At the pre-college level, some types of non-traditional learning include home-schooling, the Waldorf education method, vocational, technical, trade and agricultural high schools, and charter or magnet schools. Non-traditional educational activities can also include independent add-on instruction to a traditional education, in such ways as dance, singing, playing an instrument, art, creative writing, woodworking or religious studies. Adults who did not complete high school can also acquire a degree through the non-traditional educational route of a correspondence course. At the post-high school level, non-traditional educational models can involve degree-level programs that rely on online delivery of course materials. Other post-high school-level, non-traditional educational models include internships, apprenticeships or certification programs specific to the profession, such as in the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning industry.
One of the advantages of non-traditional education at the pre-college level involves parental control. While traditional educational models primarily involve instruction in knowledge content, such as reading, writing, arithmetic, science, geography and history, schools may also seek to teach value systems with which parents may take issue. The non-traditional home-schooling approach to education affords parents control over the values that their children learn along with their knowledge-based areas of study.
Related to control, but more properly called flexibility, a non-traditional pre-college educational approach, such as home-schooling, also allows parents flexibility to tailor their children's curriculum so as to allow children who learn rapidly to progress to more advanced levels and slower learners to take the needed time to fully grasp content in one or more subjects. Parents can also tailor a home-schooled child's curriculum specifically to the child's emerging interests. Some innovative programs that occur in actual brick-and-mortar schools, such as the Waldorf program, also exhibit some of this flexibility.
At the post-high school level, one disadvantage to non-traditional education is the credentialing of such programs. As of 2011, employers still regard a bachelor's degree or higher as having greater validity if it included some brick-and-mortar coursework. However, in some fields, accredited online degree programs have begun to gain greater respect. Examples of such fields include graphic design, accounting, marketing and computer animation. Selecting a program with good accreditation credentials has considerable importance.
At varying levels, non-traditional education has the potential for disadvantages in terms of limitations. For instance, at the pre-college level, home-schooling lacks the dimension of social interaction with age group peers as a built-in element of the educational experience. Similarly, at the post-high school degree-level, non-traditional programs, such as online or correspondence courses, lack the classroom discussion element that adds dimension to coursework completed in a brick-and-mortar setting.