Announcements
The Great Shave
Dear Think Againers,
Hi. We hope you are doing well.
Although the great hair challenge was not met in the first offering of Think Again, we thought you might like to know that "The Great Shave" is a video for Week 12 of the second offering of Think Again, currently in its last week. In addition to tons of hair loss, there is a lot of blue. To get access, you might have to register for the second offering, but it is free, of course.
We also wanted you to know that a third offering of Think Again will begin on January 13. For this third offering, the textbook will again be available for free, Spanish and Portuguese translations of the lectures should be available, and more student videos will be incorporated. We try to make it better each time. Please encourage your friends and family to register for Think Again Again Again.
Best wishes,
Walter and Ram
Hi. We hope you are doing well.
Although the great hair challenge was not met in the first offering of Think Again, we thought you might like to know that "The Great Shave" is a video for Week 12 of the second offering of Think Again, currently in its last week. In addition to tons of hair loss, there is a lot of blue. To get access, you might have to register for the second offering, but it is free, of course.
We also wanted you to know that a third offering of Think Again will begin on January 13. For this third offering, the textbook will again be available for free, Spanish and Portuguese translations of the lectures should be available, and more student videos will be incorporated. We try to make it better each time. Please encourage your friends and family to register for Think Again Again Again.
Best wishes,
Walter and Ram
Wed 13 Nov 2013 4:03 PM CET
Think Again Again = Second Offering of Think Again
Dear Courserians,
Hi. We hope that you are all doing well. As you might know, a revised and improved version of Think Again will begin in one month on August 26 on the Coursera website. The textbook will be free during the course this time. Please spread the word to anyone who might be interested in joining the course. Thanks.
Best wishes,
Walter and Ram
Hi. We hope that you are all doing well. As you might know, a revised and improved version of Think Again will begin in one month on August 26 on the Coursera website. The textbook will be free during the course this time. Please spread the word to anyone who might be interested in joining the course. Thanks.
Best wishes,
Walter and Ram
Fri 26 Jul 2013 10:00 PM CEST
Certificates and Survey
Dear Think-Againers,
Hi. Coursera fixed the technical problem, so your Statements of Accomplishment are now available as downloadable pdf files when you log in to Coursera. Click on your name in the upper right corner of the screen to display the drop-down menu and select "Course Records" to access your grade and Statement. Congratulations to all of you who earned a Statement of Accomplishment. You really did accomplish a lot!
In addition, we would like to ask all of you to fill out a short questionnaire about the course. We will use your feedback to revise and improve our course before we offer it again in August. The questionnaire can be found at:
https://duke.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_1FwIL8hNADkSruR
Thanks very much for everything that you did in and for the course.
Best wishes,
Walter and Ram
Hi. Coursera fixed the technical problem, so your Statements of Accomplishment are now available as downloadable pdf files when you log in to Coursera. Click on your name in the upper right corner of the screen to display the drop-down menu and select "Course Records" to access your grade and Statement. Congratulations to all of you who earned a Statement of Accomplishment. You really did accomplish a lot!
In addition, we would like to ask all of you to fill out a short questionnaire about the course. We will use your feedback to revise and improve our course before we offer it again in August. The questionnaire can be found at:
https://duke.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_1FwIL8hNADkSruR
Thanks very much for everything that you did in and for the course.
Best wishes,
Walter and Ram
Fri 29 Mar 2013 7:34 AM CET
Delay in Certificates
Hi. We are sorry, but, because of the large number of students in Think Again, technical problems have delayed the grade calculations and Certificates of Achievement in our course. You will be notified as soon as they are ready, probably in a few days.
Best wishes,
Walter and Ram
Best wishes,
Walter and Ram
Tue 26 Mar 2013 3:44 PM CET
More time to finish!
Greetings!
Congratulations to all of you who have finished Week 12 and the final quiz. You have come a long way and accomplished a great deal in the last 12 weeks. Those who have earned certificates of achievement will received them shortly after the closing date of March 11.
Many students have asked us to leave the videos, exercises, and quizzes active after March 11 so that they can finish the course. How can a teacher turn down such a reasonable request from students who want to do more work and learn more? Your arguments have convinced us. In response to these requests, we have decided to close registration on March 11 so that no new students can join the course after that, but all students who are already registered by March 11 will be able to continue viewing videos, doing exercises, taking quizzes, and participating in discussion forums until July 31. We hope that is enough time for all of you to finish. However, we cannot extend the deadline for certificates, so you still need to finish by March 11 if you want a certificate of achievement.
