In August 1970 the Ford Foundation announced the establishment of a Venture Fund grant program to help strengthen and to encourage innovation in undergraduate education throughout the country. Criteria for selection were: (1) evidence of creative programs in the past, (2) the quality of current educational programs and leadership, and (3) the…

In January 1972, The University of Alabama held a 4-day invitational conference to bring together the leaders of those institutions that offer innovative and experimental programs. Specifically, the purposes of the conference were: (1) to share critical reports from each participant about each of their programs; (2) to make recommendations…

Describes briefly the "Experimental Quarter" at Skagit Valley College in which 30 students registered for 16 credits of Education and were given total freedom to pursue their own educational needs in any way they individually selected, then reregistered at the end of the quarter for what they had studied. Positive student attitudes…

This report evaluates the effectiveness of an experiential field study course at the University of Washington. The course, titled GST 250/350, has different goals from a traditional volunteer program in that the student's education and experience are paramount; the services he provides are secondary. The student's motivation also differs somewhat…

The Paracollege of St. Olaf College is an experimental program in which students participate in a self-directed study curriculum where no grades are given and students work at their own pace. This document presents the results of a study designed to find out what image is held of the Paracollege by those enrolled in the regular curriculum at St.…

Experimental courses in learning French were given to Anglophone public servants under the Lozanov method (suggestopedia) as adapted for use in a Canadian situational context. This book (an English-French bilingual edition) describes the introduction of suggestopedia to Canada and provides information on and clarification of the principles and…

Many experimental higher education programs have emerged in the past decade as an attempt to answer the educational needs of new students in higher education and the manpower requirements of society. New techniques of instruction, curriculum and governance have evolved and new ways of managing human, plant, and financial resources have been…

This monograph relates the numerous problems involved in developing an experimental community named Lake Village in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Formulated by several psychologists, the experiment is an off-shoot of a conference on alternative communities held in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1966. The community centers around an educational strategy that would…

This report describes the first 3 years of three Excellent Beginnings projects from 1991 to 1994 funded by the Plan for Social Excellence, a private nonprofit foundation that creates or supports innovative pilot projects in education. Programs that are flexible and responsible to needs of individuals and communities, rather than system-wide…

This application for a continuation grant (P.L. 89-10 ESEA, Title III) for the Experimental Model School Unit (EMSU) of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (North Carolina) contains three sections. Section 1 outlines the revised and expanded evaluation plan for the project in which eight activities are being tested in the EMSU (a high school, a…

Without well-defined criteria for success, all radical innovations are doomed to failure. To facilitate successful experimentation the following are necessary: an outside agency to conduct evaluation; criteria of success acceptable to innovators and critics; and, in control and comparison groups, assessment and accounting of the initial versus…

This case study describes the development of elementary social studies methods courses appropriate for two new alternative Michigan State University teacher education programs entitled "Learning Community" and "Multiple Perspectives." The "Learning Community" program prepares teachers to teach school subjects effectively while focusing upon the…