Career Technical Education (CTE) integrates discipline-specific academic content with industry knowledge and skills, and can engage a wider array of students, provide them with increased options and empower them to succeed.
CTE aims to bridge the college-career divide that has long characterized the American education system and to open the doors of higher education to more students. Today’s integrated CTE curriculum provides all students with college and career options crucial in today’s modern society.
Our role
The University continues to work closely with California educators to encourage and facilitate the development and submission of CTE courses for UC approval in all “a-g” subject areas. Resources and tools are available for educators, such as CTE curriculum criteria, sample courses and evaluation guidelines.
Trends
In the past decade, UC has approved CTE courses in all seven “a-g” subject areas and has increased the number of UC-approved CTE courses from 258 to over 11,000.
The challenges
Course integration is a complex undertaking, requiring a balance of career technical content with sufficient academic depth. In addition, some CTE pathways align better with the “a-g” subject areas. UC has approved many CTE courses in the laboratory science, visual and performing arts, and elective subject areas. It has been a bigger challenge to develop CTE courses for UC approval in other disciplines, such as English, history and mathematics.
To address these challenges, UC has developed the UC Curriculum Integration (UCCI) Institutes. The UCCI Institutes bring together academic and CTE teachers with subject-matter experts and UC staff and faculty to create innovative, integrated CTE courses for “a-g” approval.
UC Curriculum Integration (UCCI)
The UC Curriculum Integration (UCCI) Institutes have been made possible with the financial support and partnership of the California Department of Education. UCCI has enabled the University to make rapid progress toward its CTE goals.
UCCI Institutes
The Spring 2013 UCCI Institutes will focus on the Health Science and Medical Technology industry sector in conjunction with the language other than English (“e”) subject area and the Arts, Media and Entertainment industry sector in conjunction with the history / social science (“a”) subject area.
Tools for CTE course development
Resources, such as CTE curriculum criteria, sample courses and evaluation guidelines, are available.
Sample courses
Samples of courses approved in many of the CTE industry sectors are available for reference as you prepare your own course for UC approval.