We are also planning to offer the course again with revisions and improvements based on your feedback. The next offering of Think Again is supposed to start on August 26, 2013. Those of you who did not finish but want to pick up the course again next fall can finish then. Also, please recommend Think Again to friends and family who might be interested. And if they say that they are not interested, tell them that they need to Think Again! :-)
Best wishes to all of you. Thanks for all of your hard work and your contributions to Think Again.
Walter and Ram
Congratulations to all of you who have finished Week 12 and the final quiz. You have come a long way and accomplished a great deal in the last 12 weeks. Those who have earned certificates of achievement will received them shortly after the closing date of March 11.
Many students have asked us to leave the videos, exercises, and quizzes active after March 11 so that they can finish the course. How can a teacher turn down such a reasonable request from students who want to do more work and learn more? Your arguments have convinced us. In response to these requests, we have decided to close registration on March 11 so that no new students can join the course after that, but all students who are already registered by March 11 will be able to continue viewing videos, doing exercises, taking quizzes, and participating in discussion forums until July 31. We hope that is enough time for all of you to finish. However, we cannot extend the deadline for certificates, so you still need to finish by March 11 if you want a certificate of achievement.
We are also planning to offer the course again with revisions and improvements based on your feedback. The next offering of Think Again is supposed to start on August 26, 2013. Those of you who did not finish but want to pick up the course again next fall can finish then. Also, please recommend Think Again to friends and family who might be interested. And if they say that they are not interested, tell them that they need to Think Again! :-)
Best wishes to all of you. Thanks for all of your hard work and your contributions to Think Again.
Walter and Ram
Sun 24 Feb 2013 11:39 PM CET
Quizzes now published, technical issues resolved
Dear Courserians,
Two quick updates:
(1) As many of you have noticed, there were some technical difficulties with some of the videos for Week 12. (For instance, one video is missing a couple of minutes in the middle.) On behalf of the whole Coursera team, we apologize for these glitches. New versions of those videos have now been published for you to download, when you'd like to do so.
(2) The final set of four quizzes for the course have now been published. We hope you enjoy them, and find them instructive.
Keep up the great work!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Two quick updates:
(1) As many of you have noticed, there were some technical difficulties with some of the videos for Week 12. (For instance, one video is missing a couple of minutes in the middle.) On behalf of the whole Coursera team, we apologize for these glitches. New versions of those videos have now been published for you to download, when you'd like to do so.
(2) The final set of four quizzes for the course have now been published. We hope you enjoy them, and find them instructive.
Keep up the great work!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Mon 11 Feb 2013 11:26 PM CET
Welcome to our final week!
Welcome Courserians, to the final week of our course! We are delighted and grateful that so many of you, despite all the demands upon you and all the pressures of your lives, have found the time and the energy to think again about the reasons that guide you and the arguments that you encounter -- and that you have stuck with the course for all twelve weeks!
In this final week of the course, we will be discussing some of the many fascinating arguments that you submitted in the discussion forums. We wish we had time to discuss them all, but we don't. Still, we've tried to discuss as broad a sample as was possible. Whether or not you submitted an argument yourself, we hope that you will watch at least one of the videos this week to see what we have to say about the arguments submitted by your fellow students. And remember: if enough of you watch at least one of the videos this week, then you will get to see another video of Walter's head being shaved. Naturally, if he loses his hair, it will be donated to charity. Moreover, as you'll recall from Week 9, Ram wants to see Walter bald. So please watch a video and bring a friend!
Because our lectures in week 12 are devoted to student arguments, there are no exercises this week, and there will not be any new material that will be covered on the final quiz. Nonetheless, you should watch at least some of the videos for week 12 before attempting the final set of quizzes for the course, since you will find some of those lectures may provide you with useful practice for the quizzes. So the quizzes for Unit 4 will go live early next week. At that point, you will be able to take the final quiz up to 4 times -- and remember, only your best grade will count.
We have decided to lower the cutoff necessary for a certificate of achievement. You will receive a signed certificate if the average of your best grade on each of the four quizzes is at least 60%. You will receive a certificate with distinction if your average is at least 85%. We hope that this looser standard will provide encouragement for more of you to keep trying and, hence, to learn more.
And, as we've said before, all of the videos, exercises, and quizzes for the courses will be available on this site for another five weeks (until March 11, 2013).
Thank you all for taking our course, and for all the collaboration and help. Seeing how much you all have accomplished has made us feel that our effort has been more than worthwhile.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
In this final week of the course, we will be discussing some of the many fascinating arguments that you submitted in the discussion forums. We wish we had time to discuss them all, but we don't. Still, we've tried to discuss as broad a sample as was possible. Whether or not you submitted an argument yourself, we hope that you will watch at least one of the videos this week to see what we have to say about the arguments submitted by your fellow students. And remember: if enough of you watch at least one of the videos this week, then you will get to see another video of Walter's head being shaved. Naturally, if he loses his hair, it will be donated to charity. Moreover, as you'll recall from Week 9, Ram wants to see Walter bald. So please watch a video and bring a friend!
Because our lectures in week 12 are devoted to student arguments, there are no exercises this week, and there will not be any new material that will be covered on the final quiz. Nonetheless, you should watch at least some of the videos for week 12 before attempting the final set of quizzes for the course, since you will find some of those lectures may provide you with useful practice for the quizzes. So the quizzes for Unit 4 will go live early next week. At that point, you will be able to take the final quiz up to 4 times -- and remember, only your best grade will count.
We have decided to lower the cutoff necessary for a certificate of achievement. You will receive a signed certificate if the average of your best grade on each of the four quizzes is at least 60%. You will receive a certificate with distinction if your average is at least 85%. We hope that this looser standard will provide encouragement for more of you to keep trying and, hence, to learn more.
And, as we've said before, all of the videos, exercises, and quizzes for the courses will be available on this site for another five weeks (until March 11, 2013).
Thank you all for taking our course, and for all the collaboration and help. Seeing how much you all have accomplished has made us feel that our effort has been more than worthwhile.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Sat 9 Feb 2013 2:48 AM CET
Technical difficulties resolved
Dear Courserians,
Due to technical difficulties, the lectures for week 11 went live more than a day late. Please be assured, however, that they are now up. Thank you for your patience!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Due to technical difficulties, the lectures for week 11 went live more than a day late. Please be assured, however, that they are now up. Thank you for your patience!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Mon 4 Feb 2013 1:28 AM CET
Welcome to Week 11 of Think Again!
Welcome, curious, constant, and courageous Courserians to the penultimate week of our course! In just one more week, you will get to see our discussion of some of the many wonderful argument submissions that you all posted on the discussion forums.
In week 11, we will discuss some ways to challenge an argument, and some of the problems that can arise when an argument is challenged. We consider refutation by counterexample, refutation by parallel reasoning, reductio ad absurdum, and the infamous straw man. As always, we look forward to your fascinating discussion of our examples on the course forums.
A heartfelt thanks to those of you who have been posting useful and instructive discussions of our topics on the discussion forums: we are gratified to see that you are all learning so much from each other!
Finally, there are no quizzes this week: the quizzes for unit 4 will be given in week 12. As usual, each of this week's lectures is followed by exercises that should help you to test your understanding of the main concept discussed in that lecture.
We hope that you enjoy Week 11!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
In week 11, we will discuss some ways to challenge an argument, and some of the problems that can arise when an argument is challenged. We consider refutation by counterexample, refutation by parallel reasoning, reductio ad absurdum, and the infamous straw man. As always, we look forward to your fascinating discussion of our examples on the course forums.
A heartfelt thanks to those of you who have been posting useful and instructive discussions of our topics on the discussion forums: we are gratified to see that you are all learning so much from each other!
Finally, there are no quizzes this week: the quizzes for unit 4 will be given in week 12. As usual, each of this week's lectures is followed by exercises that should help you to test your understanding of the main concept discussed in that lecture.
We hope that you enjoy Week 11!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Sat 2 Feb 2013 12:28 AM CET
Welcome to Week 10 of Think Again!
Hello Again, from Think Again!
You are now 3/4 of the way through our course! This coming week, we will discuss some common fallacies, including fallacies that result from attacking our opponents or from appealing to authorities or to popular opinion, and fallacies that involve circular or vacuous reasoning. We analyze several examples of such fallacies, and we look forward to your always interesting discussion of our examples on the course forums.
