Multiple Pathways

Over the past two years I have been immersed in a joint doctoral program in education at the University of California at Davis (UCD) and California State University, Sonoma (Sonoma State). It's a rare day when I don't hear some comment about the national high school drop out crisis that the Gates Foundation refers to as the "Silent Epidemic". One of the major reasons attributed to the growing number of students who are dropping out is the sense that school is irrelevant. Students are looking for ways to connect what happens in school with the "real world".

In my research I came across some intriguing ideas about how to create bridges between schools and the world of work though an education research center at UCLA called IDEA (Institute for Democracy, Education and Access). The center commissioned a series of 15 articles on a topic referred to as "Multiple Pathways". The introductory article written by the Center's director, Dr. Jeannie Oakes, described the concept of multiple pathways as an approach to systematic educational reform that holds the potential to resolve the on-going tension between advocates pushing for increased academic rigor for every student (the "College-for -All" camp) and those advocating for the development of a more relevant, career oriented high school curriculum. The strongest argument for promoting multiple pathways is that traditional systems of tracking students into either college or vocational course sequences puts large groups of students at a disadvantage with respect to future career and educational opportunities.

One of my goals for this blog is to further the expansion of an educational community that is committed to promoting curricular innovations that merge academic rigor and relevant, real -world career experiences. Certainly programs such as Project Lead the Way underscore the significance of an integrated approach to learning. I’ve seen some great examples of this in student work from the Autodesk Design Academy curriculum and as a contributing author to the new Autodesk VEX Robotics Curriculum I am very impressed by the potential of this curriculum for combining academic content with authentic experiential learning.

I would like to invite educators to share examples of their own integrated or “multiple pathways” curriculum. Let’s start a conversation on how to bridge the gap between academics and relevance.

Comments

[Ann Moylan]

is there any research n this topic that you could refer me to?

[Darin Hilgeman]

To Whom:

Hello, I am a student at DSC for Supervision/Managemant but my intensions are to continue back into Civil Engineering. I am very interested in buying an Autocad softwear program to learn some basics before I invest hundreds of dollars in one. I am particularly interested in residential construction. I am also a concrete finisher by trade and a returning student. Do you have any suggestions for a software with book to begin with?