The article presents a review of the experience of practical testing (based in 385 experimental sites of the Russian Academy of Education) of current achievements of scientific academic schools that are developing the traditions of education. The organization of the innovative scientific and practical activity of the experimental sites of the…

This report presents a summary and evaluation of the new freshman curriculum at Hiram College. The curriculum, established in the fall of 1969, is based upon the premise that by giving freshmen more freedom and responsibility, along with the opportunity for more individual faculty guidance, a college can create an atmosphere in which both academic…

Author feels that the success of an educational innovation should not be judged on whether it fulfills its promise 100 percent, but on whether it moves education closer to its goal. (Editor)

This paper presents a model for developing and evaluating new educational programs in a large city school district. The model described was developed and partially field tested in the Phoenix Union High School System. It is intended to be simple enough not to stifle new ideas but detailed enough to provide smooth transition from the experimental…

This document lists critical factors that would assist in assuring quality in nontraditional programs in higher education. These factors include: (1) a statement of program purposes that has the commitment of the major factors in implementing the program; (2) given purposes specified at the university as well as program level, the institution…

Thirty-five teachers who graduated from the new elementary program at the university of Florida and 30 control teachers from the regular program were observed in a followup study to assist in determining the efficiency of a systematic, theory-based approach to curriculum innovation and, specifically, to determine the effectiveness of the…

Higher education today is the target of growing pressure for improved management procedures. As one response to these societal pressures, higher education has developed numerous nontraditional patterns of instruction. The purpose of this paper is to discusss educational and instructional development, that is, change within higher education, and…

Since the passage of the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 (MDTA), the Department of Labor has funded over $30 million worth of experimental and demonstration (E and D) projects in an effort to discover some new directions for dealing with the unemployment problems of disadvantaged youth. To evaluate the effectiveness of these and…

This paper examines educational environments that promote learning and explores the ways that such environments produce differentially positive results. It is based on a study that investigated the effects of a theoretically based social-constructivist approach to education, in contrast to the more classroom-based "abstract" instruction used in…

This report evaluates an experimental trimester plan adopted by a Birmingham (Alabama) high school during the 1976-77 school year. The Birmingham trimester plan maintained the usual length school year, simply dividing it into three "mesters," rather than the traditional two. The plan also lengthened each class period to 85 minutes, so…

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.…

This report describes and documents the experiences of various sponsoring organizations and school districts with Project Follow Through, a national program that promotes alternative educational programs for children in grades K-3. The report is based on field visits and interviews with individuals directly involved in the processes of program…

This practicum report describes a year-long effort to reorganize a large urban junior high school according to the "house plan" concept, in which the school is organized administratively and geographically by grade level, rather than by academic department. The reorganization plan involved five major changes, including relocation of departments…

This paper lists and tentatively assesses three experiments in preschool education in rural areas in France, and outlines the Massif Central development program which draws extensively on these experiments. In Experiment I, a peripatetic teacher worked with young children, concentrating on speech activities in four different single-class schools.…

Described in this study is a two-year experimental program in teacher education which provided 14 student teachers with opportunity to experiment with the process of schooling and to learn from it. As a result, six community-based vacation schools were created. Specific sections of the book deal with: (1) the challenge of the times (late sixties)…