A literature review suggests that occupational high schools and career academies can raise academic achievement, reduce dropout, and instill career aspirations. Integration is complicated by a web of policies and practices and negative images of vocational education. More attention should be paid to postsecondary integration. (JOW)

This report documents the second of two studies on teaching and learning generic skills in high schools. It extends the earlier work by providing a model for designing classroom instruction in both academic and vocational classrooms where teaching generic skills is an instructional goal. Ethnographic field methods were used to observe, record, and…

This document is an exploratory study of issues and evidence related to academic skills, nonacademics, and work along three lines of inquiry. Section 1 is an introduction that explains the three lines of inquiry: literature review to identify empirical studies and salient issues pertinent to academic skill needs; new analysis of existing data from…

This document is a guide for teachers and trainers participating in the initial experimental offering of a 6-week minisabbatical, Designing Classrooms that Work (CTW). The minisabbatical is designed to help teachers learn how to make the kinds of curricular and pedagogical changes implied by reforms to integrate vocational and academic education…

Instruction should emphasize generic skills as much as it does occupational or domain-specific skills. Generic skills enable people to: (1) cooperate and communicate for group problem solving; (2) identify and define problems in complex environments; (3) seek, acquire, and synthesize new information; and (4) adapt to changes in the problem-solving…