Using Genograms as a Tool for Insight in College Counseling

The use of a genogram in counseling can provide a visual cool that stimulates insight and awareness in clients. College counseling clients struggle with many developmental, relationship, and systemic issues. Genograms, which have been proven beneficial in other settings, may also facilitate college counseling.     

Associative structure of second-order conditioning in humans

Second-order conditioning (SOC; i.e., conditioned responding to S2 as a result of S1–US pairings followed by S2–S1 pairings) is generally explained by either a direct S2→US association or by an associative chain (i.e., S2→S1→US). Previous research found that differences in responses to S2 after S1 was extinguished often depended on the nature of the S2–S1 pairings (i.e., sequential or simultaneous). In two experiments with human participants, we examined the possibility that such differences result from S1 evoking S2 during extinction of S1 following simultaneous but not sequential S2–S1 pairings. This evocation of S2 by S1 following simultaneous pairings may have paired the evoked representation of S2 with absence of the outcome, thereby facilitating mediated extinction of S2. Using sequential S2-S1 pairings, both Experiments 1 and 2 failed to support this account of how extinction of S1 reduced responding to S2. Experiment 1 found that extinguishing S1 reduced responding to S2, while extinguishing S2 had little effect on responses to S1, although forward evocation of S1 during extinction of S2 paired the evoked representation of S1 with absence of the outcome. In Experiment 2, evocation of S2 during S1 nonreinforced trials was prevented because S2–S1 pairings followed (rather than proceeded) S1-alone exposures. Nevertheless, responding to S2 at test mimicked S1 responding. Responding to S2 was high in the context in which S1 had been reinforced and low in the context in which S1 had been nonreinforced. Collectively, these experiments provide additional support for the associative-chain account of SOC.     

Design Research as a Mechanism for Consultants to Facilitate and Evaluate Educational Innovations

Schools across the nation are implementing innovative practices; however, questions remain regarding how to facilitate quality implementation. Research designs that emphasize high degrees of control over independent variables result in findings with internal validity, but that may not generalize to complex, dynamic educational systems. The purpose of this article is to propose a design research framework as a mechanism for consultants to facilitate and evaluate innovation implementation. Information on design research principles and processes is provided, and issues to consider when applying the framework are discussed. An illustration of how a design research framework was applied in a large-scale initiative to implement and evaluate Response to Intervention (RtI) implementation is also provided. Finally, issues and questions to consider relative to consultants' use of design research principles are explored.     

Is Professional Writing Relevant? A Model for Action Research

This article argues that engaged “action research” can help professional writing researchers both develop new and interesting collaborative models and help our profession develop a greater relevance to those not reading our journals and attending our conferences. I outline one particular, localized approach in the hope that our troubles, struggles, and failures at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee can help others to develop their own programs and can further our discussion of community engagement.     

Weighing Fog: Modeling on Day 1 of Differential Equations

Abstract

The first day of many mathematics classes is filled with the formalities of the syllabus and a lecture introduction to the course content. Here, an alternative is presented where modeling is placed as the centerpiece to orient students to the work of differential equations; namely, to capture as beautifully and compactly as possible through the process of inquiry, conjecture, and experimentation, the deep and interesting aspects of modeling the physical world. A demonstration of the sublimation of dry ice in water serves as the nucleus of the lesson.     

Substantive growth and innovative organization: New categories for higher education research

The existing international literature on higher education centers on the transition from elite to mass higher education, the changing relationship between governments and universities, and the differentiation of the institutional fabric of national systems. These important institutionalized concerns lead to an unbalanced research agenda if other basic features are not pursued. Two additional fundamental features need expanded attention: substantive academic growth, with its roots in the research imperative and the dynamics of disciplines; and innovative university organization, a sharply growing concern among practitioners as universities seek greater capacity to change.Proliferating at a rapid rate, modern academic knowledge changes fields of study from within, alters universities from the bottom-up, and increases the benefits and costs of decisions on the inclusion and exclusion of various specialties. The long-term trend from simple to complex knowledge, arguably more important than the trend from elite to mass higher education, forces universities to position themselves between knowledge expansion and student expansion, with emphasis increasingly placed on the knowledge dimension. Innovative universities explore new ways of organizing knowledge and of more effectively exploiting the fields in which they are already engaged. Greater awareness of new means of knowledge organization will help universities make wiser choices in the twenty-first century.     

Literature Circles: Reducing Reading Stress

The concept of literature circles is now familiar in American and Australian literature about reading, but it does not as yet have great currency in this country. This article by Charlotte Keefe may do much to change this as it very lucidly explains the benefits of and teaching strategies underlying the use of literature circles. As Charlotte points out, they may do much to alleviate those of children's problems with reading which stem from not seeing the point and deriving little pleasure from the experience.     

巧克力迷的天堂--宾夕法尼亚

I pun up to the dowdy brick factory in ablink-and-youll-miss-it Pennsylvania town.Itdoesn't look promising.But I open the door.and the sweet dark smell of chocolate draws mynose first into the Wilbur Chocolate Co.factorystore in Lititz.Although the town seems ahnostdeserted.the tiny store is packed with shoppersloading baskets with“Buds”.drops of silky choco-late.I slip into the endearingly amateurish muse-um in the next room,where a dress shop dummyleans against old chocolate-making equip-merit.Then I see it.Behind cocoa tins.there's awindow onto a working kitchen.A white-haired ladypipes blue icing on chocolate ballet dancers.Ringthe bell,a sign says,and shell hand-dip a chocolatejust for you.I ring,and float into chocolate nirvana.