An Assessment of a Computerized Simulation of Counseling Skills

A computer simulation of a client-counselor interaction was developed and tested on individuals grouped by experience level. Several of the seven groups differed significantly in their response to the simulation.     

The Gender of Water and the Pleasure of Alienation: A Critical Analysis of Visiting Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam, located on the Arizona-Nevada border and damming the Colorado River, is a well-known and often-visited place. The meanings people assign to such a structure articulate key environmental, economic and technological ideologies. An exploration of those meanings is important for understanding the forces that shape public perception and environmental policy. Specifically, this essay examines the official rhetoric of Hoover Dam from an ecofeminist perspective. Through a critical reading of the educational displays, films, plaques and other texts as well as the physical structure of the dam itself, three rhetorical strategies used in the dam's official presentation are identified. First, the Bureau of Reclamation presents the Colorado River as a chaotic, feminine entity in need of masculine control. Second, the river's rhetorical status as an Other encourages audiences to identify with the subject position of nature's master and thereby participate in the pleasures such an identity offers. Third, the Bureau uses the prevalent “common sense” of Native Americans as environmentally sensitive in combination with an “historical” Native American voice to establish the dam as both environmentally sound and a logical step in humanity's progress toward economic development and dominion over nature.     

Towards a theory of leadership practice: a distributed perspective

School‐level conditions and school leadership, in particular, are key issues in efforts to change instruction. While new organizational structures and new leadership roles matter to instructional innovation, what seems most critical is how leadership practice is undertaken. Yet, the practice of school leadership has received limited attention in the research literature. Building on activity theory and theories of distributed cognition, this paper develops a distributed perspective on school leadership as a frame for studying leadership practice, arguing that leadership practice is constituted in the interaction of school leaders, followers, and the situation.     

An Information Scanning Approach for Learning to Work on the Internet

Access to global information fundamentally alters the information scanning function of decision-makers. The flattening of the management pyramid means information scanning of external sources is being performed by personnel in middle and lower levels of management, not only in the traditional senior management level. Both graduate and undergraduate classes in information systems can effectively address the use of external information scanning through the teaching of Internet skills. This paper presents the course outline for a class in Global Communication Networks where a project-oriented approach was used to teach web-based skills. The importance of global information systems in decision-making and the use of the Internet as an information resource were emphasized in this class. A survey of students in the class found that this approach was successful in improving the perceived value of Internet-related tools for information scanning and professional decision-making.