The study looks at the way in which survey research has helped at different stages in the life of the Open University in Great Britain. Since Open University students are studying at a distance, the major source of information about them and about the way they study has been from survey research. This research has provided an input to academic…

Describing implementation procedures for an open educational approach in a rural English middle school (Necton Middle School located 25 miles outside Norwich, England), this paper presents the philosophies of the school's Head Mistress as she reflects upon the first year of operation. Emphasizing community involvement and sensitivity to the human…

This report reviews the history of open education, the philosophy supporting it, and some conclusions drawn from testing children who have been exposed to it. The basic theory of open education is that children learn in different ways at different times from things around them which interest them. Ideally, the teacher acts as a guide and resource…

This report covers a three-part project ("white paper", working papers, and discussion seminars) in adult open learning designed to provide the basis for an expansive discussion of the need for research in open learning. Following an executive summary, contents are presented in three parts. Part I consists of an introduction and…

This report describes the activities of the Documentation and Technical Assistance in Urban Schools Project (DTA) in the Chicago Public Schools. The past and present work of the DTA is outlined and its efforts to improve the educational experiences of black youth are discussed. The report focuses on the DTA's efforts to implement peer tutoring…

In this book, the findings of a study on schools within schools are described. The professional research and literature on alternative public education, with a focus on schools within schools, is explored. Based on the research, a list of elements characteristic to and useful for the implementation and perpetuation of optional alternative programs…

As a part of a longitudinal study of learning in open plan and conventional design classrooms, the present study focuses on school design and its influence on selected behavior of pupils and teachers. The behaviors of pupils and their teachers in eleven learning areas of open plan and seven of conventional design were observed. Among the 18…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were significant differences in the academic achievement of children attending three different types of school: a model "open" school, a comparable "traditional" school, and a traditional school with a student population from a higher socioeconomic area. Data based on…

This document presents a program description of Pacer School, a free school in its fifth year of operation in Kansas City, Missouri. The first part of the paper, entitled "Education for Democracy," describes how the school got started, staff background and role, finances, curriculum, activities, physical environment and playground design and…

This publication provides a periodic report on the changes begun in the New York City public schools under the direction of the City College Advisory Service to Open Corridors. The Open Corridor concept involves a cluster of classrooms around a single corridor which is used as an activity center. Children from the various classrooms may go to the…

Distance education is used in this survey to cover the various forms of study at all levels that are not under the continuous, immediate supervision of teachers present with their students in lecture rooms or on the same premises, but which benefit, nevertheless, from the planning, guidance, and tuition of a tutorial organization. Familiar…

This paper, which presents a comparison of informal and formal preschool programs, describes the arguments used by proponents of the formal, more structured, teacher-centered programs and the informal, more child-centered, programs. Some of the evidence for the effects of early experience on child development and for the effects of teaching style…

A teacher self-report instrument, the Learning Climate Inventory (LCI), was used to gather teacher perceptions about their administrators, peers, and teaching job. An observational checklist was used on the same large sample. Data were gathered from 700 classrooms and 867 teachers in 30 schools in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Fort Worth,…

The document is a collection of articles, all of which concern educational reform in general and humanistic/affective education in particular. The first article establishes a theme for the book in warning that undue stress on competencies and skills may mean losing sight of equally valid and important humanistic aims of education. A common concern…

This report comes out of the 1974 Teacher Corps Conference, which was held to acquaint Teacher Corps personnel with new ideas to enhance their abilities to train interns to work with children with special needs. The first part of the report is composed of 18 speeches on topics such as: community involvement in education, ethnic diversity,…