A hearty thanks to those of you who have been posting useful and instructive discussions of these fallacies on the discussion forums: we are pleased to see that you are all learning so much from each other! And we are also learning a great deal from you: we are taking your feedback into account in thinking about how we can improve the course when we offer it again next fall.
Again, there are no quizzes this week: the quizzes for unit 4 will not occur until week 12. Each of this week's lectures is followed by exercises that should help you to test your understanding of the main concept discussed in that lecture.
We hope that you enjoy Week 10!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
You are now 3/4 of the way through our course! This coming week, we will discuss some common fallacies, including fallacies that result from attacking our opponents or from appealing to authorities or to popular opinion, and fallacies that involve circular or vacuous reasoning. We analyze several examples of such fallacies, and we look forward to your always interesting discussion of our examples on the course forums.
A hearty thanks to those of you who have been posting useful and instructive discussions of these fallacies on the discussion forums: we are pleased to see that you are all learning so much from each other! And we are also learning a great deal from you: we are taking your feedback into account in thinking about how we can improve the course when we offer it again next fall.
Again, there are no quizzes this week: the quizzes for unit 4 will not occur until week 12. Each of this week's lectures is followed by exercises that should help you to test your understanding of the main concept discussed in that lecture.
We hope that you enjoy Week 10!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Fri 25 Jan 2013 9:19 PM CET
Welcome to Unit 4 (week 9)
Greetings and salutations, Think-Againers!
Congratulations on having made the journey through the first 8 weeks of this 12 week course! This coming week, we will start the fourth and final unit of our course. Now that you have learned how to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments of various kinds, we will devote this final unit to discussing the errors that most commonly occur when people give arguments. These erroneous arguments are called "fallacies." Our fourth unit is the study of common fallacies.
The course website should now contain the Lectures and Exercises for Week 9. These are mainly about fallacies that result from the misuse of expressions that are vague (or what we'll call "fallacies of vagueness") and also fallacies that result from the misuse of expressions that are ambiguous (or what we'll call "fallacies of ambiguity"). The first lecture of week 9 introduces the topic of vagueness, and shows how the misuse of vague expressions can give rise not merely to fallacies but also to paradoxes – apparently sound arguments for apparently false conclusions. (Of course, as you all know by now, no argument that really is sound can really have a false conclusion, so paradoxes involve a certain kind of illusion: more about that in the first lecture!)
There are no quizzes this week: the quizzes for unit 4 will not occur until after week 11. Each lecture is followed by exercises that should help you to test your understanding of the main concept discussed in that lecture.
Many of you have already submitted wonderful arguments in the "Construct Your Own Arguments" forum. Our heartfelt thanks to all of you for doing this extra, optional work.
Whether or not you have submitted an argument, please go to the "Construct Your Own Arguments" forum and vote up (not down) on your favorite arguments. Please try your best to ignore other votes and to judge arguments by their strength (or validity), structure, and precision rather than by whether you happen to agree with the conclusion. We will consider student votes in deciding which arguments to discuss in the lectures in Week 12, but we will also seek to include a variety of topics and argument forms.
We hope that you enjoy Week 9.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Congratulations on having made the journey through the first 8 weeks of this 12 week course! This coming week, we will start the fourth and final unit of our course. Now that you have learned how to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments of various kinds, we will devote this final unit to discussing the errors that most commonly occur when people give arguments. These erroneous arguments are called "fallacies." Our fourth unit is the study of common fallacies.
The course website should now contain the Lectures and Exercises for Week 9. These are mainly about fallacies that result from the misuse of expressions that are vague (or what we'll call "fallacies of vagueness") and also fallacies that result from the misuse of expressions that are ambiguous (or what we'll call "fallacies of ambiguity"). The first lecture of week 9 introduces the topic of vagueness, and shows how the misuse of vague expressions can give rise not merely to fallacies but also to paradoxes – apparently sound arguments for apparently false conclusions. (Of course, as you all know by now, no argument that really is sound can really have a false conclusion, so paradoxes involve a certain kind of illusion: more about that in the first lecture!)
There are no quizzes this week: the quizzes for unit 4 will not occur until after week 11. Each lecture is followed by exercises that should help you to test your understanding of the main concept discussed in that lecture.
Many of you have already submitted wonderful arguments in the "Construct Your Own Arguments" forum. Our heartfelt thanks to all of you for doing this extra, optional work.
