To help educators continue to refine approaches to nourishing children's imaginations, this bibliography brings together 652 references on alternative school systems. The references are arranged into 17 categories and indexed by subject category and author. The categories include alternative, cooperative, experimental, interdisciplinary, and…

The nature and extent of restraing imposed by state and federal funding formulas, guidelines, and regulations on emerging, innovative, nontraditional postsecondary educational programs was assessed. Interviews were conducted with administrators of several innovative programs. In addition, a questionnaire was mailed to over 300 nontraditional…

This paper describes a method of research to examine the process of effecting educational change through adopting innovative ideas. Twenty-nine elementary teachers in the process of adopting a complex curricular innovation were studied. Because of the complex nature of this process, ordering theory was used as the method for analyzing the adoption…

The coming decade will be a more significant period for the relationship of education to vocation and work than any other period in U.S. history. No longer will life be divided into periods of preschool play, formal learning, forty years of work, and decline; rather, these periods will interlock, especially as continued learning becomes…

A paradigm for the study of the diffusion of complex innovations through a society is presented in this paper; the paradigm is useful for studying sociocultural change as innovations diffuse. The model is designed to account for change within social systems rather than in individuals, although it would also be consistent with information…

An innovative classroom-based approach to reading instruction in the context of Spanish instruction was proposed. The effects of this instruction on the pronunciation ability of students were analyzed. The subjects were 30 adult missionary trainees who had no previous exposure to Spanish. The dependent variable was measured using two instruments.…

Community involvement in Main Township High School District 207 has come to be known as "Partnership--The Maine Way." Maine has acknowledged that in order to shape the public good will and understanding, large numbers of parents, students, teachers, and citizens must be included personally. Maine looks at 1973-74 with pride concerning three…

Creative Learning through the Application of Sociological Principles (CLASP) is a nontraditional program designed to help students develop their own concepts, theories, and skills during a nonstructured sociology semester. The program consists of seven phases: (1) first week: testing, simulating, and preparation; (2) second-third weeks: human…

The conference featured more than 40 presentations representing existing and planned innovative programs in all levels of distributive marketing education in six States. In addition to the presentations (not reproduced in their entirety in the report), there were sessions and workshops for secondary, post secondary, and adult levels and for city…

Federal assistance for special educational programs makes necessary the regular study of evaluations of thousands of innovations in compensatory education, bilingual education, and reading programs. The results are reported to the President and to Congress. However, investigating organizations find only a few programs with adequate evidence and…

The Kinder-Economy, a teacher-guided program which introduces basic economic concepts to primary children through an action/simulation/participation program, is discussed. The experimental program is based on the belief that young children can identify and comprehend economic concepts and apply them to real situations in their own milieu.…

This review of research on computer use in education focuses on the development of higher order thinking skills and the effects of programming instruction. Eight hypotheses are proposed to account for the general failure of the research to confirm the expectations, and a new programming language, Prolog, is described. (70 references) (Author/LRW)

Thirteen K-12 teachers participated in a technology integration professional development course that included course components such as peer modeling, peer collaboration, and reflection in an authentic learning context. The purpose of this study was to explore how teachers' beliefs, practices, and self-efficacy changed in this learning…

Changes in the preschool education system are provided for by a new federal law in Portugal, Law 5/97, Law for Preschool Education. This law calls for a new role for the State that involves fewer direct services, less bureaucracy, more efficient supervision, and a greater regulating and compensating role. The law requires parents to participate in…

Problem-based learning in educational administration preparation programs is increasingly the focus of university departments, professors, presenters at symposia, and the literature in the field. This increasing attention, while appropriate, creates the need for additional reflection before organizations move ahead with problem-based learning…