MicroObservatory Net: A Network of Automated Remote Telescopes Dedicated to Educational Use

Many students have a deep interest in astronomy, but a limited opportunity to use telescopes to explore the heavens. The MicroObservatory Network of automated telescopes is designed to provide access to classroom teachers who wish their students to conduct projects over the World Wide Web. The intuitive interface makes it easy for even 10-year-olds to take pictures. Telescopes can be remotely pointed and focused: filters, field of view, and exposure times can be changed easily. Images are archived at the website, along with sample challenges and a user bulletin board, all of which encourage collaboration among schools. Wide geographic separation of instruments provides access to distant night skies during local daytime. Since first light in 1995, we have learned much about remote troubleshooting, designing for unattended use, and for acquiring the kinds of images that students desire. This network can be scaled up from its present capability of 240,000 images each year to provide telescope access for all US students with an interest in astronomy. Our WWW address is http://mo-www.harvard.edu/MicroObservatory/     

Scholarly Productivity of Editorial Board Members of Three American Counseling and Counseling Psychology Journals

The scholarly journals in professional and scientific fields serve the function of communicating new knowledge and informed discourse on the major issues affecting the field of counseling, and editorial board members (EBMs) serve as gatekeepers of what information will be communicated. The ability of EBMs to make sound judgments directly affects the quality of research and scholarship published. This study analyzed one important EBM qualification, the scholarly productivity of the editorial board members of three major American counseling journals (The Counseling Psychologist [TCP], the Journal of Counseling Psychology [JCP], and the Journal of Counseling and Development [JCD]). An analysis of the productivity rates of editorial board members on these journals was conducted using the PsycINFO database. The results indicated that editorial board members of JCP have significantly more experience publishing than members of TCP and JCD. The differential publication rates of editorial board members suggest that these three journals place different emphasis on scholarly productivity as part of their selection criteria for editorial board membership and may reflect that the three journals have different missions and serve different clientele. These findings have implications, not only for the profession of counseling in the United States, but also for the international counseling community.This article is dedicated to our esteemed colleague, Stephen G. Weinrach, who died after a long and courageous battle with leukemia on April 24, 2004. This article was the last that Steve was working on prior to his death. It was his brainchild. The contributions that Steve made to the counseling profession over the years are inestimable. He was truly through his numerous writings and professional association activities the “conscience of the couseling profession.” He is dearly missed.     

The process of review: A levels of processing approach

This experiment investigated the effects of reviewing notes at a deeper level of abstraction, by means of reorganization. No differences in immediate recognition performance were found for subjects who reorganized notes into an instructor-generated matrix versus subjects who reviewed in their typical manner. An interaction between method of review and type of delayed test was apparent. Reorganization during review resulted in relatively higher achievement on a free recall test while unstructured review produced higher achievement on a cued recall exam. This interaction was unpredicted by the theory of encoding specificity but was explained in regard to the theory of episode matching. Instructionally, reorganization was advocated as a review technique for most learning situations in which retrieval cues are not imposed.     

Parent-Child Relationships, Family Problem-Solving Behavior, and Sibling Relationship Quality: The Moderating Role of Sibling Temperaments

In this study we sought to determine whether sibling temperaments moderated the associations of parent-child relationship quality and family problem-solving behavior with sibling relationship quality. Observational assessments of mother-child and father-child relationship quality, family problem-solving behavior, and sibling relationship quality were obtained from the families of 49 pairs of brothers and 46 pairs of sisters. Mean ages were 10-2 for older siblings and 7-6 for younger siblings. Parent-reported child temperament assessments were also obtained. The links among mother–older child relationship quality, father–older child relationship quality, and sibling relationship quality were moderated by the older sibling's temperament. The younger and older siblings' temperaments moderated the associations between the quality of the father–younger sibling and sibling relationships. The association between family problem-solving behavior and sibling relationship quality was not moderated by sibling temperaments.     

Laptop versus longhand note taking: effects on lecture notes and achievement

There has been a shift in college classrooms from students recording lecture notes using a longhand pencil-paper medium to using laptops. The present study investigated whether note-taking medium (laptop, longhand) influenced note taking and achievement when notes were recorded but not reviewed (note taking’s process function) and when notes were recorded and reviewed (note taking’s product function). One unique aspect of the study was determining how laptop and longhand note taking influence the recording of lecture images in notes and image-related achievement. Note-taking results showed that laptop note takers recorded more notes (idea units and words) and more verbatim lecture strings than did longhand note takers who, in turn, recorded more visual notes (signals and images) than did laptop note takers. Achievement results showed that when taking laptop notes, the process function of note taking was more beneficial than the product function of note taking (i.e., better image-related learning and similar text-related learning). When taking longhand notes, the product function of note taking was more beneficial than the process function of note taking (i.e., better text-related learning and similar image-related learning). Achievement findings suggest that the optimal note-taking medium depends on the nature of the lecture and whether notes are reviewed.     

The influence of values on school administrator practices

Reprinted from theJournal of Educational Administration and Foundations, 1989, volume 4, number 2. TheJournal is published by Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Canada P7B 5E1.     

Measures of academic motivation: A conceptual review

This review examines the measurement of academic motivation in college students. It distinguishes pencil-and-paper group-administered instruments according to their conceptions of academic motivation: academic motivation taken as a single general motivation, as single specific motivations, or as a complex of motivations. It evaluates these classes of instruments in terms of the interpretability and the utility of the information each type of instrument is likely to provide.     

Remembering Activities Performed Versus Imagined: A Comparison of Children with Mental Retardation and Children with Normal Intelligence

CHILDREN with mental retardation and children with normal intelligence were asked to perform a series of tasks or to only imagine performing them. They were then asked to remember which tasks had been performed and which had been imagined at an immediate interview and after an eight week delay. There were no overall differences between the two groups in the number of correct responses. However, all children gave more correct responses to specific probes than to open‐ended probes and remembered activities performed better than those imagined. Performance was more accurate for both groups at the immediate interview than at the delayed interview. Responses to questions about activities neither performed nor imagined were good for both groups of children to the initial questions but decreased significantly in response to a follow‐up probe. Accuracy of responses to these misleading questions decreased over the eight week delay.     

Exploring the boundaries: A study of multiple classroom learning environments

The study of learning environments has developed into a productive field of research in science education. Initially, the design and application of classroom perceptual measures of particular dimensions of science classrooms attracted much attention. More recently, such instruments have been used alongside of qualitative techniques to provide a richer understanding of sub-environments. We continue this trend in the present interpretive study by exploring the nature of multiple environments within a middle school classroom from the different perspectives of teacher, student and participant observer. In particular, we examine the activity settings of lectures and group work, as well as the issues of learning and assessment. We conclude by arguing that teachers need to adopt procedures that enable them to identify and plan for multiple environments.