Contextual Learning

Education

May 2002

Contextual Learning

Contextual learning: occurs in close relationship with actual experience, allowing students to test academic theories through real world applications. Contextual teaching and learning strategies:

emphasize problem-solving;
recognize the need for teaching and learning to occur in a variety of contexts such as home, community, and work sites;
teach students to monitor and direct their own learning so they become self-regulated learners;
anchor teaching in students diverse life-contexts;
encourage students to learn from each other and together; and
employ authentic assessment. (This definition was developed by the US Department of Education Office of Vocational and Adult Education and the National School-to-Work Office)

Research shows that not all people learn best abstractly. In fact, most people learn best through informal, contextual experiences (Caine and Caine, 1991, Gardner, 1983, Kolb, 1984). Therefore, accommodating the learning styles of all learners requires the use of a variety of learning strategies, multiple ways of organizing curriculum content, and diverse contexts for learning-opportunities.

Contextual learning requires coordination between academic and technical skill standards.

Educators, policymakers, and employers have emphasized the value of creating stronger connections between academic and vocational education for several years. As an example, the Alaska State Board of Education in conjunction with educators, employers and the state department of education, created employability content standards that work in tandem with the state's academic content standards.

Employability standards are a critical part of student learning. Proficiency in achieving the content standards is fundamental to creating an employable individual. These employability standards are to be used in conjunction with Alaska's academic content standards to ensure Alaska students have the skills and knowledge necessary to be good citizens, good parents, good workers, and most of all, life-long learners. Alaska students are expected to learn how to learn and apply their skills and knowledge in a variety of settings to create a rich and satisfying life. These standards are designed to promote successful student transition from school to work. - Excerpt from Alaska's education standards.

Examples

Small Business in the Classroom A fourth grade teacher in Sherrard, Illinois, set up a crayon recycling company as part of the Integrated Science unit studying the environment and recycling. Her students ran all of the departments of Tye-Dye Crayons: manufacturing, marketing, accounting, etc., integrating real work with their academic skills. In addition to applying their science, math, social science, English and fine arts lessons, the students had the opportunity to see the relevance of what they were learning in school and how to apply it in the world of work.

Soliciting Business Input in Curriculum. The Business Coalition for Educational Excellence (BCEE) at the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce has adopted the philosophy that School-to-Careers is for ALL students, whether they are college- or workforce-bound. In this, the coalition supports the New Jersey Department of Education's mandate that workforce readiness skills be infused throughout teaching and learning in all academic areas. The coalition believes that systemic change in support of workforce readiness is achieved by focusing on teacher professional development and curriculum reform that results in technology-rich, academically rigorous classrooms that relate learning to the real world.

To help educators provide contextual learning opportunities in the classroom, the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce participates in:

an effort to place teachers in the workplace over the summer months (i.e. teacher externship),
a partnership with The College of New Jersey to develop business-based academic curriculum under a National Science Foundation grant,
a partnership with the Department of Education to provide cash incentives for teachers who implement Cross Content Workforce Readiness Skills into academic teaching and learning, and
an effort to encourage businesses to ask job applicants for high school records.

Stark County Tech Prep Consortium Medical Tech Prep, Canton, Ohio. The mission of the Medical Tech Prep program is to provide advanced skill education and training in technology-related medical careers that will result in associate degrees, baccalaureate degrees, two-year certificates, and/or employment. The program fosters competency in occupational, academic, and employability areas through classroom and laboratory instruction and work-based experiences. Students are assigned to different hospital departments in seven five-week rotations. In each department, students observe occupational activities and are responsible for performing tasks that don't require licensing. Each week students complete journal entries in which they describe the activities observed and the tasks performed and explain the scientific basis for each. At the conclusion of the rotation, students evaluate the associated career in relation to their personal career goals.

Peoria Educational Region For Employment And Career Training, Manufacturing Skilled Trades, Work-Based Learning, Peoria, Illinois. The Manufacturing Skilled Trades Work-Based Learning program is a two-year course for eleventh- and twelfth-grade students. Students attend class three hours a day, five days a week. They complete program competencies in an integrated systems technology lab, job shadow skilled trades journeypeople, attend problem-analysis workshops, write reports and complete design projects and supplemental math assignments. Students have the opportunity to job shadow approximately seventy days of the school year. For each successfully completed year in the program, students receive a college scholarship. This scholarship covers tuition, books, and fees at the community college in an approved curriculum. What originally was a partnership program with Caterpillar Inc. has now grown to include eleven other companies.

Pasco-Hernando Community College, Workplace Learning Program, Partnerships, New Port Richey, Florida The Job Shadow Opportunity program, the Job Post database, and the Internship in Business program make up the Workplace Learning Program Partnerships. This program was created and implemented with a focus on cooperative learning experiences among college administrators and faculty members, college students, and business partners in the community. The Job Shadow Opportunity program allows students to visit business sites to get an overview of the work environment and job tasks involved. The Job Post database gives students access to information about job openings in their areas of interest. The Internship in Business program permits students to have ninety-six- hour work experiences in the community. Approximately seventy business sites are active in the Workplace Learning Program Partnerships.

Issues of sustainability

If integrating academic and technical studies and contextual learning are goals, then state systems may need to support local districts and schools in rethinking curriculum, instruction, and assessments. Tackling these challenges will be difficult.

Students need hands-on learning experiences that workplaces can provide. These experiences may involve extended periods in paid work but may also be unpaid internships in community organizations, or they may involve other contexts such as museums that provide learning opportunities outside the classroom. The experiences must be carefully structured through in-class preparation; coordination with supervisors in workplaces or other settings; and careful sequencing of learning experiences in which increasing levels of complexity are introduced and students have opportunities to experience many aspects of workplaces.

Staff development for teachers and for employers working with schools is critical before implementing a contextual learning program. It should provide teachers with opportunities to learn about the nature of the workplaces for which students are being prepared. Employers need to understand how to structure employment in ways that provide a range of learning experiences and responsibilities. They also need opportunities to communicate with teachers and to contribute to the development of curricula. In addition, plans for assessing workplace or community experiences must be developed.

Promising practices underscore that contextual learning requires a complete reorganization of the schedule, giving opportunities for teachers to plan programs, observe work settings, learn in workplaces and collaborate with employers and businesses and other organizations where students will be placed for internships. The schedule must be accommodate enough time for students to be out of the classroom to gain real world experience

Successful contextual learning requires ongoing communication among all relevant players, including teachers, employers or other out-of-school supervisors or mentors, students and parents. Parents should be invited into classrooms to learn about and experience new forms of teaching, to become informed about program goals and outcomes and their child's progress and to be encouraged to contribute to system planning and development. Similarly, student feedback on the effectiveness of programs is an essential component of system assessment and refinement.

Links

Publications

Bettina Lankard Brown, Academic and Vocational Integration: Myths and Realities, 1998

ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education

P. Hutcheson, Educating a Globally Productive Citizenry: The Role of Higher Education in the Integration of Learning and Work, 1999, National Commission for Cooperative Education

Canady and Rettig, op. cit.; and Warren J. DiBiase and J. Allen Queen, "Middle School Social Studies on the Block," Clearing House, vol. 72, 1999, pp. 377-83.

Websites

The Illinois Quad City Chamber of Commerce

New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce

Contextual Teaching and Learning - US Department of Education

Bowling Green State University's contextual teaching and learning website

This issue summary was a collaborative effort between NCSL's Learn, Work and Earn Project and the Institute for Educational Leadership's Center for Workforce Development. It was made possible by a grant from the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor.