"HONR 101C FYS Minds in Motion Roberts Fall 2024" by Michael Roberts
 

Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

Fall 9-1-2024

Course Description

Humans are amazing learners but obviously have major limitations in how effectively we acquire new knowledge and skills and how competently we apply them to new situations. In this course, we will examine knowledge and skills transfer from a broad variety of perspectives, e.g., what are the most efficient strategies for learning according to cognitive science, to what extent do qualities like curiosity, passion, and critical thinking apply across contexts in our lives, how do cognition and emotion compete and cooperate to produce our decisions and behaviors, can human learning and machine learning be effectively synthesized in a world suffused with AI, and should higher education and work cultures evolve in certain ways to better accommodate human strengths and weaknesses?

Student Outcomes

As we consider ways that our knowledge, ideas, and inclinations transfer across situations, we’ll cover five main (interrelated) topics: (Cognitive) Psychology on Learning: What can empirical studies tell us about learning and memory and how they occur in the brain? Is current AI different from this? Is it complementary? Transfer: Context matters, so what are the opportunities and perils of learning across contexts? How do we learn more effectively and efficiently? How Do We Construct Our Mental World: How do reason, emotions, values, and motivations interact in producing our worldview and behaviors? How can we address unhelpful thought habits? Cognitive Biases and Evaluating Evidence: What are common interpretive biases, and how can we wrestle with those biases in being skeptical information consumers? Conspiracy Theories and Pseudoscience Claims: Why do people’s beliefs become enmeshed in seemingly outrageous claims? How do we intervene?

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