Adversarial settings help a graduate student gain a sense of vocation in his academic pursuits. (KM)

Independent study is encouraged at Metropolitan State University, a nontraditional upper-divisional university for adult students. At Metropolitan, independent study refers to a range of learning experiences varying in independence from faculty-designed and -selected programmed learning to completely student-designed projects reviewed and…

This article asks if "open education" is a meaningless term or a meaningful concept. (PD)

Program descriptions for the School District of Philadelphia's 102 alternative elementary and secondary programs constitute the bulk of this booklet. Descriptions include information on number of students, grade levels, administrative staff, and program purposes. A brief summary of the evaluation of alternative education programs, as well as…

Three principle perspectives which serve as the basic rationales for the growth of alternative education since World War II are: (1) sociological--the altering of traditional formats of education in terms of organization, adaptation, socialization, and integration; (2) psychological--the belief that the student cannot be manipulated but is unique…

The alternatives suggested here are options that school districts could consider without committing additional resources and without extensive preplanning. They suggest a variety of approaches to introducing greater creativity and flexibility in a school system. (Author)

This article is an excerpt from a journal kept by the author during a six-week, self-directed learning experience at the Mountain View Center. In her writings, the author describes the work she has accomplished, her feelings toward formal education, and the evolution of those feelings. (MA)

For two decades, colleges and universities have had experience with the use of educational technology. This profile is the first in a series documenting that experience. This look at what they have learned may benefit others who plan to expand or modify their uses of educational technology. (Author)

The abstracts included here are samples of the documents in the ERIC Junior College collection that deal with new instructional techniques such as behavioral objectives, learning contracts, and learning clusters. (Author/NHM)

The Learning Web--an alternative educational organization discussed in this paper-matches high school students with adults who can teach them a skill. Staff members either contact a young person who has been referred by a school, or a young person initiates contact with the organization. An intake interview is followed by placement of the…

This paper describes an alternative evening high school program for dropouts located in Salt Lake City (Utah). The purpose of the study was to arrive at a descriptive analysis and interpretation of what went on in the alternative school, Valley High School. It describes and analyzes such features as the drop-in program, learning center activities…

In this paper, principals and other persons of innovating middle schools, junior high schools, and senior high schools associated with the Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Individualized Schooling describe the most interesting features of their schools and respond to a features checklist. They provide the names of contact persons in…

The paper examines many of the evaluation problems noted by the Phi Delta Kappa National Study Committee on Evaluation and others and sets forth ideas about the practice of formative evaluation to avoid those conflicts and provide educational decision-makers with useful information. The paper also discusses a decision-making model conceptualized…

Growing dissatisfaction with the linkage of educational research and development information and products to actual school classroom procedures has motivated many researchers and practitioners to uncover new linkage systems. Among the new approaches suggested is that of building on already existing communication networks in schools and across the…

As public school districts have begun to develop optional alternative schools, a common concern has been where to find trained teachers to staff the schools. For the past four years Indiana University has worked closely with several of these school districts in developing a field-based teacher education program to prepare new teachers for these…