Adult Education, amongothers, would be a logical candidate forassuming a national leadership role in thisregard.

Finally, national leadership is essential inorder to enhance our existing knowledge baseabout the relationships among contextualteaching and learning, assessment methodol-ogy, workplace readiness, and academic

achievement. Much of the literature over thepast decade has argued eloquently for theimportance of students acquiring workplacereadiness as well as academic skills.Nevertheless, we still lack “scientificallybased research” (a phrase now regularly usedin federal education legislation as the majorcriterion for evaluating educational relevanceand impact) and substantial empirical evi-dence about what works and doesn’t work insupporting student achievement through con-textual teaching and learning. Specifically,we need concerted, systematic research tohelp answer the following types of questions:How can the interjection of SCANS-likeskills into the high school curriculum helpincrease student achievement in particularacademic subject areas (e.g., reading, sci-ence, math)? Which assessment methodolo-gies are most appropriate for students withparticular learning strengths and styles? Howdoes participation in contextual teaching andlearning programs during high school affectwhat students do after leaving high school?Building a base of solid empirical research isno easy feat and could take a number of yearsto accomplish.

The recommendations offered above constitute atall order for industry-valued high school reformefforts. However, the end goal — improved teach-ing and learning for all high school students —constitutes strong motivation.


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How will the growing emphasis on high stakesassessments and the No Child Left Behind Actaffect high school programs that mesh academicand industry-valued skills? How can the employ-ability skills so valued by employers, be includedin high school assessment systems? What effec-tive strategies can be adapted, and what ongoingchallenges must be addressed, to refine andenhance assessment systems so that they measurestudent performance in a variety of ways?

These are some of the questions discussed in apaper by Sri Ananda, WestEd, entitled, SupportingHigh School Students Through Assessment ofAcademic and Industry-Valued Skills: What HaveWe Learned?and at the roundtable on May 9,2003.

As context for the roundtable, Ananda examinedthe likely impact of high-stakes testing on careerand technology education (CTE) programs in highschools, the successes of alternative assessments,the challenges of integrating career-related andother employability skills into states’ academicstandards and assessments, and the ways in whichassessment can support contextual teaching andlearning.

According to Ananda, a common fear within highschool reform circles is that the increased atten-tion on academic, high-stakes testing and schoolaccountability mandated by the No Child LeftBehind Act (NCLB) may negatively impact someof the students served by high school reform pro-grams and constrain the programs themselves.However, high school reform efforts that incorpo-rate work-related requirements and industry-val-ued skills have led to important lessons that couldserve to improve student assessment systems.

While states and localities have made progress

over the past decade in expanding contextuallearning choices for all students (e.g. expandingcareer academies and service learning, creatingsmall learning communities, and using communi-ties as classrooms), a major source of tension ishow to ensure these choices are consistent withaccountability-driven assessments, Ananda con-tinues. Despite the emergence of promisingassessment practices and based on her review ofstate practices and other data, Ananda concludesthat today’s commonly used assessment tools maynot be sufficiently valid to capture what studentslearn through contextual learning situations. Thevirtually exclusive emphasis in federal educationreform legislation concerning high-stakes testingand school accountability on the ‘basic’ skills ofreading and math makes this problem even moreformidable.

Given the difficulty of creating one assessmentthat measures a host of skills and knowledge in amore authentic manner, Ananda’s paper recom-mends that a framework combining state and localassessments be developed and that data-drivendecision-making be incorporated along with theassessment structure. She notes that these strate-gies rely heavily on efforts at the local, rather thanstate or national levels, and that the assessment-related challenges faced by high school reforminitiatives call for concerted, but differentiated,actions at the national, state, and local levels.Finally, some specific recommendations fromAnanda include:

• At the local level, incorporate SCANS4 skills


Improving Teaching and Learning

Through Assessment

Summary of the First Roundtable

May 9, 2002

The assessment-related challenges faced byhigh school reform initiatives call for concerted,but differentiated, actions at the national, state,and local levels.- Ananda


into local assessments that are supported andmonitored by the state.

• At the state level, refine state core academicassessments to reinforce SCANS-like skills.

• At the national level, provide leadership andsupport for instructors and assessment ofSCANS-like and contextualized skills.

Following the presentation of Ananda’s paper,three panels of experts addressed the challenges ofdeveloping an assessment framework and howdifferentiated assessments can support contextualteaching and learning.

PANEL I: ASSESSING ACADEMICAND WORK-BASED SKILLS IN AHOLISTIC SYSTEM: LESSONSLEARNED

• Linda Stelly, Assistant Director, EducationalIssues, American Federation of Teachers

• Anna Critz, Director of the WashingtonOffice, ACT

• Joan Wills, Center for WorkforceDevelopment, Institute for EducationalLeadership, moderator

An integrated assessment system that measuresattainment of both academic and work-basedskills is tremendously important for preparing aqualified workforce began Joan Wills. Many stu-dents will go on to postsecondary education andmust be prepared to do so, but all students willenter the workforce, so work-based skills assess-ment is imperative. A high-quality system of stan-dards should address both academic and work-based skills.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) hasmonitored the quality of standards as well as thequality of assessments. Linda Stelly suggestedthat a comprehensive assessment system needs tomeasure skills students learn through experientialeducation such as internships and simulated job

interviews. Referring to AFT’s report, MakingStandards Matter,Stelly encouraged states to payattention to how standards are implemented aswell as to ensure that standards are used to meas-ure workplace skills as well as academic attain-ment.

One such measurement system is WorkKeys, acomprehensive approach that helps students buildworkplace skills and to measure those skills.Developed by ACT, provider of the nationally-validated college entrance test, WorkKeys pro-vides objective data on individuals’ work skillscomparable to the academic skills data measuredby ACT’s Educational Planning and AssessmentSystem, explained Anna Critz. To develop theassessments for various workplace skills, ACTprofiled existing jobs on-site to determine skillsand skill levels required for each job. By compar-ing the job profile with the applicant assessment,employers can determine whether applicants havethe necessary skills for specific jobs and whethercurrent employees may need to improve theirskills.

WorkKeys highlights disconnects between whatschools teach and what employers need, betweenskills employees have and skills employers need,and between young people’s career plans and theirworkplace opportunities. Interviews withemployers, for instance, show that 73 percent ratelistening as an “extremely important” skill, yetWorkKeys data show that only 19 percent of highschool graduates rate “highly prepared” in listen-ing. ACT results show that one-third of college-bound students have not taken the core curriculumnecessary to succeed in college courses withoutremedial instruction – a percentage comparable tothe one-third of first-year college students requir-ing remedial courses. Consequently, WorkKeysresults are valuable for multiple audiences: stateand local policymakers, employers, school guid-ance counselors and teachers, and individual stu-dents and their families.

Critz emphasized that assessment systems should4 U.S. Department of Labor. 1991 What Work Requires of Schools: Secreatary’s Commission on Acieving Necessary Skills (SCANS). Washington, DC: Author.This report examined the demands of the workplace and whether our young people ae capable of meeting those demands. Specifically, the Commission was directedto advise the Secretary of Labor on the level and type of skills required to enter employment.


focus on continuous improvement, providing datathat helps move students forward toward highereducation and careers. Using testing simply as aschool accountability tool misses the point thattests can help individual students learn and suc-ceed.

PANEL II: USING ASSESSMENTSTO IMPROVE TEACHING ANDLEARNING IN HIGH SCHOOLS

• Bernard Pierorazio, Deputy Superintendent,Yonkers School District, NY

• Kathy O’Neill, Director, Leadership Initiative,High Schools That Work, Southern RegionalEducation Board

• Carlton Jordan, Senior Associate, TheEducation Trust

• Glenda Partee, American Youth PolicyForum, moderator

When assessments are integrated into the learningprocess, they become a continuous improvementtool for elevating student outcomes rather than anend in themselves. Glenda Parteewarned thatschool reform advocates need to be careful thathigh-stakes testing is not the only form of assess-ment and that it does not undermine creativeteaching and learning.

In New York State, assessments help determinewhen a student needs assistance. The staterequires that academic intervention services (AIS)be provided to any student who is failing a course.Although AIS may remedy a student’s academicdeficits, according toBernard Pierorazio, itsometimes does so at the expense of regularlyscheduled school activities. Sometimes careerand technical education courses suffer as a result:New York’s vocational/technical schools havereduced CTE to make room for AIS, and manycomprehensive high schools do not offer CTE atall. From his experience, Pierorazio said that pre-venting students from taking high interest courses,like CTE, can reduce their motivation to learn.

Assessment and CTE do not have to be at odds,however, as demonstrated by Saunders Trades andTechnical High School in Yonkers, NY.Designated as both a Blue Ribbon School and a

New American High School, Saunders offers highskills academies (e.g., ChemTech, EnviroTech,and TechElec), with faculty working collabora-tively across academic and vocational/ technicaldepartments. To graduate, Saunders studentsdevelop a hypothesis, complete a two-year projectto prove the hypothesis, and defend the project toa panel of industry representatives. One day inJune is set aside for seniors to demonstrate theircompetencies through their project presentation.Panels of community experts come to the schoolto review and judge the projects and the level ofcompetency and mastery of the students accordingto pre-determined rubrics. These alternativeassessments are in addition to the requirement thatevery student pass the NY Regents. High num-bers of students at Saunders pass the Regents, yetalso are assessed on important skills valued by thecommunity and employers, which students say,hold more meaning for them.

The Southern Regional Education Board’s(SREB) High Schools That Work (HSTW) modelis built around high achievement for all students.Kathy O’Neill described how SREB collectsevaluation data from several sources, including12th grade academic achievement tests and sur-veys of classroom activities and uses those dataas a guide for developing better classroom prac-tices and instructional strategies. SREB uses theHSTW assessment data to improve the academicand technical performance of career-bound youthand to improve learning practices in classrooms,schools, and structured work-site experiences.By focusing on student success throughout the

High numbers of students at Saunders HighSchool pass the NY Regents, yet also areassessed on important skills valued by the com-munity and employers, which students say, holdmore meaning for them.- Pierorazio


high school years, the HSTW schools have foundthat their students are well prepared for high-stakes tests.

The approaches used by the Yonkers PublicSchools and by High Schools That Work demon-strate the six elements identified by CarltonJordan as essential for systemic school reform:

• Clear, coherent, and rigorous academic stan-dards for all students at all levels, kindergartenthrough college, that are understood andembraced by the public;

• Curriculum aligned with standards for all stu-dents;

• Ongoing assessment to monitor the progressof students and of schools and colleges towardmeeting the standards;

• Extra instructional time for students who needit to meet standards;

• Mechanisms to help faculty deepen theirknowledge, evaluate the effects of theirinstruction on student work, and improvepractice; and

• Accountability systems that demand resultsfor and from all students and that report regu-larly to the public with honest data on theprogress of all groups of students.

The Education Trust list of elements for systemicschool reform demonstrate that assessment is anintegral part of the reform process, not somethingadded on as an afterthought.

PANEL III: NEXT STEPS FORDEVELOPING A STANDARDS-BASED REFORM AND ASSESS-MENT STRATEGY

• Michael Cohen, Education in the ChangingSociety Program, Aspen Institute

• Kathy Mannes, NRF Foundation

• Linda Soderberg, School-to-Career Director,Rhode Island

• Betsy Brand, American Youth Policy Forum,moderator

Any discussion of a standards-based reform andassessment strategy needs to start with an accuratepicture of today’s high schools and the problemsthey face in educating a very diverse student pop-ulation, said Betsy Brand. Former AssistantSecretary for Elementary and SecondaryEducation, U.S. Department of EducationMichael Cohenwarned that the redesign processis just beginning. In fact, he said, high schools arelargely the same as they were 30 years ago, eventhough the entire context in which they operatehas changed. Today’s economy calls for highschools to graduate 100 percent of their students,well-prepared for college and careers.

A Nation At Risklaunched an era of school reformwhen it was issued in 1983. At the state level,Cohen observed, the main reform strategy sincethen has been a requirement for increased num-bers of academic courses, plus an emphasis onstandards, testing, and accountability. States havedevoted insufficient time and resources to capaci-ty-building – a self-defeating approach, since stu-dents in schools that focus on capacity-buildingtend to do well on state and other tests.

Don’t focus on high stakes tests. High SchoolsThat Work focuses on the success of students,day to day. And, guess what? The high stakestests take care of themselves.– O’Neill

States need to insist upon rigorous courses forall students and align their standards to that rig-orous curriculum, while at the same time devel-oping alternative assessments and pathways thatreflect the different needs and aspirations oftheir students.– Cohen


The contrast between needs identified in district-level school improvement plans and decisionsabout expenditure of professional developmentfunds underscores the challenges surroundingcapacity-building. Effective capacity-buildingneeds to begin with the strengths and needs iden-tified by specific schools and districts, yet fewschool districts spend their professional develop-ment funds according to local school improve-ment plans. Why is this so? Cohen explained thatmost professional development funds, especiallyin urban school districts, are federal Eisenhowerfunds, and are spent to meet federal rather thanlocal goals. Boston’s Plan for Excellence, forexample, found that half the district’s professionaldevelopment funds were Eisenhower funds, butonly 25 percent of professional developmentfunds were being spent in ways that were consis-tent with the district’s own school improvementplan.

Cohen identified several policy issues that statesmust address in the process of implementing stan-dards-based reform and assessment:

• Leadership. There has been very little stateleadership on high school reform. State poli-cymakers need to begin to focus on what highschools need and how to accomplish it.

• Assessment and testing programs. States needto insist upon rigorous courses for all studentsand align their standards to that rigorous cur-riculum, while at the same time developingalternative assessments and pathways thatreflect the different needs and aspirations oftheir students. The difficulty is that statesneed to move in two directions at once: theyneed to develop a clear system of standardswith assessments that utilize both traditionaltests and performance-based completion, andat the same time, they need end-of-courseexams that are aligned with a rigorous cur-riculum.

Challenges at the federal level include:

• Design issues in the No Child Left Behind Act.

NCLB’s incentives for 100 percent proficien-cy are likely to drive proficiency standardsdownward – a possibility that will undermineNCLB’s goals.

• Creating a seamless system.The Carl D.Perkins Vocational and Technical EducationAct and the Higher Education Act, both up forreauthorization, need to be coordinated towork well with NCLB.

If we change the schools, we will change theworkplace, predicted Kathy Mannes. As a newkind of intermediary, NRF brokers not only pro-grams but issues as well. By delving into skillstandards and assessment issues, NRF has elevat-ed workforce development on its membership’sagenda. The rationale is obvious: As the sourceof many people’s first job and the employer of 20percent of the workforce, the retail sector servesas a training ground for the larger workforce, pro-viding workers with portable skills for futureemployment in other sectors. Connectionsbetween schools and retailers make that skilldevelopment process more efficient.

The retail sector’s Sales and Service VoluntaryPartnership has developed customer service skillstandards that include academics, occupational,and employability knowledge and skills. NRFoffers the portable credential based on those skillstandards to any school or college, as well as to itsmembers and to public sector one-stop employ-ment centers. NRF and its members plan to workdirectly with schools and colleges to align coursecontent with industry standards and to documentthe return-on-investment of that approach. NRFencourages its members to attach value to the cre-dential by offering benefits to credentialedemployees (e.g., higher hourly wage, tuition ben-efits, career paths, etc.).

