A long-needed update: I decided to switch thesis topics in October of 2006 and successfully defended my new thesis in December of 2006. I realized, after many starts and stops, that I wasn't going to be able to finish the research needed to develop a more robust model for cognition within the limitations of time and energy available to me as I saw them. So, I wrote about a subject that was a little more clear-cut: a developmental biology curriculum for secondary-level students centered on researching the zebrafish (Danio rerio). I designed it for the Upward Bound Math-Science program at UMaine in 2003, and realized that analyzing the curriculum along with artifacts of student learning would be a much more "do-able" thesis - and so I did it, wrapping up a long, challenging, and incredibly beneficial graduate school experience.
Since then, I've moved into a new job, serving as the Academic Dean at Foxcroft Academy. The curriculum is standards-based, which I've started to think of in a way that is very compatible with the knowledge-in-pieces-based cognitive modeling I have attempted to apply to the concept of evolution. Although the rigor of the position doesn't give me a lot of time to develop these ideas (at least in this part of my learning curve for the job...), I hope to continue to update this blog from time-to-time as I shift from the micro-analysis of cognition of a specific concept to the macro-analysis of an entire set of secondary-level learning standards.
Stay tuned...