Syllabus

Download a full course syllabus here.

Course Description

Learning about Learning
What is learning? How can we learn more quickly? What happens in our brains when we learn? This course will tackle an experimental investigation of what influences the depth and quality of our learning. We will take a synthetic look at the psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science of learning, reading books such as Benedict Carey’s How We Learn and Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. A major focus of the course will be student-generated, quantitative experiments designed to test ideas about learning. In addition, one of these experiments will incorporate practical probability and statistics. Our course motto will be "It costs very little to find out," that is, we will aim to test ideas by trying them. This course will challenge you to take a more active role in choosing how you go about learning. No specific science or mathematics background beyond algebra is assumed.

Goals:

• For you to experience autonomy and claim ownership over your learning processes. There are the goals that a professor sets for a course, but unless an individual sets their own goals for that course they are less likely to extract as much as they could.
• I would like to give an unintimidating introduction to probability and statistics as tools. There is a wonderful microcosm of learning within the realm of games of chance and the art of forecasting known as Bayes' rule. We will explore these ideas fully.
• I am astounded by how many people feel themselves to be outsiders to science and mathematics. I aim for you to feel empowerment around using scientific approaches to investigate questions and answers in your own lives.
• To reflect on discrepancies between your experience of the utility of an activity and the reflection of that utility in data and vice versa.
• For you to pick up a few tools of use to you in the lifetime practice of learning.