Principals and superintendents operating in high-choice environments are often faced with enrollment challenges as they compete for students. This case study examines the experience of a principal at Crossroads Elementary--a high-performing, culturally responsive, and innovative traditional public school that struggles to retain many of its older…

Describes the "schools-within-a-school" elementary program at Broken Ground School in Concord, New Hampshire, where parents and teachers are involved in choosing the learning environment best suited for each child, either the more formal "Conventional School" or the more individualized "Continuous Progress School."…

A study, focusing on teachers from five elementary schools in a single school district, defined teacher attitudes, single teacher practices, multiteacher practices, individual student practices, and small-group practices for both traditional and open instructional space facilities. (Author/MLF)

Findings suggest that class openness may have some effects independent of the initial entering characteristics of the child and that, at least with regard to some outcomes, the child's characteristics may help to determine the type of class from which he would derive the greatest benefit. (Author/MV)

Briefly reviews research on differences in divergent thinking in open and traditional classrooms at the elementary level and discusses a study of differences in creativity, as measured by scores for fluency, flexibility and originality, in children in Grades 1, 3 and 5 from open and traditional classrooms. (BR)

Concludes that there is a strong positive relationship between an elementary school's organizational climate (whether the school is "open" or "closed") and student reading performance, with achievement being greater in the more open schools. (FL)

This study investigated the relationship of the learning climate of pupils to Individually Guided Education (IGE) with its Multiunit Elementary Schools (MUS-E) organizational structure. IGE/MUS-E was developed by the Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Learning and is a comprehensive educational system incorporating several…

A study replication of both traditional and open-space facilities identified teacher attitudes toward instructional spaces and teaching, single-teacher practices, multiteacher practices, individual-student practices, and small-group practices. Of the 21 teachers in the present study, 13 had also participated in the 1976 study. (MLF)

Today varied notions of good teaching are mired in fruitless, "cheesy" debates over traditional versus progressive philosophies. On the "Velveeta" side is John Locke, who viewed children as a "tabula rasa" (empty slate). On the brie side is Rousseau, who emphasized freeing the child as "noble savage." The…

The self-contained classroom tends to emphasize achievement of basic skills, while the open-concept school emphasizes attitudes and feelings. A brief historical review presents the history and explains the philosophy behind the open-concept school. This is followed by a review of the literature and an analysis of the present status of the concept.…

The self concept of fourth (N=9), fifth (N=9), and sixth (N=6) grade children, using Gordon's How I See Myself Scale, were compared in the open and traditional school environments to determine if open-school students' scores would be significantly higher in composite self concept and in each of the factors of Autonomy, Interpersonal Adequacy,…

This study compared the cross-grade associations of students in an open-space and a traditionally designed elementary school. Sixth grade students indicated their willingness to engage in different activities with students in kindergarten through grade six. No significant differences were found between students in the open-space and traditional…

A classroom observation system was used in 1) a nontraditional, open-classroom setting with primarily middleclass students, 2) a Follow Through class in a public school with low income students, and 3) a traditional class in a public school with low-income students. (JY)

A system of categories organized along the three dimensions of behavior, location, and social setting, was developed and used to obtain recordings of the activity of pupils in open-area schools and traditional schools. (Author/JKS)