Linda Soderbergdiscussed ways in which industrybeen involved in high school reform in her state.Rhode Island’s High School Redesign Summit inNovember 2000 led to a commitment to assess allstudents against the same standards, ending the sep-aration between academic and CTE students.


Rhode Island’s reform effort has worked in partbecause the high school standards were re-writtenin 1995 to include the SCANS foundation skills,with industry support. All students are held tothese standards, known locally as the CommonCore of Learning. The state’s 36 independentschool districts have now demanded that curricu-lum be revised based on the Common Core ofLearning with those standards serving as the basisfor performance-based as well as academicassessments.

ISSUES FOR THE FUTURE –GROUP DISCUSSION

Roundtable presenters and participants raised anumber of thorny issues that illustrate the com-plex nature of the task at hand – how to ensure thatpromising and effective CTE strategies areretained and valued as high school reform pro-ceeds in the current assessment-driven climate.The following discussion does not represent con-sensus of the group, rather, it chronicles issuesthat require further discussion and analysis.

The purposes, types, and uses of assessment needrethinking.While most attention has recently been focused ondeveloping assessments to measure student aca-demic performance, measuring skills in otherdomains, such as technical, occupational, andemployability, is equally important. Assessmentsystems and frameworks being developed now torespond to NCLB must mature to the point thatthey can measure multiple outcomes, not just aca-demic ones. These is also a confusion of assess-ments at the local level, as old tests are phased out,new ones developed, and policymakers try todevelop a rational and logical approach to meas-uring student performance on a variety of meas-ures for a variety of purposes.

Participants agreed that work needs to be done tohelp define an ideal framework for assessmentsand help answer some design issues, such as:

• What knowledge and skill sets should bemeasured – academic, occupational, techni-

cal, employability, higher order thinking –and how are they best measured?

• At what level – national, state, or local – arecertain knowledge and skills sets best meas-ured, and why?

• What are the purposes of assessment – con-tinuous improvement, instructional informa-tion, to meet individual student’s needs, toreport to stakeholders, policymakers or fun-ders, or all of them? Do you need separatesystems to respond to these different audi-ences or can one system do the job?

At its best, participants agreed that assessment is acontinuous improvement tool, to be used to guideindividual student learning and to improveschools and school systems. Assessment should bemore than testing, and it should be tied to curricu-lum and professional development. NCLB raisesconcerns that high-stakes tests may be used morefor punitive purposes than for continuousimprovement. This is an issue that needs debateand clarification at the national level.

Assessments, the kinds that most effectivelydemonstrate workplace skills, should lead stu-dents to be more involved in their own learning,while also infusing rigor into the curriculum. AtSaunders High School, for example, the two-yearculminating project gives students an opportunityto delve deeply into something of interest to them,completing complex work that integrates academ-ics with experiential education for an effectivelearning experience. The performance-basedassessments used to measure the skills and knowl-edge supplement the more traditional assessments

At its best, participants agreed that assessment isa continuous improvement tool, to be used toguide individual student learning and to improveschools and school systems. Assessment shouldbe more than testing, and it should be tied to cur-riculum and professional development. NCLBraises concerns that high-stakes tests may beused more for punitive purposes than for contin-uous improvement. This is an issue that needsdebate and clarification at the national level.


that students take. At Saunders, students arerequired to pass the NY Regents, which they do inhigh numbers, but it is obvious that the perform-ance assessments engage and interest them to amuch higher degree.

Alignment among different assessment systems aswell as alignment between curriculum, profes-sional development, and assessment is needed aswell. Participants expressed concerns that withoutalignment, the test burden on students and schoolsmay be great (too many tests, too much time spenton testing) and test alignment may not occur (lackof alignment sends mixed messages to studentsand teachers about what is important to teach andto learn). A well-designed assessment systemneeds to reduce multiple layers of tests and createcrosswalks between academic and occupational,technical, and employability skills.

Assessing employability skills is important butrequires a more holistic assessment system.A key issue yet to be resolved involves credential-ing students for mastery of employability or“SCANS-like” skills, but the employability skillsso valued by employers may not lend themselvesto traditional assessment. Formative assessmentseems more appropriate than high-stakes tests formeasuring acquisition of employability skills.One suggestion for ensuring that students developemployability skills would be a graduationrequirement for some type of internship, service-learning project, or other experiential activity.

If we agree that employability skills are important,it is necessary to develop assessment systems anddocument attainment of workplace skills. Yetmany questions about employability skills remainunanswered: Can employability skills be taughtin a classroom or must they be learned throughexperience? How can teacher preparation pro-grams and in-service professional developmentprepare teachers to teach in contextual ways thatsupport employability skill development? Canemployability skills be incorporated into standard-ized state testing programs, or should that be leftto school districts, with their greater flexibility?Research into these questions would be of great

interest to educators and employers.

Contextual teaching and learning and assess-mentWith many high schools using contextual teachingand learning approaches, not only as part of careerand technical education but also service-learningprograms, school leaders need to think how best todevelop new assessments or use existing ones thatrecognize the integrated curriculum and measurewhat students have learned. Currently, the mis-match between state assessments and contextualteaching and learning is a challenge. Most stateassessments consist of multiple choice and shortanswer items based on core academic content.Contextual teaching and learning, by contrast,focuses on integrated, hands-on learning often setin the context of solving a complex problem.Students who participate in a contextual teachingand learning experience may not be expected toperform as well on multiple choice testing becauseof its emphasis on isolated, fragmented concepts.Additionally, norm-referenced tests are often notwell-aligned to a particular curriculum and maynot measure what a student has learned throughclasses using a contextual approach. (Ananda,2002)

Another challenge is that contextual teaching andlearning can vary across school districts and with-in schools, so that assessments, to be meaningful,must be developed closely aligned with the cur-riculum. While this kind of “micro-assessment”would most likely lead to better diagnostic infor-mation about individual student performance andlearning styles in a classroom, it makes comparingstudent performance across a group of students orschools impossible.

A final concern had to do with NCLB’s emphasison academic skills testing. Participants agreedthere is a need to ensure that the focus on aca-demic achievement and remediation does notcompletely limit students’ participation in pro-grams that use contextual teaching and learning,such as CTE or service learning. These classes arewidely considered to be more engaging for stu-dents, helping to keep students in school.


Portable credentials would be useful, but maynot be the first order of business.

There was little consensus about the extent ofemployer demand for portable credentials. Onone hand, without employer demand for portablecredentials, states have little incentive to developthem. Plus, industries may be more concernedwith ensuring an adequate local supply of quali-fied applicants than with developing portable cre-dentials for a mobile labor market. And should“portability” mean that credentials can be compa-rable or must they be exactly the same? Finally,there was skepticism about whether state and localeducation systems should develop portable work-force credentials given that the requirements for ahigh school diploma vary in different states anddistricts, and there is little consistency or portabil-ity among them.

On the other hand, some employers are beginningto understand how portable credentials couldimpact the emerging workforce. Industry partner-ships around the 16 nationally-identified careerclusters are being organized to develop curriculumleading to portable certificates. The retail indus-try offers a case in point. The National RetailFederation has developed its first set of portablecredentials. The outcome is Customer Serviceand Sales skills that are portable not only withinthe retail cluster but among all industries.

In another example, the construction industrydeveloped a portable certification program to sat-isfy employer demand for skilled workers: theindustry projected an annual need for 250,000new workers. The National Center forConstruction Education and Research developedcurriculum modules, including a core skills coursethat includes basic academic skills, and awardsportable certificates. Teachers understand andappreciate this industry-developed approachbecause of its clarity and the fact that it offers stu-dents national recognition for their achievement.

If portability is indeed necessary, decisions needto be made about whether portable credentialsshould be developed and used at the state or local

level or whether this role should fall to privateorganizations with national reach, such as ACT.Comprehensive assessment systems, such asWorkKeys, demonstrate that portability is feasi-ble. Ultimately, whether or not consensus isreached on the added value of portability, class-room learning needs to contribute to student mas-tery of industry-valued skills and knowledge.States and school districts must adopt strategies tobuild those linkages.

Developing high quality assessment systems willrequire ongoing and appropriate professionaldevelopment.Preparing teachers and education leaders for anera in which high schools hold every student tohigh academic standards will require a huge out-lay of professional development funds, as well asa redirection of professional development initia-tives. Professional development needs to bealigned with state and local priorities, with indi-vidual school improvement plans, and to helpteachers understand how to use assessments toimprove teaching and learning and studentachievement.

Saunders Trades and Technical High School andthe High Schools That Work network emphasizeprofessional development as a linchpin for schoolredesign. HSTW prepares its school leaders toconvince school staff that all students can learn,and to teach accordingly. By changing teachers’behavior, the HSTW approach produces positiveoutcomes, and those early successes help changeteachers’ beliefs. A large part of helping teacherschange their beliefs about students is clearlydemonstrating a clear link between teaching andstudent outcomes. By using assessment data on aregular basis, teachers can more easily adapt theirteaching and instruction to meet the needs of indi-vidual students. This type of data and feedbackshould be supported by the school on a continuingbasis.

Research into assessment strategies and struc-tures is needed.Participants agreed that while assessment is oftenthe least well-understood part of school reform, it


is becoming increasingly important in this climateof accountability. Because policymakers andstakeholders are so focused on accountability,educators are, in many cases, scrambling to devel-op appropriate and high-quality assessments. Butmany issues remain to be resolved as to the mosteffective types of assessment systems. A numberof suggestions for research were made:

• What types of assessments are most appropri-ate for students with particular learning stylesand strengths?

• Are various skills (e.g. academic, occupation-al, employability) best measured separately orin some combination? If so, what combina-

tion is most effective and helpful to provideinstructional guidance for teachers? Foremployers who want to hire? For policymak-ers and funders? For parents? For studentsthemselves?

• What type of assessments (e.g. standardized,multiple choice, scenario, authentic, perform-ance-based) are most effective at which level(national, state, or local) and to measurewhich skills?

• How are employability and higher orderthinking skills best measured?

INTRODUCTION

Raising achievement, particularly among studentswho traditionally have not performed well in thenation’s public schools, is the single greatest chal-lenge on America’s agenda for improving elemen-tary and secondary education. Despite twodecades of reform and a plethora of schoolimprovement strategies, positive changes in testscores and other measures of student performancehave been modest at best. The reasons for thisslow pace are many, complex, and not well under-stood by researchers, educators, or policymakers.Almost certainly, there is no single strategy foraccelerating student achievement. Realizing sig-nificant gains, especially by the lowest achievingstudents, will require attention on many fronts.Nevertheless, one essential piece of the achieve-ment puzzle is finding ways to improve instruc-tional practice – what actually happens in theclassroom where teachers deliver curriculum anddevelop students’ skills and capacities to learn.Teaching is the “black box between educationalinputs and student outcomes.” (Mayer, Mullens,and Moore, 2000 from Mayer, 1999) Therefore,clarifying what constitutes good teaching andimplementing improved practices in the nation’sclassrooms are essential elements of sound educa-tional policy.

This paper concentrates on one possible approachfor strengthening instructional practice, “contex-tual teaching and learning (CTL),” with particularattention to its potential role in high schools. Wefocus on CTL not because we believe it is the bestor the only strategy for improving teaching. Onthe contrary, if there is one principle of goodteaching that everyone can agree upon, hopefully

it is this: no single instructional strategy will sup-port all subject matter or meet the learning needsof all students. As Linda Darling-Hammond hasobserved:

Effective teachers must understand how topresent critical ideas in powerful ways, sys-tematically organize a useful learning processand adapt instruction to the different learningstyles and backgrounds of their students.Expert teachers need to be alert diagnosticiansand flexible planners who teach in reciprocalrelationship to their students’ learning.(Darling-Hammond, 1999,3)

Darling-Hammond goes on to note that skilledteachers understand both learners and learning inways that allow them to identify differentstrengths, intelligences, and approaches to learn-ing and vary their behaviors across teaching situa-tions depending on the type of learning they wantto encourage (Darling-Hammond and Snyder,2000; Stodolsky, 1988; Grossman and Stodolsky,1995).

In short, good teachers have many tools at theirdisposal and are skilled at knowing when and howto use which ones and in what combinations. Thatmaxim, however, is easier said than practiced. Toooften, the “tools” available to teachers are sovaguely defined, poorly developed, and inade-quately tested that teachers are hard pressed toknow if they are using them well. Other times,perhaps at the urging of researchers or policymak-ers or perhaps simply out of desperation and frus-tration, teachers focus single-mindedly on onestrategy in the classroom to the exclusion of oth-ers. The result is almost always backlash, some


Contextual Teaching and Learning Strategies in High Schools: Developing a Vision for

Support and Evaluation

Elliott Medrich, Sarah Calderon, and Gary HoachlanderMPR Associates, Inc.


thoughtful some largely polemic, that undermineswhatever credibility a particular practice mighthave had if it had been used more carefully andsparingly.

Like many other proposed education reforms,CTL has suffered from vague definition, unrealis-tic expectations, and careless implementation.Advocates and critics alike have relied on hyper-bole that serves mainly to politicize the practicerather than encourage systematic consideration ofits strengths and weaknesses. This paper, there-fore, has a few modest objectives. First, it aims todefine more clearly what CTL is, describingspecifically and concretely the various methodsthat fall under the CTL umbrella. Second, it looksbriefly at the historical roots of CTL and how ithas evolved. Third, it examines research on theeffectiveness of CTL, summarizing key findingsand suggesting some directions for future work.Finally, the paper concludes with a brief discus-sion of the role public policy might play in betterassessing the potential of CTL as a schoolimprovement strategy and, where warranted,encouraging more effective uses in classrooms.

I. WHAT IS CONTEXTUAL TEACH-ING AND LEARNING?

As with many other initiatives in educationalimprovement, contextual teaching and learning(CTL) means different things to different people.As used in the current milieu of educationalreform, CTL typically addresses, singly or in com-bination, three aspects of schooling: 1) curricu-lum, 2) teaching or instructional practice, and 3)supporting organizational structures.

CTL as Curriculum Reform

In a strict sense, CTL is about curriculum, or morespecifically, connecting the knowledge and skillsthat are the focus of a particular curriculum to aspecific context that helps enhance meaning andunderstanding for students. Thus,

Contextual teaching and learning is a concep-tion of teaching and learning that helps teach-ers relate subject matter to real world situa-

tions; and motivates students to make connec-tions between knowledge and its applicationsto their lives as family members, citizens, andworkers (Contextual Teaching and Learning,2000).

Or, as restated by Berns and Erickson (2001), con-textual teaching and learning “helps students con-nect the content they are learning to the life con-texts in which that content could be used.”

