Abstract

Current general practice among teachers is to isolate themselves and their students from colleagues in other disciplines.  In career and technical education, it is assumed that beyond soft skills such as time management and problem solving, program areas have little in common that could necessitate interdisciplinary collaboration. This study, which largely comprised analysis of competency lists of nine different occupations, however, discovered that in addition to soft skills, program areas have numerous technical skills such as safety, maintenance of equipment, and technology use which they have in common. When a focus group of teachers was presented with a list of technical skills that were common among different program areas, all the teachers were surprised at the extent of portability of technical skills across occupations. The results of the study inspired the teachers to consider interdisciplinary collaboration. 

Key words: Collaborative teaching/learning, portable skills, technical skills, soft skills, career and technical education.