Whether or not you have submitted an argument, please go to the "Construct Your Own Arguments" forum and vote up (not down) on your favorite arguments. Please try your best to ignore other votes and to judge arguments by their strength (or validity), structure, and precision rather than by whether you happen to agree with the conclusion. We will consider student votes in deciding which arguments to discuss in the lectures in Week 12, but we will also seek to include a variety of topics and argument forms.
We hope that you enjoy Week 9.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Fri 18 Jan 2013 8:53 PM CET
Welcome to Week 8
Greetings, yet again, Think-Againers!
The course website should now contain the Lectures and Exercises for Week 8. They introduce you to Chances and Choices — in other words, probability and decision making. We suspect that many of you have been wondering how to measure inductive strength, and probability will help with that. Probability is also useful in deciding what to believe and what to do, as you will see. Week 8 begins with a few words on why we need to study probability and on what probability is. Then the bulk of the week explains some rules for calculating simple probabilities. More complex probabilities are addressed in the lecture on Bayes' Theorem, but that honors lecture is optional and will not be on the quiz. The final two lectures apply probability to decisions, including gambles. If you want more examples or more detailed discussions of any of these aspects of chance and choice, we recommend that you read Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, Chapters 11-12. As always, this reading is not required, but it might be helpful.
The third quiz is also available this week. We put up four versions, but you do not have to take them all, of course. We wanted to give you several opportunities to practice, and only your best grade counts. Remember that there are no deadlines before the end of the course. If you are falling behind in the course, don't worry — just try to catch up when you can. We realize that you are all busy.
Many of you have already submitted wonderful arguments in the "Construct Your Own Arguments" forum. Thanks to all of you for doing this extra, optional work. As you know, the deadline for submissions is 11:59 pm Eastern US time tonight (though we will give some leeway for video arguments). Those of you who have already submitted arguments, please check on whether you want to revise your argument in light of comments by other students. Be sure to tag your final version with "FINAL VERSION" in all CAPS so that we can find it more easily.
If you have not yet submitted your argument, but you want to, then get going! Your argument may be up to 100 words or 1 minute of video, may be on any topic, and should be respectful, sincere, explicit, and as clear as possible.
Whether or not you submit an argument, please go to the "Construct Your Own Arguments" forum and vote up (not down) on your favorite arguments. Please try your best to ignore other votes and to judge arguments by their strength (or validity), structure, and precision rather than by whether you happen to agree with the conclusion. We will consider student votes in deciding which arguments to discuss in the lectures in Week 12, but we will also seek to include a variety of topics and argument forms.
We hope that you enjoy Week 8.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
The course website should now contain the Lectures and Exercises for Week 8. They introduce you to Chances and Choices — in other words, probability and decision making. We suspect that many of you have been wondering how to measure inductive strength, and probability will help with that. Probability is also useful in deciding what to believe and what to do, as you will see. Week 8 begins with a few words on why we need to study probability and on what probability is. Then the bulk of the week explains some rules for calculating simple probabilities. More complex probabilities are addressed in the lecture on Bayes' Theorem, but that honors lecture is optional and will not be on the quiz. The final two lectures apply probability to decisions, including gambles. If you want more examples or more detailed discussions of any of these aspects of chance and choice, we recommend that you read Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, Chapters 11-12. As always, this reading is not required, but it might be helpful.
The third quiz is also available this week. We put up four versions, but you do not have to take them all, of course. We wanted to give you several opportunities to practice, and only your best grade counts. Remember that there are no deadlines before the end of the course. If you are falling behind in the course, don't worry — just try to catch up when you can. We realize that you are all busy.
Many of you have already submitted wonderful arguments in the "Construct Your Own Arguments" forum. Thanks to all of you for doing this extra, optional work. As you know, the deadline for submissions is 11:59 pm Eastern US time tonight (though we will give some leeway for video arguments). Those of you who have already submitted arguments, please check on whether you want to revise your argument in light of comments by other students. Be sure to tag your final version with "FINAL VERSION" in all CAPS so that we can find it more easily.
If you have not yet submitted your argument, but you want to, then get going! Your argument may be up to 100 words or 1 minute of video, may be on any topic, and should be respectful, sincere, explicit, and as clear as possible.
Whether or not you submit an argument, please go to the "Construct Your Own Arguments" forum and vote up (not down) on your favorite arguments. Please try your best to ignore other votes and to judge arguments by their strength (or validity), structure, and precision rather than by whether you happen to agree with the conclusion. We will consider student votes in deciding which arguments to discuss in the lectures in Week 12, but we will also seek to include a variety of topics and argument forms.