“Context” can take many forms. It might mean,for example, relating certain principles of chem-istry to the reactions occurring in baking or otheraspects of cooking. It might involve exploring thelessons of a particular historical era by examiningwhat happened in students’ local community dur-ing that same period. It could link certain mathe-matical properties to writing a musical score ordeveloping a computer model to predict theweather. It could draw applications from nursing,medicine, or bioengineering to illustrate difficultconcepts in advanced biology. Much more ambi-tiously, it can mean organizing an entire programof study around a major profession, industry, orparticular theme, as is the practice in many post-secondary professional schools like architecture,business, medicine, or social welfare. One impor-tant feature of CTL, therefore, is its emphasis onconcrete application – taking abstract ideas, con-cepts, and even factual knowledge and illustratingor creating opportunities for students to experi-ence how these can be used in different facets oflife.

If concrete application or illustration is a neces-sary feature of CTL, it is not sufficient. For thiskind of concrete application to enhance meaningand understanding, then the specific context itselfmust also be of some interest to the student. UsingOhm’s Law or other applications in electronics toillustrate certain algebraic principles or manipula-tions is not likely to help a student who has nointerest in electronics. CTL, therefore, as a cur-riculum strategy requires not only attention toconcrete application but also to “contexts” thathave meaning and can engage particular students.


CTL as Instructional Reform

For many of its advocates, CTL embraces muchmore than just curriculum. As important as linkingcontent to context, CTL also requires teachers tochange how they teach. In particular, CTL encom-passes instructional methods intended to supple-ment traditional teaching styles that rely heavilyon lecture, students’ taking notes, watching teach-ers conduct experiments, memorizing facts andtechniques, and using the written word (throughpapers and exams) to demonstrate learning.Instead of, or in addition to, these practices, CTLencourages teachers to allow students to designexperiments themselves and engage in otherforms of “hands on” learning; to carry out “proj-ects” that tackle a complex problem requiringapplications of cross-disciplinary knowledge andskills; collaborate with other students in analyzingproblems and presenting solutions; and demon-strate mastery in ways other than paper and penciltests.

On the one hand, this broader focus of CTLenhances its power as a school improvement strat-egy. But, on the other hand, it also can muddy itsmeaning, producing a sometimes confusing arrayof overlapping practices, not well understood byeither its proponents or its critics. What follows,therefore, is a description of some of the primarystrategies, that when employed with contextualcurricula, fall under the CTL umbrella: collabora-tive and cooperative learning; curriculum integra-tion; service learning; project-based learning;problem-based learning, and work-based learning.An important caveat: some of these strategies fiteasily under the CTL umbrella (i.e. they are con-textual by nature). Others become CTL only whenthey are executed in certain ways. As appropriate,the definitions below describe what conditionsmust be met in order for the strategy to becomeCTL practice.

Collaborative and Cooperative Learning

Teachers employ collaborative and cooperativelearning to group and/or pair students for the pur-pose of working together to produce a product,

solve a problem, or undertake a task that meetsone or more course standards. To ensure that stu-dents work as a cooperative team, rather than asindividuals: a) group goals must be established;b) the task is designed so that the group has torely on the contribution of each member c) thetask promotes interpersonal skills by encouragingface-to-face interaction among students; d) stu-dents are individually accountable for their activeparticipation and task completion, and e) thegroup reflects on the outcomes. Collaborative andcooperative learning is considered a CTL strategywhen these conditions are met and when used tofacilitate students’ solutions to complex, contex-tual problems and completion of projects (Slavin,1996; Cohen, 1994; Johnson and Johnson, 1994;Holubec, 2001).

Curriculum Integration

Sometimes called interdisciplinary teaching, the-matic teaching, or synergistic teaching, curricu-lum integration has been defined in many differentways. The term has been used to mean connectingdifferent domains of academic curriculum (mathand science, for example), joining academic andvocational curriculum, linking classroom-basedlearning with work-based learning, and unitingtheory with practical applications (Bonds, Cox,and Gantt-Bonds, 1993; Grubb, Davis, Lum,Plihal, and Morgaine, 1991; Bodilly, Ramsey,Stasz, and Eden, 1992). Even more broadly, inte-gration can mean “learning in the context of stu-dents’ life experiences or pre-existing knowledge”(Crawford, 2001).

Additionally, it is possible to introduce integrationat many different levels of instructional organiza-tion (Grubb, W. N., 1995). A single teacher canuse integration within a particular course or lessonplan. Teams of teachers may realign their coursesto make connections across disciplines and toreinforce particular concepts or skills. Integrationmay be used to construct comprehensive pro-grams of study, such has high school majorsorganized around a career cluster or industry(health, finance, or communications, for exam-ple). Integration can also be employed school-


wide to establish an overarching theme or missionfor an academy, magnet, or charter school.

Service Learning

Service learning is an experiential activity thataddresses a bona fide community need. Typically,it involves preparation for providing servicethrough research and investigation, performingthe service activity, and reflection on the serviceperformed. Service learning differentiates itselffrom community service through its intentionalconnection of service activities to the academiccurriculum. Service learning can include work-based learning, project-based learning, problem-based learning, collaborative/cooperative learn-ing, and integrated curricula (Asler, 1993;McPherson, 2001, Cairn and Kielsmeier, 1991).

Project-Based Learning

Project-based learning is a strategy that teachersuse to structure a complex project for students thatinvolves planning, design, problem solving, andmaking decisions. Students work autonomously orin small groups, often over an extended period oftime, in order to prepare a product or presentation.Well-designed projects reflect student interest butalso promote clearly specified learning objectives.Projects are often interdisciplinary in focus andallow for student choice and decision-making(Buck Institute for Education, 2001).

Problem-Based Learning

Teachers use problem-based learning to pose asignificant, real-world, contextual problem(drawn, for example, from personal experience,home, career, community, or society) or questionin a way that allows students to develop and/orseek the content knowledge and skills necessary toprovide a solution(s). Problems presented some-times involve collaborative learning, are alignedwith course standards, are academically rigorous,may or may not require a final presentation ofresults of the investigation, focus on research andinquiry, and are often interdisciplinary in focus(Moffitt, 2001; Barrow and Myers, 1993; Esch,1998).

Work-Based Learning

Work-based learning joins structured experiencein private and public sector settings outside ofschool with classroom-based academic instructionand career interests. These activities involvepreparation for a work-site experience (includingskill acquisition, learning about the issues sur-rounding the chosen work/career, and planning forthe real work setting), designing a work-site pro-gram in collaboration with business/industry/labor, and reflecting on the activity per-formed. Work-based learning can take the form ofan apprenticeship, internship, work-based tech-prep, school enterprise, or cooperative education(Smith, 2001).

Supporting Structures

Further adding to its scope, as well as to the con-fusion, CTL in high school often involves specif-ic approaches to organizing instruction, particular-ly adoption of schools-within-schools and careeracademy frameworks. These are not CTL butrather ways of delivering instruction that canenhance CTL, making it easier for teachers toaccomplish the kind of curriculum changes thatcoincide with CTL instructional strategies.

Schools-within-schools are structures that are rel-atively autonomous, have distinct identities andspecific goals, are personalized for teachers andstudents, and have an instructional focus (Cotton,2000; Raywid, 1999; Klonsky, 1995). Schools-within-schools strive to reduce student anonymity,create coherent programs of study for studentswith intensive guidance, lessen the isolation ofteachers, and create high expectations for all stu-dents. Often schools within schools are formedaround particular instructional themes.

A career academy is a school-within-a-school thatoffers students academic programs organizedaround broad career themes or a single careerfocus (Kerka, 2000). Often integrating classroominstruction with work-based learning, academiesequip students with skills for both workforce entryand postsecondary admission. Staffed by teachers


from many disciplines, career academies oftencollaborate with business partners who assist inplanning curricula, establishing program struc-ture, providing classroom speakers, hostingschool field trips, and providing mentors for indi-vidual students. Career academies, in their pureform, were intended to build classes around work-based learning and integrated curricula, andalthough they are structured in many differentways, they are an effective means for deliveringmany forms of instruction associated with CTL(Kemple and Snipes, 2000).

In theory, when classrooms are small enough sothat students and teachers know one another well,schools take on a different feel. But as Irmsher(1997) points out, “downsizing cannot, by itself,guarantee that school transformation will unfoldor that marvelous teacher and students perform-ance will occur.” Even so, making schools small-er creates an environment where good things canhappen (Visher, Teitelbaum and Emmanuel, 1998;Raywid, 1999; Gladden, 1998; Cotton, 2001).Compared with students in larger schools, stu-dents in small schools tend to have more positiveattitudes toward school, behave better, are lesslikely to drop out, have better attendance, andhave a greater sense of belonging. Cotton (2001)found that smaller schools typically utilize inte-grated curriculum, team teaching, cooperativelearning, and performance assessments. Effectivesmall schools can be places where a variety ofinstructional practices, such as CTL, can flourish.

The extensive research addressing these structuresis beyond the scope of this paper, and it is impor-tant to understand that in and of themselves theydo not assume that contextual teaching and learn-ing strategies will be a primary form of instruc-tion.

The Challenge of Delivering CTL in theClassroom

Each day, teachers make decisions about instruc-tion. To be successful in the classroom, they mustbe equipped with a variety of pedagogical tools inaddition to understanding course standards, cur-

ricular goals, and objectives. Their challenge is tochoose the appropriate instructional strategybased on the course standards and performancegoals as they relate to student aptitudes, skills, andinterests (Tanner, Conway, Bottoms, Feagin, andBearman, 2001). Good teachers are able to bal-ance more traditional instruction with other strate-gies such as contextual teaching and learning. Forexample, if a teacher wants students to know thatseven times three equals twenty-one, lecture,demonstration, drill, and practice may be the mosteffective instructional techniques. But, if the goalis to have students understand when one uses mul-tiplication, contextual teaching and learning thatemphasizes practical application and relevance tosolving particular "real world" problems may bethe preferred approach. Each pedagogy has itsplace in the teaching and learning process. Byemploying only one instructional approach, teach-ers may sacrifice gains that could be made byusing other strategies.

All pedagogical approaches are used to achievesome overarching goals. Contextual teaching andlearning allows a teacher to deliver academic con-tent aligned with standards while at the same timebuilding integrative knowledge, analytic andproblem solving skills, and social skills. CTL canbe especially appropriate when broader academicoutcomes, such as those below, are the teachingobjectives:

• Attitudinal outcomes—engagement, moti-vation, social relations, self direction,responsibility

• Behavioral outcomes—better attendance, dis-cipline, lower dropout rates

• Skill acquisition outcomes—critical thinkingskills, long term retention

To use CTL skillfully, teachers need to think andact in certain ways [Table 1 outlines some of thesebasic differences]. They must restructure tradi-tional teacher/student interaction to emphasizehands-on, participatory learning by the studentrather than didactic, teacher-directed instruction.


Teachers must provide students with a clear set oflearning objectives and structures, and coach stu-dents with suggestions for further study or inquiryby using open-ended questions. They must bewilling to work with students in teams or interde-pendent groups to deliver curricula. Studentsmake connections with roles and responsibilitiesin the community, with students, as family mem-bers, and as workers by taking on a variety ofleadership roles. Redesigning how teaching takesplace often means that lessons are more difficultand more time-consuming for teachers to prepare.

With CTL, the teacher’s role is to guide, discuss,question, listen, and clarify. The student’s role isto explore, investigate, validate, discuss, and con-duct (Souders, 2001). These roles are new forsome teachers, and they can be difficult to deploy:students do not just carry out instructions, but theyare also responsible for their own learning (BuckInstitute, 2002). CTL is also new for most stu-

dents, and many may initially be uncomfortablewith the ambiguity, open-endedness, and self-directed learning that CTL often entails.

To help overcome such obstacles and help stu-dents make connections to their own experiences,teachers may need to restructure curricula.Teachers implement contextual teaching strategiesby organizing curricula around issues that are rel-evant to students including personal, home, career,community, society, and cultural contexts. Thecurriculum emphasizes depth of understandingand knowledge, development of complex prob-lem-solving skills, mastery of integrated skills,and comprehension of concepts and principles(Buck Institute, 2002).

Finally, in order to evaluate what students havelearned, teachers may need to adopt differentkinds of assessment that accurately measure thedesired educational objectives. As teachers focus

Focus of curriculum

Teaching role

Classroom context

Student role

Scope and sequence

Breadth of contentKnowledge of facts

Lecturer and director of instructionExpertAnswers questionsWork in isolation

Students working aloneStudents competing with one anotherStudents receiving information fromthe instructor

Carry out instructionsMemorizer, transcriber, and repeater of factsListen, behave, speak only when spoken to

Follow fixed curriculumDicipline-based focus

Resource provider and participant inlearning activitiesProvides student choice and studentleadership opportunities

Advisor/coachEach students open-ended questionsWork in teams with other staff bothinside and outside discipline

Students working in groupsStudents collaborating with one anotherStudents constructing, contributing, andsynthesizing information

Work within framework of project todefine tasks and direct learningDiscoverer, integrator, presenter of ideasListen, behave, communicate, produce,take responsibility

Incorporates student interestBroad, interdisciplinary focus

EDUCATIONAL TRADITIONAL INSTRUCTION CONTEXTUAL TEACHING ANDFEATURES EMPHASIZES LEARNING EMPHASIZES

Table 1. Comparison of education features of traditional instruction and contextual teaching andlearning.

NOTE: Table adapted from http://www.bie.org/pbl/overview/diffstraditional.html, 1999 Buck Institute for Education


on process and products, criterion performanceand gains over time, and demonstration of under-standing (in addition to mastery of the knowledgeand skills measured by standardized achievementtests), they may also opt for portfolios, the use ofrubrics, exhibitions, and performance assessmentsto measure student outcomes.

II. HOW CONTEXTUAL TEACHINGAND LEARNING HAS EVOLVEDIN AMERICAN EDUCATION

Contextual teaching and learning rests at the con-vergence of an established and growing body ofresearch from such diverse fields as developmentalpsychology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, cog-nitive psychology, and social psychology. Built ona set of theories and strategies for teaching that canbe traced back to the work of John Dewey, JohnFrancis Woodhull, and William Heard Kilpatrick inthe early 1900s, CTL is not a “new” idea, but a con-cept that has continued to evolve over time at all lev-els of the education system.

Aspects of current CTL practice can be tracedback many decades. Important studies in the1930s noted that students in schools with integrat-ed approaches to their curriculum and organizedcontent around themes rather than subject areasperformed better than control groups on standard-ized tests (Aiken and Tyler, 1942). After WorldWar II, medical educators recognized that prob-lem-based learning represented a particularlyeffective approach to educating young doctors.Also research by Lewin, Bruner, Piaget, Vygotskyand Erikson, among others, led many to adoptcooperative learning methods in classrooms. Morerecently work by Howard Gardner, and brain-based research (Brown and Campione, 1994,1996), gave further support to CTL practices. Atthe federal level, the Carl D. Perkins VocationalEducation Act and Amendments gave a particularboost to CTL related practices by mandating inte-gration of vocational and academic programs. TheSchool-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 sup-ported integration practices along with work-based learning activities, and the National andCommunity Service Trust Act of 1993 expanded

the federal role in service learning by providingfunds to develop service learning programs.

How ubiquitous are CTL-related practices? Thisquestion is not easy to answer. Because of thevagueness surrounding what constitutes CTL, aswell as the absence of standards for determiningprecisely whether CTL practices are in use, datafrom national surveys provide a crude measure ofthe role CTL currently plays in the nation’sschool. Here are some summary statistics.

