Lesson Four

Trends and Issues affecting workforce devlopment Curriculum

Pretest:

No pretest this week.

Introduction:

Trends and issues, especially those related to the economy of our country, have always had a great impact on public school curriculum. Societal trends and issues often drive the creation of federal and state legislation that mandates the creation of new educational curriculum and/or its' format and delivery. Continue our blast to the past and then enjoy our trip into the future as we explore the past, present, and future of education.

 

Objectives:

  • Analyze trends and issues of the past to determine how they have shaped today's workforce development curriculum.

  • Explore federal and state initiatives/legislation that has had an impact on curriculum development in agricultural education.

  • Identify current trends and issues in workforce development education that are affecting decisions made in agricultural education and extension curriculum development today.

  • Analyze current trends and issues in relation to their influence on curriculum decisions made in your local setting.

Readings:

Powerpoint Presentations:

View and Study this week's two presentations:

Affects of Federal and State Initiatives & Legislation on CTE Curriculum.
Be sure to read the NOTES with each slide. View this powerpoint presentation to review the history of CTE legislation and examine current educational reform that was developed as a result of societal trends and issue.

Listen to the Current Trends and Issues presenation by Josh Bledsoe.
This was a presentation he made on March 26, 2009 to the AEE 505 class.
This presentation is available through Elluminate. Follow this link, select the recordings tab, select March 26th and look for AEE 505. Click on that link and follow the instructions to listen. If you have any problems use this troubleshooting guide.

Assignments:

  • Review last week's historical timeline assignment. Using the Techniques Feb. 2002 historical review article, add societal trends and issues to your timeline. (An example to help you get started: World War II should have been included in last week's timeline- this week beside it you would put the "training of women for non-traditional jobs" as a related trend or issue). Put your timeline with the societal trend and issues on Moodle to share with others by September 18th. Between September 18 and September 21st look and see if others identified trends/issues that you missed and add those to your timeline. Then upload your corrected timeline in Moodle by September 21st.

  • Consider the trends and issues regarding school to work, agriculture and society in your community or the community where you work. Make a list of five or more trends or issues that could affect the types of courses that you might teach. For example; I live in Chatham County. I might list niche farming, urban growth, preservation of natural resources, non-native populations, accountability and competency based education to my list.

  • Read the newspaper article "NC enters 'Race to Top' for school bucks" and "New Directions at School." Write a one page or less prediction regarding the impact this federal initiative could have on the agricultural education curriculum.

  • Go to The National Council for Agricultural Education website and explore their efforts to develop national standards and curriculum for agricultural education. Write a one page summary describing their processes and products.

Plugins to third party applications found in this lesson such as Quicktime, Powerpoint, Word, Adobe, etc can be downloaded from the AEE 529 course syllabus.