In the fall of 1991, the Master of Arts in Teaching program of The School for International Training, Brattleboro, Vermont, created a position to mentor newly arrived, full time adjunct faculty in their adjustment to a nontraditional program that operates as a community and provides experiential learning. This paper describes a group of five…

Descriptive information on open enrollment/choice programs in a variety of states is provided in this report. Following an introduction, key program components are discussed, which include transportation, information, and funding issues; state guidelines for student acceptance; and athletic recruiting. Private school issues are examined in the…

In Bihar, India, the number of illiterate people has increased during the last 5 decades despite the rise in the percentage of literacy. Reasons are lack of encouragement by the upper classes for education of the masses, lack of unity among lower classes to demand education as a matter of right, and a low base of development. The Mass Literacy…

This paper describes fourth-year outcomes of the Brooklyn New School (BNS), a parent/staff-run alternative public elementary school located in Brooklyn, New York's Community School District #15. The BNS used a self-study process, in which an external researcher collected school data through document analysis, interviews, and participant…

Student-faculty contact is widely accepted as influencing retention within campus-based programs. The difficulties of implementing such contact within a distance learning environment magnify its importance as a topic for investigation. This study sought to evaluate the effect of faculty initiated contacts on student persistence within a large…

This book offers 35 lesson formats for use in secondary or higher education settings and appropriate as alternatives to the usual "lecture-presentation." The formats draw on principles of collaborative and cooperative learning and concepts of group interaction and information processing. Most lessons require substantial…

A study analyzed the prior knowledge state of two university populations: students at the Open University (OU) of the Netherlands and students at the University of Limburg (UL). Analysis of the prior knowledge state was based on an extensive analysis of the literature in relation to theories, models, and practice-based strategies about the…

The SUCCESS Program of the Des Moines (Iowa) Public Schools provides employment, health, mental health, and social services in a comprehensive "one-stop shopping" manner at the most accessible location for children and youth, the public school that they attend. During the 1995-96 school year, the strategies of the SUCCESS program were…

The purpose of this study was twofold: to validate a list of distance teaching behaviors; and to develop training guidelines on the most frequently observed and the most important behaviors of distance instructors. Respondents (distance coordinators at 30 college and university distance education sites in Georgia) were asked to indicate how…

To improve teacher training, a model was developed to summarize and categorize teachers' levels of current and future Internet usage in teaching. This model was intended to prepare teacher educators to help inservice teachers learn to use the Internet to support their courses. Three levels are determined by how the Internet is used educationally…

California Assembly Bill 922 was signed into law as an urgency measure in October 1995. It assigned responsibility for expelled students to counties and school districts. This report is the first of a series of evaluation reports that will be disseminated on programs implemented in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to satisfy the…

The Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program was developed to provide an education for students who were expelled from school or who were adjudicated to attend an alternative school. The program was operated by the Harris County Juvenile Board, but the Houston Independent School District contracted with the county to place expelled students…

The political and religious characteristics of parents in four western states who educate their children at home are examined. The relation of those characteristics to parents' decisions to circumvent state-sponsored education services are also considered. Additional discussion focuses on the relevance of the findings for public policy. The target…

The Louisiana Accelerated Schools Project (LASP) is a statewide network of schools that are changing from the traditional mode of schooling for at-risk students, which stresses remediation, to one of acceleration, which stresses accelerated learning for all students. The accelerated schools process provides a systematic approach to the…

In the course of developing a program evaluation scheme, a study was done of program topics identified as important to problem-based learning (PBL) by faculty and students at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) at the University of Hawaii (Manoa) where a PBL curriculum is used. The study interviewed and surveyed key stakeholders, asking…