The 1994-95 Schools and Staffing Survey (U.S.National Center for Education Statistics) reportedthat 86 percent of teachers said that during thesemester preceding the survey they had workedwith small groups of students on a weekly basis.Further, 91 percent of teachers led facilitatedinstruction and 85 percent of teachers said thatthey asked students open-ended questions. Sixtypercent of teachers reported that in class they hadstudents work on problems with several answersor with several methods of solutions. And, 63 per-cent of teachers had students work on tasks thatlinked school to the real world. But only 33 per-cent of students participated in group projects withan individual grade and only 18 percent of stu-dents were given group projects with a groupgrade. In another study, NCES (1998) found that77 percent of full-time public school teachers par-ticipated in professional development activitiesthat focused on new methods of teaching, and 53percent of teachers participated in professionaldevelopment about cooperative learning in theclassroom.

Another NCES survey found that nearly half of allhigh schools report service-learning as part oftheir curriculum. (Skinner and Chapman, 1999).In the 1998-99 academic year, 49 percent of allmiddle schools and high schools required service-learning classes for students, and 79 percentoffered voluntary service-learning. Seventy per-cent of schools with service-learning had studentsparticipating in grade-wide service-learning,where all students in one or more grades partici-pated in a service project or program through aca-demic coursework.


Taken together, then, there is evidence that sever-al forms of CTL have found their way into manyschool classrooms. However, existing data conveyrelatively little about the quality of these activitiesor their impacts on student learning.

III. WHAT WE KNOW ABOUTTHE IMPACT OF CTL ON STUDENT LEARNING ANDOTHER OUTCOMES

While it is always dangerous to characterize alarge body of work, research on instructionalstrategies related to CTL falls into several cate-gories: research describing how we learn; researchdescribing the impacts of CTL on student attitudesand behaviors; and research on student achieve-ment outcomes.

What is most urgent we know little about: howwell do students learn when receiving instructionwith CTL strategies as compared with other, moretraditional teaching methods; and how CTL strate-gies compare to one another across content areas.Systematic research of this kind, which wouldrequire studies in “treatment’ versus “non-treat-ment” settings, could go a long way to raising theoverall credibility of CTL among policymakersand educators. Why has this been hard to accom-plish?

First, such research demands carefully designed,controlled experiments, which are complex andcostly to execute. Many studies of CTL fail toinclude a control or comparison group; fail toinclude pre-testing in an experimental studydesign; do not describe the CTL strategy understudy in terms that are clear and accepted amongresearchers and practitioners; do not systematical-ly apply a true research methodology; or acceptanecdotal evidence as conclusive.

Second, when CTL strategies are employed inclassrooms, they are often intended to realize edu-cational objectives that conventional standardizedtests do not typically measure. As yet, there arenot validated, widely accepted assessments of stu-dents’ abilities to apply academic knowledge and

skill; solve complex, interdisciplinary problems;work collaboratively, or demonstrate competencythrough actual performance.

Third, it is not easy to isolate the impact of CTLon student performance and to distinguish its con-tribution to learning from that of other instruction-al practices. Most teachers use a variety of instruc-tional strategies, including aspects of CTL, intheir classrooms, adapting to subject matter andstudent learning needs. Classrooms that use onlyCTL strategies are often hard to find. Further,since most teachers have not been formally trainedin these strategies, there is a wide variety of com-petency in evidence (see e.g. Sparapani, Abel,Easton, Edwards, and Herbster, 1997). As such,the problem is not just assessing students, but alsoassessing instructional quality.

Fourth, it has been noted by Karnes and Collins(1997) that CTL strategies may be appropriate forsome curricula or for some subjects within thosecurricula but not for others. For example,Albanese and Mitchell (1993), Vernon (1995), andFarnsworth (1994) have found that in science,problem-based learning is most successful whenthe curricular objectives are to foster problem-solving ability, interpersonal skills, reasoning, andself-motivation. In contrast, traditional instructionappears better suited to teaching general scientificcontent. This poses further challenges forresearchers, who need to have a nuanced under-standing of instructional practice and curriculumdelivery in order to “tease out” the unique contri-butions of CTL, especially when it is embedded inthe larger teaching and learning context.

Finally, some studies have suffered from inaccu-rate reporting of research results (Wade and Saxe,1996) and sample size. Others have methodologi-cal shortcomings that undermine confidence intheir findings.

A Sampling of the Research

Across the broad sweep of instructional strategiesassociated with CTL, much of the research hasbeen conducted with reference to one particular


strategy, and it should not be assumed that thefindings for that strategy hold across the entirespectrum of CTL practices. So, while “the actualconcept of CTL is not addressed to any greatextent in the literature … there is a relevantresearch base in areas identified as strategies ofCTL” (Conroy, Trumbell, and Johnson, 1999).That research, on a strategy-by-strategy basis, willbe the focus of this section. It should be notedfrom the outset, however, that this literature doesnot read like a “body of work” but rather as aseries of only sometimes related findings. For theCTL community – a clear set of research findings,linked and supporting one another, remains an elu-sive goal.

Learning Processes

Recent studies have contributed to new concep-tions about how people learn. Specifically, cogni-tive research has tried to understand how andwhen learning occurs most effectively. Studies ofthe brain indicate that learning occurs faster andmore thoroughly when what we are learning ispresented in meaningful contexts, rather than asfragmented facts (Caine and Caine 1991; Resnick,1991). This is the basis for the instructional strate-gies that comprise CTL. Generally, a substantialbody of research notes that it is easier to developskills if they are learned in a context in which theywill be used (Hughes, Bailey, and Mechur, 2001).

By studying “experts” – individuals who havedeveloped ways of thinking and reasoning effec-tively – scientists have come to understand howaccomplished people learn. Research on expertise inareas such as chess, history, science and mathemat-ics demonstrates that experts’ abilities to think andsolve problems are derived from a rich body of sub-ject matter knowledge (e.g. Chase and Simon, 1973;Chi et al., 1981; deGroot, 1965). However, theresearch also shows clearly that “usable knowledge”is not a set of disconnected facts. Experts’ knowl-edge is connected and organized around importantconcepts; it is “conditionalized” to specify the con-texts in which it is applicable; and it supports under-standing in and transfer to other contexts (Bransfordet al., 1999, 4).

Another aspect of effective learning is the long-term impact in the ways it influences other kindsof learning or performance (Bransford et al., 1999,iii). Research studies on the concept of transferare an important part of this literature. How tight-ly learning is tied to contexts depends on how theknowledge is acquired (Eich, 1985). Transferacross contexts is especially difficult when a sub-ject is taught only in a single context rather than inmultiple contexts (Bjork and Richardson-Klavhen, 1989). One frequently used teachingstrategy is to encourage learners to elaborate onthe examples presented during learning in order tofacilitate retrieval at a later time. Ironically, thiscould make it more difficult to retrieve lessonmaterial in other contexts, because knowledgetends to be context-bound when learners onlyelaborate new material with details of the contextin which the material was learned (Eich, 1985).When a subject is taught in multiple contexts,however, and includes examples that demonstratewide application of what is being taught, studentsare more likely to abstract the relevant features ofconcepts and to develop a flexible representationof knowledge (Gick and Holyoak, 1983;Bransford et al., 1999).

The problem of overly-contextualized knowledgehas been studied in instructional programs that usecase-based and problem-based learning. In theseprograms, information is presented in a context ofattempting to solve complex, realistic problems(e.g., Barrows, 1985; Cognition and TechnologyGroup at Vanderbilt, 1997; Gragg, 1940; Hmelo,1995; Williams, 1992). For example, fifth- andsixth-grade students may learn mathematical con-cepts of distance-rate-time as part of a caseinvolving planning for a boat trip. If students learnonly in this context, they often are not able totransfer the knowledge to new situations(Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt,1997). The issue is how to promote wide transferof new learning (Bransford et al., 1999). One wayis to ask learners to solve a specific case and thenprovide them with an additional, similar case. Thegoal is to help them abstract general principlesthat lead to more flexible transfer (Gick and


Holyoak, 1983; Bransford et al., 1999).

There is considerable evidence that cooperative-collaborative learning promotes an importantaspect of information processing. Retentionrequires some sort of cognitive restructuring orelaboration. One of the most effective ways ofachieving this synthesis is to explain what hasbeen learned to someone else – solidifying whathas been learned by the tutor, and providing newknowledge to the other learner (Devin-Sheehan,Feldman, and Allen 1976; Dansereau, 1985,Slavin, 1991; Aronson, Blaney, Stephen, Sikes,and Snapp, 1978; Johnson and Johnson, 1986).

The use of manipulatives, or objects that can betouched and moved by students to introduce orreinforce a concept (usually used in mathematics),have been found to increase mathematics achieve-ment, especially if used over an extended periodof time (Suydam and Higgins, 1977; Sowell,1989). There is not, however, research on relatedstrategies that use “hands on” experience to pro-mote other kinds of learning. Although medicalstudents engaged in project-based learning maydo less well on standardized test scores, theyremember the information much longer (Normanand Schmidt, 1992), and they are more likely toapply scientific knowledge appropriately (Allen,Duch, and Groh, 1996).

Research on “situated cognition,” indicates thatlearning is maximized if the context for learningresembles the real-life context in which the to-be-learned material will be used; learning is mini-mized if the context in which learning occurs isdissimilar to the context in which the learning willbe used (Brown, Collins, and Duguid, 1989).

There is a good deal of evidence that learning isenhanced when teachers pay attention to theknowledge and beliefs that learners bring to alearning task, and use this as a starting point fornew instruction. For example, sixth graders in asuburban school who were given inquiry-basedphysics instruction were shown to do better onconceptual physics problems than eleventh andtwelfth grade physics students taught by conven-

tional methods in the same school system. A sec-ond study comparing seventh-ninth grade urbanstudents with the eleventh and twelfth grade sub-urban physics students again showed that theyounger students, taught by an inquiry-basedapproach, had a better grasp of the fundamentalprinciples of physics (White and Frederickson,1997, 1998; Bransford et al., 1999).

Engagement and Motivation

If an important objective of any instructional strat-egy is to inspire students to want to learn, CTL isconsistent with that objective. Evidence indicatesthat when students are actively engaged in work-ing on “real issues” – a common focus of the CTLpedagogy – they are more motivated to mastercontent (Vars, 1965; Covington, 1992; Lampert,1986; Newman, Wehlage, and Lamborn, 1992).Exposure to CTL seems to improve motivationand self-direction, thereby reducing behaviorproblems (MacIver, 1990). Similarly, when stu-dents can see the relevance of their studies, theyare more persistent and tend to be more focused inthe classroom (Pintrich and Schunk, 1996).

Studies of service-learning note that well-designed programs produce positive changes instudents, including increased social and personalresponsibility, growth in moral and ego develop-ment, and improved self-esteem (Shaffer, 1993;Switzer, et. al., 1995), all contributing to improvedattitudes towards school and sense of classroomcompetence (Conrad and Hedin, 1991; Weiler et.al., 1998).

Researchers have documented other aspects ofengagement, an important indicator of academicinstruction. Individuals, who are interested in par-ticular activities or topics pay closer attention, per-sist for longer periods of time, learn more, and enjoyparticipating to a greater degree than individualswithout such interest (Ainley, 1994, 1998; Prenzel,1988; Renninger, 1987, 1990, 1998; Schiefele,1991). Although it may be difficult for teachers todesign their lesson plans around the personal inter-ests of every student, many are able to foster situa-tional interest and utilize cooperative learning tech-


niques to increase academic motivation.

Researchers have argued that situational interest isimportant because it motivates students who areacademically uninterested (Bergin, 1999; Hidi,1990; Lepper, 1985; Haussler and Hoffmann,1998). They have demonstrated the strength ofsituational interest through text-based studies –examining what makes texts less or more interest-ing. They have found that those texts that haveeasier character identification and compelling textsegments produce superior reading comprehen-sion and recall (Anderson, 1982; Anderson,Shirey, Wilson, and Fielding, 1987; Hidi andBaird, 1988). Some researchers have focused onhow changing teaching strategies can contributeto the development of situational interest (Hidiand Berndorff, 1998; Lepper and Cordova, 1992;Lepper and Henderlong, 2000). For example,when researchers presented material in ways thatillustrate the utility of learning or making it morepersonally relevant, students absorb more(Cordova and Lepper, 1996; Parker and Lepper,1999). In various literature reviews of project-based learning, Norman and Schmidt (1992)found that students engaged in project-based pro-grams seem to be motivated and self-directedlearners, more likely to acquire deep understand-ing of issues. Albanese and Mitchell (1993) con-cluded that students engaged in problem-basedlearning were more likely to study for understand-ing and learn information needed to solve prob-lems than were other students.

Similarly, service-learning has been found to pos-itively affect students’ engagement and motiva-tion. Students who participated in high qualityservice-learning programs showed an increase inmeasures of school engagement and achievementin mathematics compared to control groups(Melchoir, 1999). Melchoir and Orr (1995),Luchs (1980), and Brill (1994), all observedincreases in attendance and Melchoir and Orrfound increases in time spent doing homework.Students who engaged in service-learning came toclass on time more often, completed more class-room assignments and took the initiative to ask

questions more often (Loesch-Griffin et al, 1995).

Critical Thinking Skills

Studies in cooperative and collaborative learningsettings (Bruner, 1985) suggest that students’problem-solving skills improve when they areconfronted with different interpretations of a prob-lem and must use critical thinking skills to arriveat answers and conclusions. For example, Qin,Johnson, and Johnson (1995) conducted a meta-analysis of 46 studies published between 1929 and1993 and found that members of cooperativeteams outperformed individuals competing witheach other on four types of problem-solving.

Gallagher, Stepien, and Rosenthal (1992) alsofound that participants in a problem-based coursefor gifted high school students exhibited signifi-cant improvement in problem-solving skills com-pared to a group of gifted non-participants. In1999, U.S. eighth graders exceeded the interna-tional average of 38 countries in mathematics andscience on the Third International Mathematicsand Science Study (TIMSS), but performed lowerthan their peers in 14 countries, including Japan.One explanation for these differences might befound in a TIMSS study of 231 classrooms in avideotape classroom study of eighth grade mathe-matics in Germany, Japan, and the United States.The study found that most lessons in the U.S. (83percent) contained tasks in which the teacherdemonstrated a solution, and students were askedto replicate it as opposed to tasks in which theteacher encouraged students to find alternativesolution paths on their own. In contrast, 48 percentof German lessons and 17 percent of Japanese les-sons contained exclusively teacher-demonstratedtasks. Similarly, the German and Japanese teach-ers often included deductive reasoning as part oftheir lessons, whereas the U.S. teachers did not(Condition of Education, 2001).

Attitudes and Behaviors in the Classroom

There is a small body of research concerning theimpact of an integrated curriculum, common inmany CTL classrooms, on student attitudes.


MacIver (1990) found that students in integratedprograms developed team spirit and improved theirattitudes and work habits. This was attributed, inpart, to the fact that teachers met in teams and wereable to quickly recognize and deal with a student’sproblem. Jacobs (1989) also reports that an integrat-ed curriculum is associated with better student self-direction, higher attendance, higher levels of home-work completion, and better attitudes towardschool. Students are engaged in their learning asthey make connections across disciplines and withthe world outside the classroom.

