Cable and Telecommunications

William A. Lucas and Robert K. Yin's Serving Local Needs with Telecommunications (Santa Monica, Calif: Rand Corporation Report R-1345-MF, November 1973—$3.00, paper).

Fred B. Wood's The Potential for Congressional Use of Emergent Telecommunications: An Exploratory Assessment (Washington, D.C.: George Washington University, Program of Policy Studies in Science and Technology, May 1974—apparently free on request)

Walter S. Baer, Michael Botein, Leland L. Johnson, Carl Pilnick, Monroe E. Price, and Robert K. Yin's Cable Television: Franchising Considerations (New York: Crane, Russak, & Co., 1974-=T13.50)

Charles G. Woodard's Cable Television: Acquisition and Operation of CATV Systems (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974—$27.50)

Planning Interconnection Systems: Options for the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area (Washington, D.C.: Cable Television Information Center, 2100 M St. N.W., 1974-47.50, paper)

Cablelines (Cable Communications Resource Center, 1900 L St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036—monthly/free on request)     

Transitioning in elementary school: parent advocacy and teacher allyship

This paper examines how parent advocacy and teacher allyship played an important role in supporting six-year-old Violet Addley’s (a pseudonym) gender transition in elementary school. We first met the Addley family in the spring of 2015 when we interviewed them for a research study on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) families in Ontario schools. The goals of the study are to interview LGBTQ families about issues that come up at school, document how families have worked with schools to create safer and more respectful classrooms for their children, and share the families’ interviews with teachers and principals so they can begin to think about the ways they can best work with LGBTQ parents and their children. Our paper also discusses what a group of teachers learned about parent advocacy and teacher allyship from their engagement with the Addley family interviews.     

All Social Welfare Policy Is Rational

Social work's professional commitment to working toward social justice for vulnerable groups is well known. However, as a profession, social work has been criticized for proposing professional perspectives that may be interpreted by some as political indoctrination. The purpose of the current study was to examine social work students' perceptions of political debate in the classroom. An additional goal was to examine whether students believed that colleagues who hold certain sociopolitical beliefs should be prohibited from receiving a social work degree. Four hundred and ninety-seven undergraduate and graduate social work students from 10 programs were surveyed. Results show that a majority of respondents were comfortable with the discussion of sociopolitical content in the classroom. Nevertheless, students who self-identified as politically conservative were more likely to report that they perceived the classroom environment as less open and hence less conducive to debate. Finally, overt racism was identified as the only attitude that should prohibit someone from receiving a social work degree. Implications for social work education are discussed.     

Lehrerbildung und Praxiserfahrung im ersten Berufsjahr und ihre Wirkung auf die Unterrichtskompetenzen von Studierenden und jungen Lehrpersonen im Berufseinstieg

This contribution looks at the competency development during teacher training and entry into work. The multi-perspective research design makes it possible to collate data at five stages within this transition process: at the start (t₁), in the middle (t₂) and on completion (t₃) of teacher training for primary school level (year 1–6) student teachers in two education colleges in Switzerland, as well as novice teachers at the start (t₄) and on competition (t₅) of their first year of work. The data covers eleven topic areas. This paper will present findings of data analysis for two of these topic areas for all five stages of measurement: (a) knowledge of lesson planning was captured using case vignettes and (b) teaching practice during the study program and in the first year of work was recorded on video. The same data was collated from the teaching staff involved in the practical training of the student teachers. The statements on the case vignettes were studied using content-analysis. The lesson videos were analyzed using low-inference coding for the visible occurrences during teaching and with a high-inference rating on the quality of the lessons. The results, including those for a comparison of student teachers and novice teachers with practical teacher training staff, give insights into the effectiveness of teacher training and the impact of practical experience in the first year of work on knowledge of how to plan lessons and on the form and quality of teaching. Overall, the new training at both education colleges can be given a pleasingly positive appraisal in terms of professionalization. It is, however, also possible to recognize where and to what extent a need for further developing the standard of professionalization of teaching still exists.     

Cable Communications

Walter S. Baer's Cable Television: A Handbook for Decisionmaking

Baer's basic report (New York: Crane, Russak and Co., 1974 -- $11.00)

Cable Television: Franchising Considerations

Steven Rivkin's Cable Television: A Guide to Federal Regulations

Cable Television: Developing Community Services

The Complete Guide to Cable Marketing (Washington, D.C.: National Cable Television Association, 918 16th St., N.W., 1973 -- $4.95, or $2.95 if NCTA member, paper)

Bridger Mitchell and Robert Smiley's Cable, Cities and Copyrights (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 1973 -- $3.00, paper)     

Bibliography in the special libraries of the United States: A non-statistical survey

Abstract

By means of a questionnaire, information was sought from readers in Owerri and Umuahia Public Libraries on their utilization habits of library resources. Results show that the majority of users are students preparing for examinations. Consequently, most of them visit to read their personal books and do not borrow from the library. Only a few bother to consult reference and audio-visual materials, citing ignorance of their existence as the most common reason.     

Fitting the Message to the Listener: Children Selectively Mention General and Specific Facts

In three experiments, two hundred and ninety‐seven 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds were asked to describe objects to a listener, and their answers were coded for the presence of general and specific facts. In Experiments 1 and 2, the listener's knowledge of the kinds of objects was manipulated. This affected references to specific facts at all ages, but only affected references to general facts in children aged 5 and older. In Experiment 3, children's goal in communicating was either pedagogical or not. Pedagogy influenced references to general information from age 4, but not references to specific information. These findings are informative about how children vary general and specific information in conversation, and suggest that listeners' knowledge and children's pedagogical goals influenced children's responses via different mechanisms.     

Resistance to extinction as a function of percentage of reward: A reinforcement-level interpretation

Three experiments investigated the effects of percentage of reinforcement on the resistance to extinction of an instrumental running response. In Experiment 1, with N-length held constant, 47% reinforcement during acquisition generated greater resistance to extinction (R_n) than did 77%. In Experiment 2, this result was replicated with both functional N-length and number of N-R transitions held constant. In Experiment 3, R_n was shown to be a function of both N-length and percentage of reinforcement. The results of all three experiments were discussed in terms of Capaldi’s reinforcement level theory and possible alternative explanations.     

Creativity polymathy: What Benjamin Franklin can teach your kindergartener

Creative polymathy at the very highest levels is rare, but this is largely the result of a long period of training usually necessary to become proficient in any field. We explain why creative polymathy is not ruled out by arguments for the domain specificity of creativity and argue that consideration of multiple levels of creativity (Big-C, Pro-c, little-c, and mini-c) leads to the conclusion that creative polymathy may actually be fairly common. We introduce a hierarchical model of creativity (the APT Model) to help understand some constraints on and possibilities for creative polymathy, suggest different ways creative polymathy may be expressed, and offer guidelines for recognizing and nurturing creative polymathy in students.