Bridges to Connect Research to Practioners

This project also hopes to serve as a bridge connecting current research related to Career and Technical Education (CTE) and students with disabilities with our current resource bank materials. Please let us know what you think about this bridging service - your feedback helps us to determine whether to drop, keep, or improve this service!

The Research:

We have created a user-friendly bridge between the research conducted by Gentry, Rizza, Peters, and Hu (2004) and our resource bank of materials. We recommend that practitioners read the actual research article to better determine how relevant this research is to their classroom or program To read or download this article, you may go to http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/CTER/v30n1/pdf/gentry.pdf.

Bibliographic information about this research:

Gentry, M. Rizza, M.G. Peters, S., & Hu. S. (2005). Professionalism, sense of community, and reason to learn: Lessons from an Exemplary Career and Technical Education Center. Journal of Career and Technical Education Research, 30, 47-85.

Major concepts/findings of this research:

The authors studied one career and technical education program in the Midwest that was found to have unusually high student appeal in previous research. The school was observed and the outstanding positive characteristics of the program were identified. There were eighteen characteristics that fell into three major categories: 1) professionalism, 2) sense of community, and 3) reason to learn.

Links to Our Resource Bank of Materials:

Below you will find specific characteristics of the CTE program at this school that supported each of the major categories. You can click on the individual characteristics to look at the resources we have that may support CTE teachers' efforts to promote these characteristic in their own classrooms. Please send us any additional activities you feel could promote these characteristics and we may add them to our resource bank of materials!

1. Professionalism
1. Background and instructor experience
2. Professional instruction
3. Prevalence of work experience
4. Curriculum and projects related to career area
5. Students treated professionally
6. Participation in career and technical student organization
7. Formal business community connection
2. Sense of community
1. Personal caring about students
2. Teachers make a difference in students' lives
3. School as home and family
4. New identity [for students]
5. Safe learning environment
3. Reason to learn
1. Appropriate rigor, hands-on and academic
2. Relevant and real-world learning experiences
3. Meaningful choices
4. Learning is fun here
5. Here for special training
6. Here for personal reason

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