A well-designed study of an interdisciplinary, the-matic high school humanities program in LosAngeles compared participating students withthose in 16 other schools that used more tradition-al approaches to teaching humanities. Students inthe interdisciplinary program stayed in schoollonger, liked school better, and tended to “workharder” (by objective measurement) than thosewho were not in the program (Aschbacher, 1991).In a five-year study, researchers at SRI found thattechnology-using students in Challenge 2000Multimedia Project classrooms (which involvedcompleting one to four interdisciplinary multime-dia projects a year that integrated real-worldissues and practices) outperformed non-technolo-gy-using students in communication skills, team-work, and problem solving. Penuel et al. (2001)found increased student engagement, greaterresponsibility for learning, increased peer collabo-ration skills, and greater achievement gains bystudents who had been labeled low achievers.

Service-learning as an instructional strategy mayalso contribute to improvements in students’ atti-tudes and behaviors. Weiler et al.(1998) found thatmiddle and high school students who engaged inquality service-learning programs showedincreases in measures of personal and socialresponsibility, communication and sense of educa-tional competence. Students were more likely totreat each other kindly, help each other, and careabout doing their best (Berkas, 1997). In anotherstudy, students in service-learning programsexhibited fewer behavioral problems, and

received fewer office referrals for discipline thanother students (Stephens, 1995; Yates andYouniss, 1996; Follman and Muldoon 1997;Follman, 1998).

In a laboratory research study on cooperation, oneof the strongest findings was that when peoplecooperate, they learn to like one another. Similarfindings were found in cooperative learning class-room studies (Slavin, 1977, 1983, 1990). Yet, asmentioned earlier, often students must be taughtthe social skills they need to have to work suc-cessfully in a group. In two other studies (Nelsonand Johnson, 1996; Prater, Bruhl, and Serna,1998), researchers found that students with behav-ior disorders who did not receive social skillsinstruction performed better with direct instruc-tional methods than cooperative group methods,and those students who did receive social skillsinstruction performed better with cooperativegroup methods.

A study by Stepien et al. (1993) describes researchconducted in two secondary school settings, anelective science course for seniors and a more tra-ditional course in American Studies for sopho-mores. In this study, the problem used in the sci-ence course was one designed to prompt students’consideration of ethical as well as biologicalissues. Likewise, the social studies problem com-bined historical with ethical issues. Studentsenrolled in the problem-solving course for seniors,along with a matched group of control seniors,were given an ill-structured problem as a pretestand another such problem as a posttest. Studentswere told to outline a process they might use toarrive at a resolution to the problem. According tothe scoring procedure employed in this study, stu-dents who took the problem-solving courses out-performed control students in the breadth of theirethical appeals and in the extent to which theytended to support their appeals with reasonedarguments (Thomas, 2000).

Attendance and School Retention

Service-learning studies have shown positiveimpacts on behavioral engagement as measured


by attendance. Melchoir and Orr (1995), Luchs(1980), and Brill (1994) found increases in atten-dance when students participated in service-learn-ing. Leming (1998) found that students are likelyto feel connected to their community and moreresilient when involved in service-learning andhave a higher sense of responsibility to theirschool than comparison groups.

Work-based learning strategies have demonstratedimproved attendance and decreased dropout ratesas well. In a study of 1,169 Boston studentsenrolled in a career pathway during the 1996-97school year and a sample from 3,924 students whowere not enrolled, the career pathway studentswere more engaged in school, had a lower dropoutrate, better attendance, and fewer suspensionsthan their peers (Boston School-to Career, 1997).Another study of Boston’s Pro Tech program,which links students enrolled in career pathwaysto internships in seven industries, found thatProTech students were more likely to attend col-lege, to remain in college, or to be working (andearning higher wages) than their peers (Jobs forthe Future, 1997).

In a 1998 study, after controlling for the effects ofstudents’ prior grades, attendance, year in school,and school attended, researchers found that work-based learning, “significantly improved a stu-dent’s grade point average and attendance”(Linnehan, 1998). Bishop (2000) also found thatstudents who were in internships and apprentice-ship programs enrolled in Algebra I and higherlevel math courses as well as biology, chemistry,and lab sciences more often than peers who didnot participate in those programs.

Grades and Achievement

Cooperative and collaborative learningresearchers have looked at the achievement pay-offs of this instructional strategy. Slavin (1991)examined 67 studies of cooperative learningachievement outcomes. Sixty-one percent of thestudies found significantly greater achievementamong students in cooperative-collaborativeclasses than in traditionally taught control groups.

Positive effects were found across grade levels,urbanicity, and among students at all achievementlevels. Thirty-seven percent of the studies found nodifferences, and in only one study did the controlgroup outperform the experimental group. Similarlyrobust findings are reported by Johnson, Johnson,and Stanne (2000). A survey for the U.S.Department of Education (1992) found generallypositive achievement outcomes for students in col-laborative-cooperative learning environments. In ameta-analysis, Slavin (1990) notes positive effectsof cooperative learning on achievement, as com-pared with control groups, especially when there areboth clear group goals and students are individuallyaccountable for subject matter mastery.

Stevens et al. (1989) investigated the impact ofdirect instruction on reading comprehension strate-gies and the degree to which cooperative learningenhances students’ mastery. They found that stu-dents in a cooperative learning setting with directinstruction performed significantly better than thosein a traditionally instructed control group. In addi-tion, the students in cooperative learning groupsperformed significantly better than the students whoreceived only direct instruction.

Problem-based learning has been studied exten-sively at the postsecondary level, and it sharesmany features in common with secondary levelpractices (Barrows, 1996; Schmidt, 1994;Williams, 1992). Recognizing that high schoolstudents are very different from advanced postsec-ondary students in terms of motivation and matu-rity, reviews of 20 years of research on problem-based learning in medical schools (Albanese andMitchell, 1993; Vernon and Blake, 1993), foundthat medical students in problem-based learningprograms perform as well as students in tradition-al programs on conventional tests of knowledge.Further, project-based learning students did betteron tests of clinical problem-solving skills.

A small, but significant study of science classes inmiddle schools of two classes using problem-based learning strategies and two using traditionalclassroom pedagogy, looked specifically at con-tent mastery across identical curriculum units


(Krynock and Robb, 1996). Using a commoninstrument, all four classes scored at the samelevel, but the problem-based learning classesscored slightly higher on the content assessment.Although difficult to generalize, this study repre-sents one of a few that examined content masteryin a controlled, experimental environment.

Newmann and his colleagues studied 130 class-rooms in 24 restructured elementary, middle, andsecondary schools. After controlling for gender,race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and academ-ic skill level, the researchers found remarkableimprovements in performance in both math andsocial studies among students in classes taughtwith “authentic pedagogy” (instructional practicesrooted in the real world). In another study of 140classrooms in 15 schools serving disadvantagedstudents, Knapp, Shields and Turnbull (1992)found that when teachers taught for understandingand meaning rather than memorization, and whenthey connected instruction to students’ experi-ences, their students consistently outperformedstudents in conventional classrooms on advancedskills and did as well or better on traditional tests.

A three-year 1997 study of two British secondaryschools (Boaler, 1998) – one that used open-endedprojects and one that used more traditional, directinstruction to teach mathematics – found strikingdifferences in understanding and standardizedachievement scores in mathematics. Students atthe project-based school did better than those atthe more traditional school both on math problemsrequiring analytical or conceptual thought and onthose considered rote, that is, those requiringmemory of a rule or formula. Three times as manystudents at the project-based school received thetop grade that could be achieved on the nationalexamination in math. The study was conducted byfollowing a cohort of students from each school(300 students in all) for three years as they movedfrom Year 9 (age 13) to Year 11 (age 16). Boalerobserved approximately 90 one-hour lessons ineach school, and she interviewed students in thesecond and third year of the study, administeredquestionnaires to all students in each year of the

study, and interviewed teachers at the beginningand the end of the research period.

An earlier study reported by the Cognition andTechnology Group at Vanderbilt (1992) involvedover 700 students from eleven school districts,with five of the sites employing matched controlgroups. Students were given three adventure“projects” over the course of three weeks (the“Jasper” series: videotaped problems that packageall the information required for project work, butallow some autonomous activity), two on tripplanning and one on using statistics to create abusiness plan. The effectiveness of these projectswas measured by a series of tasks administeredafter three weeks of project work. Scores wererecorded in five areas: basic math concepts, wordproblems, planning capabilities, attitudes, andteacher feedback. As expected, the largest gainswere observed in planning capabilities, wordproblem performance, and attitudes towards math-ematics. Students exposed to the Jasper problemsshowed positive gains in all areas compared tocontrol students. According to the researchers, thestudy demonstrated that a brief project-basedlearning experience (“anchored instruction,” intheir terminology) can have a significant impacton students’ problem-solving skills, metacognitivestrategies, and attitudes towards learning. Resultsfrom the attitude surveys were similar to thosereported by Boaler (1997). In comparison to thegains made by untreated control students, experi-ence with a project approach to mathematics wasassociated with a reduction in anxiety towardmathematics, greater willingness to see mathemat-ics as relevant to everyday life, and increased will-ingness to approach mathematical challenges witha positive attitude (Thomas, 2000).

Although few studies of service-learning havefocused on academic achievement measured innarrow terms, there are several that deserve men-tioning (Conrad, 1991). Silcox (1993) found thatstudents showed significant gains in scientificknowledge after taking part in an internationalenvironmental project. Hamilton and Zeldin(1987) found that students taking part in a local


government project increased their knowledge oflocal government more than students in tradition-al classes. Dewsbury-White (1993) found thatstudents who served in a food bank were betterinformed about the issues of hunger than otherstudents. In a larger evaluation of federally-fund-ed Learn and Serve America in 17 high and mid-dle schools Melchoir (1997) found that partici-pants scored significantly higher than comparisongroup students on four of ten measures of impact– school engagement, school grades, core gradepoint average, and aspiration to graduate from afour-year college. Learn and Serve included allcomponents of an advanced, fully implementedservice-learning program.

In another study, Anderson (1991) found that serv-ice-learning participation was associated withhigher scores on the state test of basic skills andhigher grades (Shumer, 1994; Dean and Murdock,1992; Shaffer, 1993; O’Bannon, 1999).

Vars (1965) summarized five major research stud-ies and reported that in middle school programsthat adhered to block time and core programs –both forerunners of integrated curriculum – therewas no loss of learning of subject matter and thatoverall, students in the integrated programs did aswell or better than students in separate subjectprograms.

Students in the Humanitas program, an interdisci-plinary, thematic, team-based approach to highschool humanities in Los Angeles (Aschbacher1991), have been compared to students in 16 otherschools, which are more traditional in theirapproach. The Humanitas program had a statisti-cally significant effect on writing and contentknowledge, even after students have been enrolledfor only one year. The largest gains were in con-ceptual understanding. The control groups of stu-dents made no gains in conceptual understandingduring the same time period.

While the evaluation of the Humanitas projectinvolved large numbers of students and a controlgroup, there are also smaller-scale studies report-ing positive achievement outcomes for students

who participate in an integrated curriculum.Levitan (1991) found that a change from a litera-ture-based language arts program to a science-lit-erature-based program for sixth graders resultedin achievement increases for the majority of thestudents. Willett (1992) reports similar results in astudy of 87 fifth graders. Integrating the study ofmath with art resulted in higher post-test scoresthan those students who were taught mathematicalconcepts in isolation by the regular classroomteacher. “The data indicate that the integration ofart activities into mathematics and reading canenhance the learning of specific concepts”(Levitan, 1991, 12). Similar results were reportedby Friend (1984) in a study of mathematics andscience integration at the seventh grade level.

What We Do Not Know

This eclectic summary of research findingsreflects the nature of the literature. It is oftenmethodologically vague and hardly conclusive. Toplace CTL and related instructional practices inproper perspective, researchers need to do muchmore. First, the various CTL strategies need to betested in controlled experiments and across curric-ula. In fact, we do not even know how frequentlyand in what circumstances teachers use thesestrategies. The quality of data on teachers’ peda-gogy is poor because the gathering of this data iscomplex and “it is difficult to isolate and measurecritical elements of pedagogy because the teach-ing process consists of a complex set of interac-tions between students, the teacher, and the cur-riculum” (Mayer, Mullens, and Moore, 2000). Nordo we know why the strategies are used when theyare. As noted earlier, data indicate that they havefound a place in many classrooms, i.e. teachers areusing them to build content and learning skills, butnot much is known about that. Who is using thesestrategies, when, and to what end?

With regard to teaching and learning, are thesestrategies more appropriate in certain subjectareas than others? Do they produce more robuststudent outcomes in some subject areas than oth-ers? There is a real need for well-designedresearch and experiments to see exactly what dif-


ferences there are, controlling for strategy, teacherquality, student ability and background, subjectmatter, grade level and more. Until we gather evi-dence of this sort, many of our discussions willcontinue to be polemical and driven less by dataand more by personal opinion and preference.

At the same time, it is not entirely surprising thatthe research base remains somewhat thin, at leastin terms of outcomes. By and large, CTL and therelated instructional strategies are not taught tomost teachers; they are most often “backed into”as teachers look for ways to meet needs in theclassroom. They are done well by some, not sowell by others. At their best, they are not simplydesigned to convey content. As such, measuringonly achievement outcomes is insufficient.Clearly the value of CTL is often not measuredwell or understood particularly in the current envi-ronment, which is so completely focused on stu-dent achievement in the narrowest sense.

Indeed, CTL strategies must demonstrate theirworth in terms of achievement outcomes, andresearchers must use tried and true methodologiesto test their efficacy and make comparisons withother forms of pedagogy. Despite the complexityof delivering and researching CTL, in the currentpolicy environment, CTL practitioners mustanswer some hard questions:

• Do students master required curriculum con-tent in classes taught with CTL strategies?

• How do we come to understand the potentialof CTL in a standards-based environment andhigh stakes testing?

• How do we assess the outcomes associatedwith CTL unless the objectives of the strategyare clearly defined?

• Without agreed upon definitions of each strat-egy associated with CTL, how does oneresearch the effects of teacher education andprofessional development on instructionalpractice and student learning?

IV. CTL AND PUBLIC POLICY

What role can public policy generally, and federalpolicy more specifically, play in better understand-ing the strengths and weaknesses of CTL and in pro-moting more effective implementation? It seemsclear that while much has been learned about theeffectiveness of certain aspects of CTL, there is notas yet sufficient evidence to justify wholesale adop-tion of CTL as a proven strategy for raising studentachievement. Consequently, policy needs to proceedcarefully and deliberately on several different fronts.One possible framework for organizing the policyagenda would include the following topics: 1)Definition of CTL and standards for determiningwhether and the extent to which its various compo-nents are being implemented; 2) curriculum devel-opment that grounds CTL in content and perform-ance standards and models effective linkagesbetween contextual applications and instructionalpractices; 3) programs and demonstrations designedto advance understanding of what works, why, andfor whom; and 4) priorities for pre-service teachertraining and professional development with existingteachers.

