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University of Queensland

The Science of Everyday Thinking

University of Queensland via edX

This course may be unavailable.

Overview

We will explore the psychology of our everyday thinking: why people believe weird things, how we form and change our opinions, why our expectations skew our judgments, and how we can make better decisions. We'll discuss and debate topics such as placebos, the paranormal, medicine, miracles, and more.

You will use the scientific method to evaluate claims, make sense of evidence, and understand why we so often make irrational choices. You will begin to rely on slow, effortful, deliberative, analytic, and logical thinking rather than fast, automatic, instinctive, emotional, and stereotypical thinking.

Taught by

Matthew Thompson and Jason Tangen

Reviews

4.7 rating, based on 47 Class Central reviews

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  • Anonymous
    This course started interesting and some things were forgiven, up until I took a one week break and I returned to it. Then, it started to feel flat. So, here are my thoughts: The Good: - extra material (if you really want to get into details, there…
  • **Beware: This course has the potential to change YOU** When I saw the trailer for his MOOC, it was nothing short of awesome, so I enrolled right away. Today, I am glad I did that. This course is a great example of what MOOCs should be and can be.…
  • I wish I had taken this course earlier when I was a full-time student in college. This made me rethink and change how I study and learn. It turned out that my study habits were not very effective from a psychological point of view. As the word “eve…
  • This MOOC is very well made and deserves its place in the top50 MOOCs all time.
    It has very engaging lectures, a real pleasure to spend your time with.
    The course gently introduces you to illusions, intuition, rationality, the scientific method, learning, extraordinary claims and more. On top of that, you get tips and tricks you can apply on a daily basis.

    If you had a previous bad experience with a MOOC, take this one and you will be hooked again! These guys know how good MOOCs are made.

    Enjoy!
  • Rajiv
    This was my first MOOC and I was blown away by the presentation by the course instructors. This course compels us to rethink about our own thinking, why we do things that we do and how can we improve our thinking and thus enhance our decision making and quality of life. I would strongly recommend everyone to do this course.
  • Giorgi Tetruashvili
    "The Science of Everyday Thinking" course offered by the University of Queensland via edX is an excellent program for anyone interested in exploring the cognitive processes that drive everyday thinking. This course is designed to help individuals un…
  • Profile image for Jan Stajnko
    Jan Stajnko
    This course was seriously one of the best I have taken. Explaining concepts through dialogue and interviews with many different (also high-calibre) thinkers made this course really worthwhile. Would recommend it to anyone.
  • Profile image for Zain Ul Hassan
    Zain Ul Hassan
    THINK101 As the title “the science of everyday thinking” suggests, this course will help you to think more precisely in decision-making using scientific approach even about your health claims, personal beliefs, and personality attributes. Sound kno…
  • Sagar Ladhwani
    The course was quite engaging and the content was really rich! Every week, a specific aspect of thinking was explored with the leading intellectuals of the field and the assignments and tasks were designed to engage the students and the extra mate…
  • Anonymous
    This course is amazing because it gives a lot of important information which I founded extremely helpful in learning .It's also learn you how to learn any material math science or even art . I start to use their techniques which is more effective than the old one I usually use . this course encourage me to learn new field and how to deal with procrastination.Barbara oakley and terrence sejnowski they explain the whole course to make it easy for learners and the course was gorgeous and I told my whole family about this course. and Iadvice all learners to take this course to learn how to learn.
  • Arthur
    The 'instructors' are so young ! but this doesn't mean they didn't teach well. I was surprised that this course isn't taught by someone with lots of PhD. The two instructors use discussions to lead us to every topic,thus, the atmosphere is comfortable! Though I really have a hard time answering the questions and I am sure I can't pass this course, but I really learn a lot about it! So I give five stars!
  • Aleksandra Walus
    Great great course! I was waiting impatiently for the next weeks materials to appear online. If you thing that everyday thinking is a blunt subject you couldn't be further from the truth. Highly recommended, one of the best and most interesting MOOCs I took part in.
  • Profile image for Luis Ribeiro
    Luis Ribeiro
    Great course for anyone interested in becoming a critical thinker.
    The topics were comprehensive and the examples provided very interesting.
    The instructor is knowledgeable and charismatic. A must-do.
  • Anonymous
    I loved this course. It was my first MOOC. The lectures were done in a dialogue style, I found them easy to listen to. The content is very interesting, but also founded in the scientific methods. They were very pro-science, so that's something you should keep in mind.
  • Anonymous
    I do agree that we all think in our everyday life but do you know that most of it are our incorrect intuitiveness and fallacies. This course will take our thinking a step ahead. I highly recommend this course if you love knowing and thinking.
  • Anonymous
    My first online course.I spent about 6hours per day and completed in 10days!!incredible!!I recommend it to everyone who wants to ameliorate their way of thinking
  • Robert Ndungu
    Fantastic course! So much has already been said about the course that I don't have anything substantial to add.

    Great for learning about how a human being's mind works.
  • Drew
    I very much enjoyed taking this course. It was structured in bite-sized pieces, introducing key concepts and then interviewing important researchers in the field. I use pieces from this course everyday as I think about my thinking.

    Highly Recommend this course!
  • Tawanda Veterai
    I think this course will improve my mind for I am slow to think, slow in decision making and also not good at giving judgement. Sometimes I think I need treatment, this will be the best treatment for me. Thank you for this course.
  • Chap
    Sience of thinking is important and very interesting nowadays. People who have thinking skills seem to achieve most when communicating with others. I really want to know different kinds of thinking.

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