This chapter of "The Best of the Best of ERIC," Volume 2, contains 17 summaries of documents and journal articles on alternative schools, all of which are indexed in either "Resources in Education" or "Current Index to Journals in Education." The materials included deal with various aspects of this topic, such as reasons for success or failure of…

Research during the first two years of this project indicated that television alone can be an effective medium for teaching complex conceptual behaviors, some more than others. The major task during the third year was to develop and test the efficacy of parental intervention procedures to augment televised skill instruction. Subjects were three-…

This paper presents a discussion, based on current research, of what can be done to help children achieve the highest level of cognitive development (Piaget's formal operations). The four factors which Piaget found to be involved in cognitive development are discussed in relation to recent research. These factors include: (1) organic growth and…

Four audio-tutorial units were developed as part of this study to determine the effectiveness of the use of advanced organizers, based on Ausubel's theories, for meaningful learning experiences. In this study an advanced organizer was developed and given to half of the subjects prior to the instructional sequence. A series of micro-learning tasks,…

The guide, developed to assist those involved in implementing career education programs concerned with public service occupations, contains the basic instructional material recommended for the area of educational services preparation. The units described are: (1) human growth and development, (2) how people learn, (3) the disadvantaged student,…

Instructor diagnosis of pilot trainee errors was studied in the context of instrument flying using a computer simulation system called ORLY. ORLY was used to record student pilot runs on a number of instrument flying tasks. These runs were subsequently replayed to instructor pilots who diagnosed student errors and hypothesized the underlying…

An investigation of learning styles was jointly conducted by the Fox Valley Technical Institute and the Center for Vocational Technical and Adult Education at the University of Wisconsin at Stout. After a study of learning styles, a computerized model to manage an instructional system was developed. Analysis of information necessary to manage a…

The relationships among the three dominant means of education in American society and the development of utopian thought are examined. The author defines the three forms of education as the scientific, the entropic, and the metaphysical. The scientific form pursues knowledge through rigorous empirical verification, while the metaphysical form…

In order to directly relate research on children's thinking to curriculum development in the social studies, this study approximates the conditions and substances of daily classroom life and examines the levels of abstraction in children's thinking about complex social problems. The subjects include 210 boys and girls in equal numbers in grades…

Major changes are involved in the teaching/learning process in career education and the classroom teacher is of key importance. Emphasis must be placed on: (1) the rationale for career education in the classroom; (2) the use of career implications of subject matter as motivational devices; (3) implications of expanding the parameters of the…

Noting that many of the attacks on individual scientists as well as some of the attacks on the field of behavior genetics are more than intemperate--they are non-rational--the author discusses his experience as a signatory to a document drawn up by Ellis B. Page during the winter of 1971-1972. The intent of this controversial document was to…

Presented is a working paper which reviews the research on learning, language, social behavior, and curriculum for moderately retarded children IQs from 30 to 50 and provides a bibliography of approximately 1,000 items. The review of the research covers learning processes of the moderately retarded in sections on reinforcement, discrimination…

The present study was designed to explore the possibility that exposure to the "Misterogers' Neighborhood" program might increase the likelihood of spontaneous imaginative play in preschool children who watched the program over a period of two weeks. The specific focus of this investigation was to determine whether a well-produced…

A Piagetian preschool emphasizes the child's active construction of mental images rather than passive association of words and pictures with real objects. The role of the teacher is neither to dictate good behavior nor to transmit ready-made predigested knowledge. Her role is to help the child to control his own behavior and to find things out as…

The nature and specification of goals in teaching a group of concepts affect the type and quality of learning. What is learned is learned as a means to some end. Feedback from end to means regulates learning a given activity. The task or goal structure provided by the environment may play its most important role early in life and gradually decline…