Defining CTL and Standards for Implementation

Whether CTL is an effective school improvementstrategy cannot be determined if policy is not clearabout what CTL is and how to determine whetherschools have implemented one or more of its com-ponents. Policy needs to be as clear as possibleabout the kinds of changes it is seeking in curricu-lum, teaching practices, and organization. Vaguecalls for “curriculum integration,” “hands-on learn-ing,” “smaller learning communities,” “learningthrough doing,” and so forth are not productive. Notonly do they fail to offer teachers well developedtools for raising student achievement, but also theyencourage protracted ideological debates that divertattention from the difficult tasks of determiningwhat works and what does not.

Policies designed to strengthen effective CTLmight require that selected approaches to CTLmeet, at a minimum, the following criteria:


1. Clearly stated educational objectives ground-ed in rigorous content and performance stan-dards. CTL is a means to an end, not an end initself. How it addresses priorities for studentlearning should be clearly and specificallyarticulated.

2. A well-developed rationale, based on soundlearning theory and ideally on empiricalresearch, for the choice of CTL over alterna-tive instructional practices. CTL is one ofmany tools available to teachers and is bettersuited for achieving some educational objec-tives than others. Why it is best suited to aparticular aim or learning situation should becarefully stated.

3. A credible strategy for assessing that theintended learning occurs.CTL may be mostappropriate for teaching knowledge and skillsthat are not easily measured by conventionalassessment instruments. The availability andcredibility of alternative assessments shouldbe an explicit feature of plans to use CTL.

Grounding CTL in Content and PerformanceStandards

During the past two decades, a great deal of workhas been done to develop clearer standards forwhat students are expected to know and be able todo. Some of the academic disciplines, particularlymathematics and science, have paid more atten-tion to CTL than have others. Parallel workfocused on advancing CTL has almost alwaysclaimed to be “standards-driven,” but preciselywhat this means has often been unclear. Evenmany of the efforts to develop industry and occu-pational standards for career and technical educa-tion, where the practice of CTL is more firmlyestablished, have failed to address explicitly therole of CTL in curriculum and instruction. Modelcurriculum in each of the major academic disci-plines, with comprehensive and tested content,would help many teachers pursue CTL withouthaving to constantly reinvent the proverbialwheel. Similarly, model curriculum in career andtechnical education that emphasized application

of challenging academics and guided teachers onwhich of the academic standards were best suitedfor particular industries and occupations could bean important priority for public policy.

As these curriculum efforts proceed, they mayalso present an opportunity for debating more sys-tematically what the nation expects students toknow and be able to do. Whether it is in factimportant for students to know how to apply aca-demic knowledge and skill in particular contextsis by no means clear. Similarly, despite pleas fromthe business community for more emphasis onproblem-solving, understanding of systems, abili-ty to work collaboratively, and better understand-ing of principles of technology, these learningobjectives and clear standards of performancehave yet to find their way into mainstream discus-sions about curriculum content and assessment.Whether they should receive greater emphasis isan open question, but one that could be examinedmore purposefully as a part of CTL initiatives.

Moreover, even if there is agreement on the desir-ability of these additional learning outcomes,there are not widely accepted assessment instru-ments for determining whether these objectivesare being met. Another potential focus of publicpolicy, therefore, could be systematic develop-ment of better assessment instruments for gaugingstudents’ ability to apply academic concepts andskills, to solve complicated interdisciplinary prob-lems, to work collaboratively, to understand sys-tems, and to communicate effectively in the mod-ern world.

Demonstration Programs Linked to RigorousResearch and Evaluation

With safeguards to avoid experimentation that cando harm to students, it should be possible to pro-ceed with demonstrations carefully designed tobetter understand what forms of CTL are effec-tive, under what conditions, for what types of sub-ject matter, and in what kinds of combinationswith other instructional strategies, including tradi-tional approaches to teaching and learning. It isnot easy in most education situations to construct


experiments that duplicate the rigor of clinicaltrials and related research methods in medicineand other fields. Not only are such studies costly,but also requirements for random assignment andwithholding treatment from some "subjects" canpose insurmountable ethical problems whenyoung people are involved. Nevertheless,increasing opportunities for parents and studentsto exercise choice in selecting schools andinstructional programs may also create more sit-uations that lend themselves to "naturally occur-ring" experiments, especially where waiting listsand admission by lottery are present. Public pol-icy should exploit the most promising of theseexperimental opportunities.

Additionally, federal policy should give directionto the various agencies charged with collectingdata on schools, teachers, students, and instruc-tional practice so that implementation of CTLcan be more precisely monitored. Clearer andmore specific definitions of CTL would improvedata collection, as would better estimates of thenumbers of students engaged in different kindsof CTL activities.

Priorities for Pre-Service and In-ServiceProfessional Development

Although much remains to be learned about theeffectiveness of CTL, helping educators use whatis already known is another potential goal for pub-lic policy. CTL is not easy to do well, and ensur-ing more effective implementation will depend, inpart, on developing the capacities of teachers touse these strategies in the classroom. Work isneeded simultaneously on two fronts: 1) in-serv-ice development for those already teaching andconstituting the overwhelming majority of teach-ers who will be teaching during the next decade,and 2) pre-service development for new teachers

who will join the ranks of academic and technicalteachers in the future. One way in which policycould help strengthen both these aspects of pro-fessional development would be to lend support tomore comprehensive reflection on what both aca-demic and CTE teachers need to know and be ableto do in order to get the most out of schoolimprovement strategies that combine differentforms of technical and academic instruction.

V. CONCLUSION

CTL is one of several instructional practices thatgood teachers need to better understand in order tohelp young people learn. Strictly speaking, it isnot a new idea. Teachers have long known whatcognitive science is now documenting more thor-oughly: using students’ personal experiences andcreating opportunities for applying knowledgeand skills to concrete, practical situations canenhance learning. It is not a substitute for otherteaching techniques, but rather an additional toolfor engaging students both inside and outside theclassroom and deepening their understanding ofimportant ideas and methods for comprehendingtheir worlds.

However, if CTL is not new to schools, neither isit well developed nor ably practiced by mostteachers. Much remains to be learned about howand when to best use CTL, singly and in combi-nation with other instructional methods. Publicpolicy can play an important role in advancingresearch on CTL, sponsoring well-designeddemonstrations and evaluations, furthering therelationship between CTL and achievement ofcurriculum and performance standards, andimproving the abilities of existing and prospec-tive teachers to use these instructional practicesmore effectively.


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PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING

Example:

The High School Food Court

Students are presented with the following prob-lem. The high school is going to choose fiverestaurants from 12 bidders who want space in thehigh school’s new food court. A memo from theschool principal explains to the students that theschool board expects them to pick the restaurantsand justify their selection. A percentage of therestaurants’ profits will go to the student councilto pay for council-sponsored student activities.The memo notes that this is the only revenue thestudent council has. The principal also sendsalong a memo from the PTA president who is con-cerned about the students eating fast food; anoth-er from the school counselor who is concernedabout low-income students having access to lowcost, good food; a third from the Gourmet Clubwho want the quality of food to be above average;the others from the “Vital Vegetarians,” and thewoman who donated the new student centerrequesting specific foods to be served at the foodcourt. Students must weigh the needs of thesecompeting constituencies against the restaurants’profits, which pays for their activities. Studentswork in groups to define a solution and make aclass presentation and report to the school board.

Outcomes:

Economic/Mathematics content:percentages,opportunity costs, revenue, profit, equity, trade-offs, scarcity, public policy costs, market sys-tems, economic systems, basic economic theory

English/Language Arts content:report writing,persuasive arguments, comparing and contrast-ing

Analytic and problem solving skills:construc-

tion of selection criteria, decision-making, utilizing data

Social skills:adult roles, teamwork, and presenta-tion skills

Components of Problem BasedLearning:

Purposeful, real world problem

Centered around skills; interdisciplinary focus

Student collaboration/cooperation

Academic rigor

Student choice throughout investigation

Teachers provide support throughout the process

Assessment:

A rubric is presented to students when the prob-lem is introduced. The rubric outlines the ratingsthat the student will receive for demonstrating thespecific knowledge of economic/mathematicscontent, ability to propose a solution to the prob-lem, ability to communicate effectively in bothwriting and presenting of proposal, and their levelof participation in their group.

SERVICE-LEARNING

Example:

Taking Care of Water Pollution

In response to a recent increase in reporting onpollution as a major problem presented in the localpaper, this project involves students in the issue ofpollution in their community as part of a biologycurriculum. Students take water samples fromtheir local waterway. They analyze the amountand nature of the pollutants in the water and lookfor the source of that pollution. They write lettersto their local government to inform the city offi-cials of the problem and encourage them to takeaction. They also make presentations at the localenvironmental group meetings and at school


Appendix

Examples of Contextual Teaching and Learning Lessons


board meetings to educate the public about waterpollution. There are discussions to reflect on theservice at all stages of this project. Topics for dis-cussion include education, pollution, ethics, gov-ernment agencies, public health, and waste man-agement.

Outcomes:

Science content:biology of water, causes of andsolutions to pollution, health

Social Studies content:current events, govern-ment

English/Language Arts content:letter writing,presentations

Analytic and problem solving skills: critical think-ing, utilizing data, creating viable solutions

Social skills: adult roles, teamwork, presentationskills, and civic responsibility

Components of ServiceLearning:

Meaningful service connected to the curriculum

Genuine need in the community is addressed

Students involved in planning of service and pres-entation


Connection to academic class

Reflection

Assessment:

Students are expected to keep a portfolio includ-ing the various water samples and analysis, inves-tigation into sources of pollution, letters written,and their presentation.

Community members are asked to assess theeffects of students’ service.

PROJECT-BASED LEARNING

Example:

Geometry in the Real World

Students are presented with a project for thenational organization We Rememberthat pro-motes activities that educate past, present, andfuture generations about the Holocaust. One oftheir goals is to erect a memorial to commemorateHolocaust victims and survivors. They haveasked the class to prepare proposals for a nationalmonument for the Holocaust. Students are dividedinto small groups. Students must explore the his-tory of the Holocaust including Judaism andWWII in order to first create a timeline of eventsof the Holocaust. They must then explore existingHolocaust memorials including their goals/pur-pose, where they are built, and type of build-ings/memorials. The students must then designthe memorial and include the design in a propos-al. The proposal must include a site plan, scalemodel, floor plans (if a building), perspectivedrawings, cost estimates, and a written proposalincluding the goal of the memorial, where it willbe located, what features it will have, and what thestudents are trying to achieve. Proposals will bepresented to judges from the architecture profes-sion and not-for-profit sector and other groups ofstudents.

Outcomes:

Geometry content: scale, perspective, geometryconcepts found in construction

History content:World War II, the Holocaust,Judaism

English/Language Arts content: proposal writing,presentations

Visual Arts content:graphic design, perspectivedrawing

Analytic and problem solving skills:critical think-ing, utilizing data, creating viable solutions

Social skills: adult roles, teamwork, presentationskills


Components of Project-BasedLearning:

Complex task introduced that requires in-depthinvestigation

Student choice throughout design of memorial


Presentation

Assessment:

A rubric is presented to students when the prob-lem is introduced. The rubric outlines the ratingsthat the student will receive for demonstrating thespecific knowledge of geometry concepts, abilityto propose a creative solution, ability to commu-nicate effectively in both writing and presenting ofproposal, and their level of participation in theirgroup

Architects, members from community not-for-profits, and students will be asked to assess proj-ects based on real-world applicability.

CURRICULUM INTEGRATION

Example #1:

Thematic Unit on Fire

Fire is the theme for the entire grade for threeweeks. Each subject focuses on this theme. Inmathematics, students learn about scale and map-ping; in health, students learn about the effects ofburning and smoke; in English, students write apuppet show about the Chicago Fire; in foreignlanguage, students learn about fire in different cul-tures; in social studies, students learn about theGreat Chicago Fire and the history of Chicago; inart, students make puppets for the puppet show; inmusic class, students compose a dance interpret-ing fire; and in science, students learn why thingsburn.

Example #2:

Integrating Academic and Career and TechnicalEducation

Two teachers work together to develop and joint-ly teach an applied biology/chemistry course and

a health occupations course. The curricula for thetwo courses are aligned. When health occupationsstudents study nutrition and the digestive system,they perform related lab experiments in appliedbiology/chemistry laboratories. For example,they study the energy released when the bodyburns certain foods, use chromatography to sepa-rate amino acids, and explore the effects ofenzyme activity on various foods. When healthoccupation students study chemical addiction,they analyze drugs and poisons in applied biolo-gy/chemistry lab. The courses are often scheduledto offer teachers the flexibility to plan engagingand sophisticated activities. Back-to-back coursescheduling provides time for students in the laband the ability for teachers to team-teach.

Outcomes:

Content is addressed in every subject area.

Components of Integrated Curricula:

Depth and breadth of content is the focus

Cuts across subject lines

Team teaching and planning

Assessment:

Student assessment emphasizes projects and pre-sentations rather than conventional tests.Students are graded on how they organize theirwork and keep permanent records of activities.Students earn separate credit for each course.

WORK-BASED LEARNING

Example:

Transportation Internship Class

As part of a Transportation Career Academy, stu-dents are placed in 45 hour-long internships at theFederal Aviation Administration. Each student isassigned to a workplace mentor who helps themsee first-hand what the career field is really like.Students are placed in an internship class, a year-long course that culminates in the internship con-ducted during the second semester. The course


includes career exploration, personal testing andinvestigation of self and careers, resume writing,job applications, mock job interviewing, how todress for interviews and work, career interestassessments, cover letters and other forms of busi-ness communications that are all kept in studentportfolios. Guest speakers visit the classes to talkabout careers and education. The classes also takefield trips including trips to the local airport, thecoast guard, a nearby university, and the local hos-pital. Students are required to complete a finalproject and present it on Senior Exhibition Day.During the second semester, students spend twodays a week in class, and the other three days ofthe week are spent in the workplace interning.Students are placed in different areas of the FAAfor approximately three weeks and then rotatepositions. The areas include the human resourcesdepartment, law department, medical servicesdepartment, and the inspection department. Theon-the-job learning experiences are reinforced bythe lessons in all of the classes in theTransportation Career Academy where studentsare learning about all aspects of the industry.Students are required to keep a journal and write areport on the internship experience.

Outcomes:

Language Arts/English content:report writing,journal writing

Social skills:relationships with adults, responsi-bility

Workplace competencies: Awareness of the worldof work and understanding of the world of aca-demic learning for their future

Components of Work-BasedLearning:

Planned program of job training

Experiences in all aspects of an industry

Workplace mentoring

Instruction on workplace competencies

Connection to academic classes

Assessment:

A rubric is presented to students at the beginningof the class. The rubric outlines the ratings thatthe student will receive for their journal writing,final report, and final presentation.

Workplace mentors will be asked to assess stu-dents on their workplace competencies.

