Why are there virtually no mandatory open access policies at American universities?

Key points

• U.S. university OA policies are far less mandatory than those in the U.K.
• The waiver clauses in U.S. university policies make it easy for authors to decline making their articles OA.
• The relative autonomy – and competitiveness – of U.S. universities may be the reason for weaker OA policies.
• OA in the U.S. is likely to be driven by government funding agency policies rather than by academia.

     

School English,literature and the knowledge-base question

This article takes up questions about knowledge and the school curriculum with respect to literary studies within subject English. Its intention is to focus on literary studies in English from the context of current waves of curriculum reform, rather than as part of the conversations primarily within the field of English, to raise questions about the knowledge agenda, and the knowledge-base agenda for teaching and teacher education. The selection of texts and form of study of literature within the English curriculum has long been an area of controversy. Without assuming a particular position on knowledge in this area, this article shows that important questions of what knowledge-base teachers are expected to bring to their work are elided both in current regulations and debates, and in research on ‘good teaching’ in this area. If ‘literary studies’ (as a discipline or university major) is itself an unstable and changing field, what kind of knowledge does a good English teacher bring to their work? This paper takes up these questions in the context of the Australian Curriculum and standards for teacher registration, but it also points to the way these issues about knowledge are of broader relevance for researchers and teacher education.     

Educating the Child‐centred Practitioner: Innovations and dilemmas

The education of child‐centered early childhood practitioners involves issues of content, pedagogy, relationships and context. Recent insights on the nature of child‐centered teaching generated by collaborative research with teachers, has highlighted its complexity and suggests that new ways of thinking about teacher education are needed. But developing a more learner‐centered approach to early childhood teacher education will be difficult, given the instrumentalist orientation in many institutions and in societies at large. This paper discusses the broad issues surrounding the development of a more learner‐centered approach to early childhood teacher education and describes several initiatives the authors have been involved in, in Australia and the United States.     

Prediction assessments: Using video-based predictions to assess prospective teachers’ knowledge of students’ mathematical thinking

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of an experimental elementary mathematics field experience course, we have designed a new assessment instrument. These video-based prediction assessments engage prospective teachers in a video analysis of a child solving mathematical tasks. The prospective teachers build a model of that child’s mathematics and then use that model to predict how the child will respond to a subsequent task. In this paper, we share data concerning the evolution and effectiveness of the instrument. Results from implementation indicate moderate to high degrees of inter-rater reliability in using the rubric to assess prospective teachers’ models and predictions. They also indicate strong correlation between participation in the experimental course and prospective teachers’ performances on the video-based prediction assessments. Such findings suggest that prediction assessments effectively evaluate the pedagogical content knowledge that we are seeking to foster among the prospective teachers.     

Factors affecting rats’ location during conditioned suppression training

If freezing underlies barpress conditioned suppression, then it seems odd that auditory cues paired with shock evoke more freezing than do visual cues, yet evoke similar suppression. Bevins and Ayres (1992) found that auditory and visual cues also evoked similar withdrawal from the bar and dipper areas and suggested that such withdrawal could explain the similar suppression. Seeking to understand that withdrawal, we found evidence in the present study that it was due either to adventitious punishment or to place-aversion learning. The cue for shock seemed to set the occasion for such learning. For example, we found that, as training progressed, rats’ tendency to leave the bar area during the cue first increased, then decreased, then increased again, reflecting, presumably, shock occurrence first inside, then outside, then inside the bar area again. Despite these changes in the rats’ location, barpress suppression remained stable, implying that leaving the bar area, though sufficient for barpress suppression, is unnecessary.     

Social and emotional development in the first two years

Summary Social and emotional development begins from the moment of birth. Remarkably, infants are able to engage with their social world, particularly their parents and family. They start to establish a secure attachment with their primary caregivers who provide not only nurturance but guidance. A sense of security facilitates infants' exploration of their physical and social world. They demonstrate selective preferences—they prefer to look at faces and listen to voices—that reflect their genetically programmed disposition. Infants are able to express their emotions and recognize the emotional expressions of others. The development of basic human attributes emerge in the first few weeks and months of life. Caring, loving adults play such a critical role in providing learning opportunities to interact with others and express their emotions in an appropriate manner. Adults shape the quality of experiences that infants encounter and provide the basic building blocks of trust that support further development later in life.