By Sumner Rotman and Thijs Messelaar

At the University of Massachusetts Boston, the innovative Center for Technical Education has established a successful formula for teacher training.

If you want to develop an outstanding career/technical teacher preparation program, consider the simple formula that has worked for the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston: provide a comprehensive course of study. But don’t stop there—offer your students a wide array of services and resources to help them earn the credentials and make the connections that will lead to successful careers.

According to Sumner Rotman, the director of UMass Boston’s innovative Center for Technical Education (CTE), nearly 20,000 men and women have made their way through his program since the Center’s inception in 1983. These workers decide to make mid-career moves for various reasons ranging from lack of work to injury on the job, or for those who are already teaching, to help bolster the possibility of promotion. They have taught their trades at a total of 78 career/vocational technical and comprehensive schools throughout Massachusetts.

In this demanding economy, training skilled workers—and those who educate them—is imperative to anyone interested in investing in economic development.

“Our focus has been on achieving the public mission of cultivating skilled workers,” says Rotman. “It only makes sense to have technical skills taught by those who have made a career using them.”

Preparation with a Focus

The UMass Boston CTE offers a 24-credit program designed to prepare workers with at least three to five years’ experience in their occupational fields to teach others their skills. The course of study encompasses 12 undergraduate level courses:

• Supervised Internship
• Management of Vocational Technical Environment
• Teaching Methods: Instructional Strategies in Vocational Technical Education
• Teaching Methods: Educating the Vocational Technical Learner
• Fundamentals of Vocational Technical Education
• Competency-Based Vocational Education Curriculum Development
• Implementing Competency-Based Vocational Education
• Brain Compatibility: Teaching and Learning
• Students with Special Needs in Vocational Technical Education
• Computerized Vocational Technical Curriculum Management
• Integrated Education
• Assessment Standards and Evaluation

Graduating students earn the credits toward professional vocational technical teacher licensure to teach in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts schools.

“Just because someone is an expert at some particular vocation, this doesn’t mean they’re great at teaching it,” says Rotman. “The modern student is quite complex and, therefore, much more of a challenge in the classroom. The UMass Boston CTE prepares technical educators for the student of today.”

Administered by UMass Boston’s Division of Corporate, Continuing and Distance Education, the CTE operates under the auspices of the University’s Graduate College of Education, which provides expertise in research, curriculum design and the development of pedagogical competencies. Prospective students must pass both a written and a practical exam in order to be accepted into the program. 

Matriculated UMass Boston CTE students then have many options for completing the 24-credit program. While all of the classes are offered at convenient satellite sites in eastern Massachusetts, some are also available online, which makes attending class easier for those who work full time. This recent advance has proven to be extremely positive. Most students appreciate this opportunity to engage in learning through technology because it allows them to better manage their time.

The UMass Boston CTE provides more than just coursework, however. Through lectures, statewide conferences and job fairs, the Center serves as an occupational matchmaker, helping many of its students find positions, sometimes even prior to graduation. Also, because of an articulation agreement, UMass Boston CTE graduates can opt to put the majority of the credits earned toward an associate’s degree program at one of seven local community colleges: Massasoit, North Shore, Mass Bay, Quinsigamond, Cape Cod, Bristol and Northern Essex. Students can then transfer up to 60 credits toward a bachelor’s degree at UMass Boston.

“It really was a very smooth transition from taking vocational courses to earning a degree [at a community college],” says former student Dana Morey, a graduate of the program.

Commitment That Continues

Lisa DePalo, an office technology teacher at Rindge School of Technical Arts in Cambridge has nothing but praise for the UMass Boston CTE. “They conducted a job fair, which is huge; it led me to three interviews and two job offers,” DePalo says. “And the personal interest Sumner [Rotman] and Paul [O’Leary, associate director] show in the students is great.”

The job fair that DePalo mentions is conducted on an annual basis in central Massachusetts with several vocational technical school systems participating. Many of the attendees are offered jobs through the contacts they make at the fair. 

The UMass Boston CTE has also offered more than 100 post-baccalaureate courses as part of its Professional Development for Educators program. These courses can be offered at any time as dictated by the demand of a school system; educational, collaborative, public and private agencies; or educational associations.

The UMass Boston CTE provides a graduation dinner ceremony and a certificate for those students who have completed the necessary credits to acquire a vocational technical license. Also, it recently initiated a Teacher of the Year award for individuals who have provided exemplary services as a vocational technical teacher trainer. Another new award—for the Student of the Year—provides its recipient with a tuition voucher worth $641.

To date, Rotman has received more than 50 responses from alumni who would like to “return the good work” that they received and become mentors to new students and also provide additional supportive services to the new career and technical education teachers. These alumni should prove to be a valuable support group to the new UMass Boston CTE “recruits.”

A more recent initiative is the establishment of an Alumni Cohort who could mentor new students entering the profession.

The September 2003 Massachusetts Vocational Technical Education Regulations require that a prospective vocational technical teacher complete 21 college degree credits in professional education courses in vocational technical education and 18 college degree credits in academic content. The latter credits are comprised of college degree credits in science, technology and engineering, mathematics, and English language arts. The intent of the 39-college-degree-credit program is to ensure that the prospective teacher can integrate academic and technical content.  

The CTE will only administer the 21 credits noted above in these specific courses:

• Seminar for the Beginning Vocational Technical Teacher
• Managing Student Behavior in a Healthy and Safe Environment
• Teaching Methods for Vocational Technical Education Instructional Strategies
• Teaching Methods for Vocational Technical Education—Educating and Assessing the Vocational Technical Learner
• Teaching Methods for Vocational Technical Education—Using Research-based Practices to Develop Effective Instructional Strategies
• Developing and Implementing a Standards-based Curriculum in Vocational Technical Education
• Addressing the Needs of Students with Disabilities in Vocational Technical Education

As career and technical education continues to play an important role in our nation’s economy, programs that prepare its teachers—such as the one at the CTE—will also continue to play a vital role.

Experienced professionals such as Rotman understand this and will continue to work to keep career and technical education strong and its teaching force well prepared.  

“I have been in the technical education field for more than 35 years,” he explains, “and in that time witnessed its sophistication, demand and relevance increase immensely.”

Sumner Rotman is director of the Center for Technical Education at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He can be reached at sumner.rotman@umb.edu.