COLLABORATIVE/COOPERATIVELEARNING

Example:

Inuit Peoples

Students answer the question: How do Inuit onBaffin Island live and how does Arctic life resem-ble and differ from ours? Students are shown avideo clip on life in the artic. They are then divid-ed into pairs and asked to brainstorm with theirpartner everything that they noticed about life inthe Artic. Students are then asked to share whatthey discussed in their pairs with the entire class.Students are then divided into larger groups withthree-five students and presented with a topic toexplore in order to learn more about the Inuit andthe Artic. Topics include: researching anddescribing the legend of the Inukshuk; using num-bers, statistics, and graphs to describe and repre-sent Inuit populations and resources; and researchon an Inuit who made a positive contribution inCanada’s Arctic over the past two decades. Theycreate and produce a mock radio or TV interviewto introduce the person to the class, write a one-week journal as an Inuit teenager that includesseven entries describing life in Inuit community;describe the seasons of the Artic, explainingand/or demonstrating why the Arctic is so cold,dangers of the Artic seas, reasons for long periodsof dark and light, damages to the Arctic land, andsummer and autumn colors from tundra blooms.Each group presents their findings to the othergroups.


Outcomes:

Social studies content: Inuit, Arctic life andgeography

English/Language arts content:creative writ-ing, journal writing

Social skills: relationships between students,teamwork, interpersonal skills, presentationskills

Depending on the group, creativity skills, mathe-matics content skills, research skills, biology con-tent skills are explored

Components ofCollaborative/CooperativeLearning:

Shared goals and shared outcomes

Positive interdependence and individual account-ability

Engagement, exploration, transformation, presen-tation, and reflection

Grouping and pairing students

Assessment:

Individual students write a report on their groups’presentation, including the process of workingwith others. Students are assessed based on theirgroups’ work and individual work (as assessed bypeers, their individual reports, and teacher obser-vation).

Many successful schools and sub-school pro-grams use contextual teaching and learning (CTL)as a core high school reform approach. Over thepast decade, CTL strategies have been incorporat-ed into innovative programs, have contributed tohigh school restructuring, and have increased stu-dent engagement and motivation. In addition tochanging instruction and curriculum, these strate-gies have been central elements of new structuressuch as career academies, articulation, smallschools, and student internships.

To shed new light on contextual teaching andlearning and to begin identifying strategies, struc-tures, and policies that support CTL, the AmericanYouth Policy Forum and the Institute forEducational Leadership convened a roundtable ofleading educational thinkers and practitioners onJuly 23, 2002 in Washington DC. This paper sum-marizes the main points of that discussion.

OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUE

As background for the roundtable, MPRAssociates, Inc. reviewed the research base oncontextual teaching and learning, what definesCTL, how CTL impacts student outcomes, andidentified appropriate roles for public policy rela-tive to CTL. In his statement summarizing thatpaper, MPR President Gary Hoachlandercharac-terized CTL as a three-part approach, reformingcurriculum and individualizing it according to stu-dent interest; reforming instructional practices toinclude high expectations, new structures for stu-dent/teacher interaction, and collaborative work;and supporting organizational and professionaldevelopment structures. The overriding goal ofCTL is to raise students’ academic and technicalachievement. He challenged CTL to demonstrateits effectiveness for students who have not per-

formed well with conventional curriculum andinstruction, and to develop authentic assessmentsfor determining attitudinal, behavioral, and skillacquisition outcomes.

Expanded use of CTL requires teachers to have abetter understanding of its value and its use. MPRResearch Associate Sarah Calderonexplained thesix most common approaches to CTL in highschool:

• collaborative and cooperative learning,

• curriculum integration,

• project-based learning,

• problem-based learning,

• work-based learning, and

• service-learning.

The six approaches to CTL share several charac-teristics:

• They restructure the nature ofstudent/teacher interaction to include highexpectations of student achievement, newlearning structures, and collaborative workamong students and between students andadults.

• They restructure the curriculum, connectingsubject matter to real-world applications.

• They determine learning outcomes differ-ently, aiming for attitudinal and behavioralchanges as well as skill acquisition.

• They strive for authentic assessment ratherthan paper-and-pencil tests.

CTL is not a new approach; good teachers have


Instructional Strategies and Structures

For Improved Learning in High Schools

Summary of Second RoundtableJuly 23, 2002


been using some CTL strategies for years to reachsome students some of the time. Nonetheless,there is a lack of data on CTL’s impact on studentachievement. MPR’s Director of Policy Analysisand Development, Elliott Medrich, explained thatmost of what is known about CTL comes fromresearch on some of the individual strategies thatcomprise CTL, rather than on CTL as a compre-hensive approach. Medrich summarized what wedo know about CTL:

• The abundance of literature on the learningprocess – how people learn – is consistentwith CTL instructional strategies.

• There is considerable evidence that CTLhelps engage and motivate students; there isless certainty that engagement and motiva-tion are necessary prerequisites for learning.

• Little evidence shows that CTL contributesto the development of critical thinkingskills, which is surprising, given CTL’semphasis on critical thinking as a CTL out-come.

• There is some evidence that CTL mayincrease school attendance and reduce thedropout rate, but it is difficult to establishcausality.

• CTL appears to contribute to higher gradesand student achievement.

Medrich recommended several issues on whichfurther research is needed:

• Paramount is the need for controlled exper-iments to determine the effectiveness ofCTL as a comprehensive approach relativeto traditional teaching and learning.

• Studies of CTL effectiveness need to con-trol for student background, school struc-ture, teacher effectiveness, and other vari-ables.

• Documentation of effective classroom useof CTL is needed.

Following the presentation of the MPR paper,three panels provided information on how CTL isbeing used in schools and the policy environmentneeded to support CTL.

PANEL I: EXAMPLES OF INNOV-ATIVE HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAMS

• James McPartland, Director of the Center forSocial Organization of Schools and professorof sociology, Johns Hopkins University

• Gregg Betheil, Vice President for AcademyPrograms, National Academy Foundation

• Terry Grobe, Senior Program Manager,Center for Youth Development and Education,Commonwealth Corporation


A number of programs for high school age youthhave begun incorporating CTL strategies andstructures to support student learning, BetsyBrand summarized. Representatives from threeof these schools presented their experiences.

Talent Development High Schools. From its1994 beginning as a partnership between theJohns Hopkins University Center for Research onthe Education of Students Placed At Risk (CRES-PAR) and Baltimore’s Patterson High School, theTalent Development High School (TDHS) modelhas expanded to high schools in 11 states. A com-prehensive reform model for large high schoolswith substantial numbers of low-performing stu-dents, TDHS schools use CTL to guide their orga-nizational structure, their instructional program,and their support systems for teachers, explainedJim McPartland.

The TDHS model organizes high schools intoacademies that provide students with a personal-ized climate and a career context. The career acad-emies provide students with core academic andelective courses. All students benefit from blend-ed instruction in their core academic courses, allstudents take algebra, and all courses are at the


college prep level. The career academies utilizeCTL strategies such as internships, enterprises,and simulations. Identifying sufficient numbersof real-world experiences is a constant challenge,so many students gain those experiences throughstudent-run businesses.

Instruction is designed to bring students up tograde level and to enhance their understanding ofwhat they learn. With block scheduling, studentsgain intensive time on task in reading for fluencyand comprehension and in math for reasoning andproblem-solving. Both reading and math empha-size applied learning; for example, each studenttakes “Reading and Writing in Your Career” intenth grade. TDHS students have demonstratedimpressive achievement in reading and math onstandardized tests.

As freshmen, the students enroll in the NinthGrade Success Academy, where they are groupedin teams for four 90-minute periods a day overtwo 18-week semesters. Each student takes a one-semester Freshman Seminar focusing on socialskills for cooperative learning, note-taking andstudy skills for different assessments, and careerawareness for career program choice. TheFreshman Seminar prepares students to select(and succeed in) a career academy during grades10-12.

The TDHS model requires substantial teacher sup-port systems to help teachers with the challengesof this type of instruction. Staff are involved inacademy planning; they receive specific, com-plete, daily lessons to guide their teaching; andthey are provided with workshops and follow-upin-class coaching. Each high school has a team offour coaches – one each for literature, math, fresh-man seminar, and organizational and professional

development issues.

Career Academies. The National AcademyFoundation (NAF) promotes the career academyapproach as a platform on which other strategiescan be built, explainedGregg Betheil.For exam-ple, NAF career academies all utilize smallerlearning communities, partnerships, and intensiveprofessional development for faculty and partners.

NAF academies provide three career themes –travel and tourism, finance, and information tech-nology – each with a required sequence of cours-es. These career themes provide students with acontext for learning and for building upon whatstudents already know. In the finance academies,for example, students participate in the FederalChallenge, sponsored by the Federal ReserveBoard. They learn about interest rates, and thenconduct research every six weeks to determinewhether (and why) the Fed should raise, lower, orhold steady on interest rates.

The academies’ career contexts do not limit stu-dents’ subsequent employment options – only 25percent of NAF students end up working in theircareer academy field – but it does prepare studentsfor postsecondary endeavors. NAF graduatesenter and succeed in college at greater rates thantheir non-academy peers.

Teacher support, even more than professionaldevelopment, is the most important element incareer academy effectiveness, Betheil said. Peersupport is critical, which is why NAF career acad-emies include common planning time and teacherteams.

Diploma Plus. Unlike Talent Development HighSchools and career academies, Diploma Plusoperates in a variety of settings: district-run alter-native schools, charter schools, satellite highschool programs run by community-based organi-zations, GED programs, and community colleges,as well as academies and other school-within-a-school programs. Terry Grobe characterizedDiploma Plus as an intensive senior year approachthat improves academic rigor without sacrificing

Federal funds are disproportionally spent on ele-mentary education (the vaccination theory), buthigh school is the booster shot. High schoolreform that includes an increased emphasis on lit-eracy, reasoning, and math, should be a federalspending priority.– McPartland


the nurturing aspects that contribute to the effec-tiveness of alternative education.

Diploma Plus programs target students who havebeen unsuccessful in high school and are at risk ofdropping out. Their reading and math levelshover between 7th and 9th grade. By linking earn-ing with learning, Diploma Plus helps reduce thehigh dropout rate typical of such students.

Emphasizing the use of project-based learning andportfolios, Diploma Plus features a performance-based route to a high school diploma, with instruc-tion and assessment tied to competencies and con-nected to state and national standards. The pro-gram’s enriched senior year experience is a diplo-ma requirement involving three complex projects– community action, an autobiographical project,and an 80+ hour internship with dual enrollmentin community college.

Currently being evaluated by Jobs for the Future,Diploma Plus has demonstrated promising earlyresults. The program’s widespread use of portfo-lios, competencies, and authentic assessmentsappear to translate into higher aspirations amongstudents, with 70-80 percent of them going on tocollege.

The ongoing evaluation of Diploma Plus suggestssupport for an enriched senior year and dualenrollment in high school and community college.Overage youths with few high school course cred-its do better with a competency-based programrather than one based on class hours, and withportfolios and other alternative assessments ratherthan traditional ones.

Roundtable issues. Roundtable participantsraised the following issues in response to the pres-entation of innovative programs:

• Developing, implementing, and gaining dis-trict acceptance for a new curriculum, withskills and competencies that go beyond tradi-tional course boundaries, is difficult toachieve. Teachers lack time and support to tai-lor the curriculum to meet the needs of specif-ic groups of students.

• The impetus for CTLvaries in different cir-cumstances. The Talent Development HighSchools, for example, intentionally blend theacademic with the technical; CTL evolved asan effective way to combat student apathy andanonymity. In contrast, the National AcademyFoundation’s finance program found that CTLemerged as a product of student enthusiasm forWall Street internships.

• Carnegie unitsare one of the most significantobstacles to high school reform. Among otherproblems, Carnegie units assume one adult perclassroom, which works against the strategy ofconnecting two or more adults with a group ofstudents.

• Schedulingis often a major logistical road-block to reform, especially in large high schoolsettings.

• Overemphasis on test preparation can undercutthe experimentation inherent in reform.

• Reform requires substantially more resourcesfor professional developmentsupports such ascoaches and learning communities.

• The emphasis on teacher certificationin theNo Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) could workagainst CTL since certification for high schoolteachers emphasizes strategies for disciplineover strategies for teaching. Certification alsoemphasizes subject orientation over crosscut-ting skills and pedagogy over real-world expe-rience. The shortage of qualified teachers sug-gests an urgency to develop and support alter-native certification routes that attract teachersfrom other careers.

• Predetermined lesson plansthat are completeand specific can give teachers a starting pointfrom which they can adapt. There was lesssupport for scripted lesson plans from whichteachers cannot deviate than for flexible lessonplans tied to specific learning objectives.


PANEL II: POLICIES TO SUP-PORT HIGH SCHOOL INNOVA-TION AND CTL

• Carmen Russo, CEO, Baltimore City PublicSchools

• June Atkinson, Director of InstructionalServices, North Carolina Department ofPublic Instruction

• Tom Holdsworth, Director ofCommunications and Government Relations,SkillsUSA-VICA

• Joan Wills, Center for WorkforceDevelopment, Institute for EducationalLeadership, moderator

Contextual teaching and learning strategies arenot new in high school classrooms and related set-tings, and their use seems to be on the rise.Although assessment of CTL as compared to tra-ditional teaching remains difficult at best, out-comes from educational structures such as TalentDevelopment High Schools, career academies,and Diploma Plus have demonstrated its effective-ness, Joan Wills said. What national, state, andlocal policies are necessary to support and expandthe use of CTL strategies and structures?

Local level. Policy is informal in practice, but itbecomes institutionalized when it has beenapproved, in writing, at high levels. CarmenRussonamed three policy challenges: bringingthe policy decision to scale, institutionalizing it atthe local level, and making sure it is reflected inthe budget. Overcoming those three challengeshelps ensure that the policy will outlast individualsuperintendents and become institutionalized atthe level of principal and staff.

Russo described how Baltimore overcame thosethree challenges. An important step was using themaster plan to formalize high school reform poli-cies in support of CTL. Concurrently, CTL gainedpolicy support through Baltimore’s Blueprint forHigh School Reform that was developed to guidethe system’s $20 million Gates Foundation grant.

Policymakers decided that both the master planand the blueprint had be very specific – “namingnames, setting standards, holding people account-able, with no guesswork and no amnesia.” Thoseplans created a crosswalk between district-levelpolicy and local-level implementation, supportedby budget decisions – in Russo’s view, the mosteffective way to make policy. “You have to startwith the plan and the money,” she advised. “Finda model that works, invite people to the table, andnegotiate to convert all the high schools.”

Lack of policy support at the school system levelis responsible for most failed high school reform,Russo observed. Necessary policies to undergirdCTL structures and strategies include:

• Promotion policy. Rejecting the possibility ofsocial promotion is critical for success,because promotion policies directly affect stu-dents.

• Budget policies.Unless the financing formu-las change to support new staffing models,smaller learning communities that use CTLcannot survive.

• Non-instructional standards. Policy mustaffirm lower class sizes and school sizes.

• Personnel and hiring. Higher standards forhiring, teacher certification, and professionaldevelopment need to be codified.

State level. “Policy tells you where you’regoing,” according to June Atkinson. Policy sup-port makes the difference between reforms thatlast and reforms that evaporate. Even research-based innovation is unlikely to last without stateand/or local policy to support it. In NorthCarolina, policymakers obtain extensive input,from educators and administrators as well as fromthe diverse stakeholders who care about the publicschools.

