Why people believe weird things, how they form and change opinions, and how we can make better decisions. These are the answers that this course explores: The Science of Everyday Thinking.
This course, on the edX.org platform, went live at the beginning of March. So far– it has attracted over 100,000 people.
From the course-design view, this is a sample of how to capture and hold the interest of thousands of people worldwide.
The approach has been to film unscripted, real conversations with several interesting people across a variety of topics, and to film ‘lecture’ content in different, everyday locations, following a documentary style.
Creators traveled the globe to film conversations with clever people such as Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, Elizabeth Loftus, who pioneered the study of false memories, Ian Frazer who developed a cervical cancer vaccine, and even the creators of MythBusters, about testing claims and distinguishing between fact and fiction.
“We met 22 leading thinkers from across the world and combined hundreds of hours of conversations, demonstrations, and assessment into short, highly polished episodes on how to evaluate claims, learn and remember information better, and ultimately make smarter decisions,” the creators explain.
This is the YouTube Channel where all of the videos are.
