The recognition heuristic is a prime example of a boundedly rational mind tool that rests on an evolved capacity, recognition, and exploits environmental structures. When originally proposed, it was conjectured that no other probabilistic cue reverses the recognition-based inference (D. G. Goldstein & G. Gigerenzer, 2002). More recent studies…

A cautionary tale has become something of a cottage industry in the past decade. To be sure, there has been plenty of material for these publications: Bhopal, Chernobyl, "Exxon Valdez," Three Mile Island, and "Challenger" have entered the lexicon as virtual synonyms for "disaster." Cautionary tale scenarios involve a different kind of causality.…

Minimization of the within-cluster sums of squares (WCSS) is one of the most important optimization criteria in cluster analysis. Although cluster analysis modules in commercial software packages typically use heuristic methods for this criterion, optimal approaches can be computationally feasible for problems of modest size. This paper presents a…

Many e-learning applications and games have been studied to identify the common interaction models of constructivist learning, namely: 1. Move the object to appropriate location; 2. Place objects in appropriate order and location(s); 3. Click to identify; 4. Change the variable factors to observe the effects; and 5. System personification and…

This paper reports an interview study of 45 English and 10 Hungarian teachers of mathematics. The semi-structured interviews focused on the teachers' professional life-histories and invited them to discuss their beliefs about the necessary subject content for the teaching and learning of mathematics. Substantial differences emerged between the two…

This paper uses poststructuralist theories of governmentality, agency, consumption and Barry's (2001) concept of Technological Societies, as a heuristic framework to trace the role of online education technologies in the instantiation of subjectification processes within contemporary Australian universities. This case study of the unintended…

N. Stewart, G. D. A. Brown, and N. Chater presented a relative judgment model (RJM) of absolute identification, in which the current stimulus is judged relative to the preceding stimulus. S. Brown, A. A. J. Marley, and Y. Lacouture found that the RJM does not predict their finding of increased accuracy after large stimulus jumps, except at the…

Creative and critical thinking have been traditionally considered as involving independent skills and dispositions. However the definition of critical thinking has been gradually reconsidered to include skills and dispositions through which one opens new links instead of scrutinizing existing links in a closed analysis. Experimental studies have…

In this article I develop heuristic types for understanding how the U.S. evangelical Christian subculture engages the newer science of molecular biology as it works to legitimate and enchant religious worldview: 1.) "symbolic engagement," employing genes and DNA as sacred icon; 2.) "disputatious engagement," debating genetic essentialism and…

Common examples of graphic organizers include flow diagrams, concept maps, and decision trees. The author has created a novel type of graphic organizer called a decision map. A decision map is a directional heuristic that helps learners solve problems within a generic framework. It incorporates questions that the user must answer and contains…

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to synthesize findings from 42 interventions (randomized control trials and quasi-experimental studies) on instructional approaches that enhance the mathematics proficiency of students with learning disabilities. We examined the impact of four categories of instructional components: (a) approaches to…

This guide for teachers is a companion piece to the meta-analysis from the Center on Instruction, "Mathematics Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities or Difficulty Learning Mathematics: A Synthesis of the Intervention Research". Based on the findings of this report, seven effective instructional practices were identified for teaching…

This article discusses a study of three Australian middle-years teachers who deployed Learning by Design principles and practice to support multiliteracies learning through students' production of digital/multimodal texts. The aim of the research was to develop an understanding of how three teachers embraced new e-learning pedagogical designs for…

The American economy has had the fastest and most dramatic development of all the world's major economies. Four hundred years ago, the economic output of the area that became the United States was negligible by world standards. Yet only 250 years later, the U.S. economy had become the largest in the world, surpassing all other countries, including…

Employing Searle's views, I begin by arguing that students of Mathematics behave similarly to machines that manage symbols using a set of rules. I then consider two types of Mathematics, which I call "Cognitive Mathematics" and "Technical Mathematics" respectively. The former type relates to concepts and meanings, logic and sense, whilst the…