Atkinson identified five components of effectivehigh school reform policy, drawn from NorthCarolina’s tech prep experience:


• Courses of study must change. NorthCarolina’s strategic plan institutionalized techprep as a course of study a student can com-plete. One benchmark toward tech prep com-pletion is high school completion with fouryears of language arts, three years of math,and four career prep units within a careerpathway.

• Graduation requirements need to change toaccommodate reform.

• Curriculum standards need to relate to theworld of work.

• Professional development needs to take placein a school context, with networks of support,and mechanisms for sustainability.

• Accountability for the reform needs to beinstitutionalized. North Carolina law nowcounts students who complete a tech prepcourse along with students who complete atwo- or four-year college or university whenevaluating school performance.

National level. SkillsUSA-VICA is a career-tech-nical student organization that prepares more than250,000 high school and college students annual-ly for high performance work in technical, skilled,and service occupations. Tom Holdsworthexplained that SkillsUSA uses an applied methodof contextual learning to teach total quality, highethical standards, superior work skills, life-longeducation and pride in the dignity of work.

In partnership with 1,000+ corporations, tradeassociations and labor unions, and 267,000 mem-ber instructors, SkillsUSA designs and imple-ments programs that help

establish industry standards for job skill trainingin the classroom. These programs include local,state, and national competitions in which studentsdemonstrate occupational and leadership skillsindividually and in teams. More than 4,100 stu-dents compete in 73 occupational and leadershipskill areas. The programs use applied teaching toemphasize employability skills such as: resource

management, interpersonal communication, tech-nology, systems, information management, litera-cy, occupational skills, and attitude.

The Perkins legislation supported CTL’s growth atthe federal level in recent years, Holdsworth said,as did the education policies in some states.Policies emphasizing accountability standards,such as the industry standards to which SkillsUSAhas contributed, have also helped CTE and oppor-tunities for career and technical education tothrive. The national framework for these policiesis important to continuing to offer high qualityprograms.

Roundtable issues. Roundtable participantsraised additional policy issues that relate to careerand technical education and CTL. The responsesof the group are summarized below:

The role of unions. Any school reform effort hasa better chance to succeed if unions are brought inas partners from the beginning. In Baltimore’sschool reform experience, a written Memorandumof Understanding that specified each party’sresponsibilities was an effective strategy. “Neverask teachers to do anything you don’t pay themfor,” Baltimore’s Superintendent Russo cautioned.

Hiring policies. Given the dearth of research onhiring policies, what should districts do?Baltimore responded by making hiring more flex-ible, within limits. The district personnel depart-ment clears applicants, for example, but the schoolprincipal makes the hiring decision. Baltimorerequires all teachers to be certified, although alter-native certification is acceptable. Uncertifiedteachers must gain certification within four years.

Sustaining the reforms.Public outreach is essen-tial, to identify and educate “champions” of thereform in all segments of the constituency.

Students need all three kinds of skills – academ-ic, employability, and occupational – and theyneed to be prepared at early ages to read, write,and compute so the will be ready for those high-er skills. – Holdsworth


Building a base of support in advance worked wellin Baltimore (in Russo’s words, “make friendsbefore you need them”).

PANEL III: POLICY CONSIDERA-TIONS FOR PERKINS REAUTHO-RIZATION AND HIGH SCHOOLREFORM

• Hans Meeder, Deputy Assistant Secretary,Office of Vocational and Adult Education, U.S.Department of Education

• Susan Sclafani, Advisor to Secretary ofEducation Rod Paige, U.S. Department ofEducation


Federal officials, panelists from earlier sessions,and roundtable participants examined national,state, and local policy options for supporting CTLin the context of the upcoming reauthorization ofthe Perkins Act and the widespread interest in highschool reform.

“In today’s world, you can’t deal with Perkins in avacuum,” according to Hans Meeder. If entirehigh schools focus on raising academic achieve-ment for all students, people will inevitably turn tocareer and technical education as a strategy forlearning. Meeder described OVAE’s PreparingAmerica’s Future as an initiative linking the vari-ous offices of the Department of Education in sup-port of workforce preparation for the 21st Century.The vision for the initiative is an education systemin which:

• Every American youth completes high schoolwell prepared for postsecondary educationand employment;

• Community and technical colleges fulfill theirpotential as an engine of education, careerpreparation, workforce development, and eco-nomic development; and

• Adult learning is expanded to bring higherlevels of literacy and English fluency to mil-

lions of underserved Americans.

Meeder listed the elements that need to be in placeto achieve the vision inherent in PreparingAmerica’s Future:

• Aligned standards – challenging core academ-ic standards for all students that are alignedwith assessments.

• Accountability systems – meaningful to teach-ers, districts, and students.

• Teacher quality – professional developmentlinked to standards and curriculum.

• Quality instruction– developing and imple-menting evidence-based instructional strate-gies.

• Intensive interventions– extra help for the800,000 high school graduates who are non-readers and the 1.2 million dropouts.

• High quality CTE programs of study– real,meaningful articulation agreements and earlytransition options based on mastery.

The Department of Education’s strategic planaddresses high school reform by specifying fourtasks: holding schools accountable, increasing therigor of every student’s course of study, strength-ening research and development, and expandinglearning options for students. The Departmentcontinues to seek comments on the appropriatefederal role in leveraging change and workingwith states.

The principles behind the No Child Left BehindAct will also guide the Perkins reauthorization,according to Susan Sclafani:

• Accountability for every student.Of all levelsof school, high school is effective for the low-est proportion of students, Sclafani said. Thatmust change, and schools will be heldaccountable for “adequate yearly progress.”By holding schools accountable for the out-comes of their lowest-performing subpopula-tions, Perkins will force people to analyze


school success in different ways.

• High quality professional development.TheDepartment is planning a research agenda thatcan gain funding support from the NationalScience Foundation, the National ResearchCouncil, and others. This careful examinationof what works will result in a database ofpromising and effective practices.

• Local control. Districts and schools will havethe flexibility to adopt strategies andapproaches based on student needs.

• Parental choice.Schools need to respond tothe stated needs of parents, students, and soci-ety, providing what Peter Drucker calls “masscustomization.” At the high school level, stu-dent choice will be taken into account.

Participants raised the issue of the lack of com-prehensive standards in most states as a majorconcern. Most state standards address only aca-demic and occasionally SCANS skills, but notoccupational or employer-certified skills.Academic standards are not necessarily the sameas employer standards, but both are importantbecause high school reform is being driven by thechanging nature of work. Assessments need to bea three-legged stool, taking into account academicstandards, employability standards, and industry-specific occupational or technical standards.Many states developed employability standards tosupplement their academic standards, but someare reverting back to a reliance on academic stan-dards only because of No Child Left Behind,which would be a setback for CTL.

Discussion also focused on the need for greaterunderstanding of CTL and student outcomes.High schools need to use, and evaluate, a varietyof pedagogical strategies. CTL seems better suit-ed to helping students learn certain skills, such asSCANS skills, than others, and there was somequestion as to the role of CTL in a high standardsenvironment. Participants cautioned that usingSAT scores as the sole measure of CTL’s impactwould not provide information about employabil-

ity skills, since standardized tests and SATs are aninappropriate measure of that.

Measuring outcomes for students in CTL pro-grams with those of students taught by traditionalmethods is also a research and evaluation chal-lenge. Even with controlled experiments, it is dif-ficult to determine what elements caused the dis-tribution of results. Disparities in districtresources need to be taken into account when suchresearch is designed. For example, while manysuburban school districts outperform their urbancounterparts, many urban districts serving high-need students lack the basic tools to achieve (e.g.,books, adequate class size, early reading supports,etc.)

Other questions that must be factored into anyresearch regarding the effectiveness of CTLshould include the role of youth development anddifferential student learning styles. School-to-work initiatives, for example, which relied heavi-ly on CTL, increased student attendance and grad-uation rates because students became moreengaged in learning. Yet, the importance of stu-dent engagement and motivation is often left outin much research into teaching and learning.

Finally, definitional issues are key. Participantscalled for better definitions of CTL, of standards,and of authentic assessment, and agreed thatknowledge gaps in this arena remain huge. Whatresearch there is supports CTL as an effectivestrategy for students who have been failed by tra-ditional pedagogies. More work is needed todetermine what constitutes a “good” education forall students and what elements are most successfulin helping students learn certain skills.

Summary of Recommendations


The following recommendations on contextualteaching and learning and alternative assess-ments were drawn from the two research papersand from the roundtable discussions.

Important elements in high school reform includeholding schools accountable, increasing the rigorof every student’s course of study, providing thenecessary supports to students and teachers tohelp students learn, strengthening research anddevelopment, and expanding learning options forstudents. The following recommendations aremore specifically related to contextual teachingand learning and additional forms of assessment.

Public policy can play an important role in (1)advancing research on contextual teaching andlearning by sponsoring well-designed demonstra-tions and evaluations to better understand the rela-tionship between contextual teaching and learn-ing, curriculum, and performance standards; (2) inimproving the ability of existing and prospectiveteachers to use these instructional practices moreeffectively, and (3) to help frame an overallassessment strategy.

Define more specifically what students shouldknow and be able to do. Despite pleas from thebusiness community for more emphasis on prob-lem-solving, understanding of systems, ability towork collaboratively, and better understanding ofprinciples of technology, these learning objectivesand standards of performance have yet to find theirway into mainstream discussions about curriculumcontent and assessment. Measuring skills in otherdomains, such as technical, occupational, employa-bility, and higher order, is equally important.

Define contextual teaching and learning so it isless ambiguous.We need better definitions of con-textual teaching and learning (CTL). Clearer andmore specific definitions of CTL would improvedata collections, such as the numbers of studentsengaged in different kinds of CTL activities.

Consider creating a framework for studentassessment that clarifies the most effective rolesfor federal and state governments and localschool districts. This would require determining atwhat level – national, state, or local – certainknowledge and skill sets are best measured andwhy, then aligning the assessments to the respectiveknowledge and skill sets required. This would alsocall for a clarification about the different purposesof assessment at the different levels: to provideinformation to teachers about how individual stu-dents are learning, to improve teaching strategiesbased on that information, or to provide reports tostakeholders, policymakers, parents, or funders, orall of them. Assessment systems call for concerted,but differentiated, actions at the national, state, andlocal levels and the assessment framework shouldbe designed to generate valid and valuable data atthese various levels to inform decision-making. Awell-designed assessment system needs to reducemultiple layers of tests and create crosswalksbetween levels, as well as between academic andoccupational, technical and employability skills. Itis hoped that assessment systems being developedto respond to NCLB can mature to the point wherethey can measure multiple outcomes, not just aca-demic ones.

Better assessment instruments for gauging stu-dents’ ability to apply academic concepts andskills, to solve complicated interdisciplinaryproblems, to work collaboratively, to under-stand systems, and to communicate effectivelyare needed. Current assessments generally meas-ure skills and knowledge in only one domain.More sophisticated assessments that bridge thesedomains are needed.

States should highlight and reinforce SCANS-like skills on their statewide assessments.Thestate core academic assessments should be refinedto reflect SCANS-like skills, with the overarchingand longer-term goal of formally incorporatingworkplace readiness skills measurement intostatewide assessment systems. State systems

could build from promising approaches developedthrough local and state efforts, such as those thatincorporate industry-sponsored assessments in thestate core assessment system or those that adopt astatewide system of end-of-course high schoolexams, including exams that cover workplacereadiness skills.

There is a need for state oversight and supportto ensure the viability and quality of any localassessment component.An appropriate state rolein support of local assessment should includetechnical assistance, fiscal support, and monitor-ing. Moreover, state involvement can help facili-tate some degree of comparability of assessmentsacross localities.

The framework should assign the local levelmore flexibility in the use of assessments toinclude the more ambitious performance-basedassessment methods, such as portfolios andprojects. Employability skills can also be incor-porated into local assessments, with monitoringby the state to ensure validity and consistency.

Assessments should be used as a diagnostictool. Assessment systems should be used toimprove teaching and learning, not in a punitivemanner. Providing useful diagnostic informationon individual students on a regular basis willallow teachers to more easily adapt their teachingand instruction to meet the needs of individual stu-dents. Using testing simply as a school accounta-bility tool misses the point that tests can help indi-vidual students learn and succeed.

Teacher preparation and professional develop-ment programs should help teachers under-stand contextual teaching and learning andhow to effectively use new forms of assess-ments. Using CTL and developing high qualityassessment systems will require ongoing andappropriate professional development to helpteachers understand how to use assessments toimprove teaching and learning and studentachievement. In-service and pre-service develop-ment in these areas is needed.

National research and leadership are needed innumerous areas. National research and leadershipare essential to enhance our existing knowledgebase about the relationships among contextualteaching and learning, assessment methodology,workplace readiness, and academic achievement.Some of the research issues to be explored include:

• What type of assessments (e.g. standardized,multiple choice, scenario, authentic, perform-ance-based) are most effective at which level(national, state, or local) and to measure whichskills?

• What types of assessments are most appropri-ate for students with particular learning stylesand strengths?

• Are various skills (e.g. academic, occupations,and employability) best measured separatelyor in some combination? If so, what combina-tion is most effective and helpful to provideinstructional guidance for teachers? For stu-dents themselves?

• What are the outcomes for students who par-ticipate in CTL? Does participation in contex-tual teaching and learning programs duringhigh school affect what students do after leav-ing high school?

• How can teacher preparation and in-serviceprofessional development programs best pre-pare teachers to teach in contextual ways thatsupport employability skill development?

• Documentation of effective classroom use ofCTL is needed.

• Can the interjection of SCANS-like skills intothe high school curriculum help increase stu-dent achievement in particular academic sub-ject areas (e.g., reading, science, and math)?

Building a base of solid empirical research is noeasy feat and could take a number of years toaccomplish. Paramount is the need for controlledexperiments to determine the effectiveness ofCTL as a comprehensive approach relative to tra-


ditional teaching and learning. Studies of CTLeffectiveness need to control for student back-ground, school structure, teacher effectiveness,and other variables.

National leadership is also needed to give voice insupport of realistic, yet meaningful, ways for work-place readiness skills to be included in state andnational assessment systems, particularly at the highschool level. This means aggressively and strategically “making the case” for the importanceof incorporating employability skills into high

school curriculum and assessment. Moreover, itmeans following the development of key federallegislation that affects the design of state andnational assessment systems to help ensure that suchlegislation supports incorporating workplace readi-ness skills into assessment systems for high schoolstudents. National leadership is also necessary tocontinue building the infrastructure that supportsconnections between industry and education,including the collaborations necessary to ensurehigh quality assessment systems.


About the Editor

Betsy Brand started her policy career in 1977 as a Legislative Associate for theCommittee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, and subsequentlyserved as Professional Staff Member on the U.S. Senate Labor and Human ResourcesCommittee (1984-1989). In 1989, she was appointed by President George Bush asAssistant Secretary for Vocational and Adult Education at the U.S. Department ofEducation and held that position until 1993. She then operated her own consulting firm,Workforce Futures, Inc., focusing on policy and best practices affecting education,workforce preparation and youth development. Betsy has served as AYPF Co-Directorsince November 1998.

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Documents

Essentials of High School Reform: New Forms of Assessment and Contextual Teaching and Learning