Although integrated instruction within general education disciplines is becoming more widespread, when we began the research in 1997 we found it surprisingly difficult to identify colleges where courses integrating occupational and general education were being offered. Many of the colleges we studied did not use the terminology of academic-occupational integration and had a wide variety of ways of referring to instruction that we recognized as integration. Academic-occupational integration was primarily confined to small pockets of instructors within a few programs, rather than part of a systemic, college-wide drive to reform instruction. However, administrators and faculty who were involved in curriculum integration were highly enthusiastic about it and placed their own personal stamp on it through a diversity of teaching strategies and professional development practices. Interviewees described the colleges’ reasons for adopting this approach, perceived benefits, and conditions for successful faculty collaboration across disciplines. They also detailed a number of obstacles and pitfalls that community college leaders need to address when attempting to integrate academic and occupational education.

Teaching Strategies

Academic-occupational integration in our research took the form of linked courses, course clusters (learning communities), infused occupational, infused academic, and hybrid courses. Usually, any one college used only one model. Although all the classrooms we observed were presented to us as integrated, only 68% were "strongly" integrated, defined in terms of overt connections between occupational and academic content. In the remainder, it was hard to tell that the course was integrated. For example, in a manufacturing management class that was linked to a sociology class, neither the instructor nor student assignments made reference to any aspect of sociology.

Across the sites, the majority of instructors utilized a mixture of student- and teacher-centered approaches, rather than one or the other. This finding was unanticipated, as previous research has described integrated instruction as student-centered. We found that very few occupational instructors provided explicit instruction in academic skills. Rather, they assigned academic tasks such as the writing of technical reports, but did not provide direct instruction in the reading or writing skills that would be needed to accomplish these tasks.

Rationale for Integration

We asked faculty and administrators why their colleges were integrating academic and occupational instruction. A large proportion (60%) referred to student performance, especially the need for basic academic skills. For example, an administrator stated, "Faculty said they were dumbing down their instruction. (Integrated instruction) was a response to this. It was recognized that the great majority of students, not just those who had tested into remediation, needed help with basic skills. The idea developed that all faculty had to take responsibility for English skills, especially writing." The remaining 40% referred to efficiency of instruction, student retention in programs, and improvements in faculty motivation. In some cases, basic skills and student retention were connected, as stated by another administrator: "The college never had completers in the technology program because the students would not take the general education courses… From the employers’ point of view, the reason for integration is the SCANS skills – workers need communication skills."

Benefits

• Students benefited from academic integration because, as an electronics instructor put it, "They can see the application, the sooner the better. As in the military, you teach it as needed. I would like to see all math totally integrated, so they wouldn’t even know where the math began."
  
  
• Faculty who integrated instruction experienced increases in their own personal motivation to teach, especially because integration "forced" them to collaborate with other instructors in a normally isolating profession. Some stated that the academic instructors improved their teaching skills as a result of working with occupational instructors.
  
  
• Colleges benefited from opportunities to modify curriculum and form relationships with industry.
  
  
• Industry itself benefited by the improved skills of the future workforce.

If integrated instruction is to be effective, it is essential that faculty collaborate across disciplines. They need to learn each other’s subject matter and approaches to classroom instruction, and engage in the hard work of curriculum alignment. While these collaborative efforts undoubtedly presented challenges, faculty reported that they found it exhilarating to work with others in a different field of study. For example, an English teacher found it "exciting" and "refreshing" to work with nursing faculty in a learning community.

Within the context of interdisciplinary collaboration, faculty may need to iron out some basic differences. They may have different perceptions of the same students, emanating from different disciplinary backgrounds. Similarly, they may have different standards for the same work or may not feel inclined to grade work in a discipline in which they were not trained. At two colleges, collaborating faculty resolved this problem by having the academic instructor grade papers for style and mechanics and the occupational instructor for content. However, this solution may fragment the educational experience for the students, which would defeat the intention of integrated instruction.

Faculty who were involved in collaboration across disciplines described seven different conditions necessary for effective collaboration, four relating to personal characteristics of the instructors involved.

• Willing to collaborate
  
• Sensitive to others' pressures
  
• Diplomatic
  
• Skilled teachers
  
• Enjoy working across disciplines
  
• Faculty knowing each other well
  
• Opportunities to work together on a daily basis so that they could become friends.

Obstacles, Pitfalls, and Challenges for Community College Leaders

Although we interviewed advocates of integrated instruction, they candidly described difficulties in implementation: ·

• Some colleges found it expensive to pay for the release time and other incentives necessary to recruit teachers to the new approach.
  
  
• Integration can become overly dependent on a single leader; when he or she is promoted or otherwise moves on, the effort can come to a halt, having lost its champion.
  
  
• Integration requires increased instructor workload; beyond the time needed to collaborate with other faculty, it takes considerable effort to plan to teach individual class sessions in a new way.
  
  
• Student workload also increased. At one college, students were required to do a greater amount of homework than in traditional classes to prepare for teamwork being used in their integrated accounting classroom.
  
  
• Some instructors found that they were not able to cover all required curriculum when they incorporated new content or skills. This issue was particularly sensitive in fields that were bound by State regulations, such as nursing and allied health.

Efforts to integrate instruction were sometimes hampered by faculty resistance to integration. Occupational teachers sometimes found the idea of teaching academic skills distasteful, averring that students should enter with the requisite skills rather than learn them in their classes. Similarly, general education faculty resisted integration on philosophical grounds, arguing that it was not their job to "train workers."

Faculty resistance is also related to issues of educational quality and transferability of integrated courses to the baccalaureate level. General education instructors are known to refuse to integrate occupational content into their coursework, fearing that utilizing concrete applications would deprive students of opportunities for abstract thought. The transfer issue goes beyond perceptions and preferences of individual faculty, however. It is a reality that baccalaureate institutions often refuse to accept applied academic courses, considering them to be watered down, low-quality instruction.

Conclusions

The enthusiasm for academic-occupational integration was palpable at the case study sites, but the evidence for effectiveness was anecdotal. The reported positive effects of this approach would need to be substantiated by institutional data documenting learning gains and increased retention. There is a clear role for community college leaders, not only in initiating integrated instruction, but in facilitating on-campus evaluation.

The emphasis on integrated instruction as a means for providing basic academic skills to occupational education students suggests that it may become a productive remedial intervention. However, if integrated instruction is, consciously or unconsciously, intended as a way to build academic skills, our research indicates two areas for improvement.

First, occupational instructors must share in the task of explicit instruction in academic skills. Second, integrated instruction needs to be genuinely integrated. Instructors need to make frequent use of the content and skills taught in the companion discipline area. Both of these issues can be addressed in the context of interdisciplinary collaboration, perhaps stimulated by professional development efforts.