Mountain-Plains: The Meaning of a Model Career Education Learning System for Higher Education.

Overview & Synopsis

The document describes the Mountain-Plains career education model and discusses its implications for higher education. The Mountain-Plains Education and Economic Development Program, Inc., is a non-profit corporation chartered by the State of Montana and funded through the National Institute of Education for a five-year cycle of research and development under the designation Career Education Model Four. The model was designed both for specific applicability to a disadvantaged population in a six State target area (Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho) and for general applicability across the full spectrum of education. The document traces the physical and procedural structure of the model; the underlying premise is that family-oriented career education, offered in a residential setting and implemented through a comprehensive family-human development approach, represents an effective method of improving the employability, standard of living, and life satisfaction of a disadvantaged population. The authors offer statistics indicating the nature and scope of the program's effects to date, and conclude that Montain-Plains could serve as a complete humanistic model for higher education delivery. Program elements seen as applicable to higher education are its family base, its individualizing of instruction, its criterion-referenced testing, its methods of positive reinforcement, and its roots in societal reality and in human development philosophy. (Author/AJ)