We hope that you enjoy Week 8.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Sat 12 Jan 2013 1:03 AM CET
Student Stars!
Hello, Courserians. Let me begin by congratulating our student television star, Tracy Lippincott. She and other students who were not named did a magnificent job discussing Think Again yesterday evening on the PBS Newshour, a major news show in the US. If you missed it, check out: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june13/online_01-08.html
Don't miss your chance to become an international web star yourself by submitting your own argument (up to 100 words or 1 minute of video). To post a video argument, simply (a) record your argument, spoken clearly, (b) upload the video to YouTube at this link: www.youtube.com/my_videos_upload (requires Google account), and (c) post a link to the video in a new thread in the "Construct Your Own Argument" forum. Remember to make your argument as clear and explicit as possible so that your audience can tell precisely what your premises and conclusion are.
Many students have already posted their arguments in that forum, and other students are commenting constructively. Thanks. When you go there to vote for your favorites, please try your best to ignore the votes of others while you form your own opinion. Also, we hope that you will judge arguments by their structure, strength (or validity), interest, and originality rather than by whether you happen to agree with the conclusion.
Because other students are making such helpful suggestions, we decided to allow students to revise their arguments in light of comments in the forum. Just post your final version in the same thread as your original argument and be sure to tag it with "FINAL VERSION" in all CAPS. Your final version should be submitted by the deadline of Friday, January 11, at 11:59 pm Eastern US time, though we will allow some leeway for video arguments, because those take more time to construct.
After your submissions and voting, we will choose which arguments to show and discuss in the lectures of Week 12. Our choice will be based not only on quality but also on our desire for a distribution among topics and kinds of argument.
We are grateful for all of your hard work in Think Again.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Don't miss your chance to become an international web star yourself by submitting your own argument (up to 100 words or 1 minute of video). To post a video argument, simply (a) record your argument, spoken clearly, (b) upload the video to YouTube at this link: www.youtube.com/my_videos_upload
Many students have already posted their arguments in that forum, and other students are commenting constructively. Thanks. When you go there to vote for your favorites, please try your best to ignore the votes of others while you form your own opinion. Also, we hope that you will judge arguments by their structure, strength (or validity), interest, and originality rather than by whether you happen to agree with the conclusion.
Because other students are making such helpful suggestions, we decided to allow students to revise their arguments in light of comments in the forum. Just post your final version in the same thread as your original argument and be sure to tag it with "FINAL VERSION" in all CAPS. Your final version should be submitted by the deadline of Friday, January 11, at 11:59 pm Eastern US time, though we will allow some leeway for video arguments, because those take more time to construct.
After your submissions and voting, we will choose which arguments to show and discuss in the lectures of Week 12. Our choice will be based not only on quality but also on our desire for a distribution among topics and kinds of argument.
We are grateful for all of your hard work in Think Again.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Wed 9 Jan 2013 2:58 PM CET
Welcome to Week 7
Greetings, Think-Againers!
The Lectures and Exercises for Week 7 are now available on the website. This week's topic is Causal Reasoning. You will learn how to distinguish sufficient conditions from necessary conditions and then how to use data to test hypotheses about which events are sufficient or necessary for which other events. Finally, you will learn how to distinguish correlation from causation. It is sad that some diners had to die to make this lesson possible, as you will see. :-( If you want more examples or more detailed discussions of causal reasoning, we recommend that you read Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, Chapter 9. As always, this reading is not required, but it might be helpful.
As we mentioned in a previous announcement, we have added a new optional and ungraded feature to our course. Each of you may submit one (and only one) argument on a topic of your choice in the form of either a video of up to one minute or a written argument of up to 100 words. You should feel free to include your name and country, but that is not required. Your arguments should be respectful, sincere, explicit, and as clear as possible. If you submit your argument as a video, please provide a written transcript in order to speed up the process. After the arguments are submitted, all students may vote up (not down) on arguments submitted by other students. Then we will select a few of the best examples and comment on them in the lectures for Week 12. Within a few days, we will set up a new discussion forum where you can submit your arguments, starting a separate thread for each argument. In order to incorporate your work into Week 12, you will need to submit your videoed or written arguments by one week from now—11:59 pm Eastern US time on Friday, January 11, 2013 (though we might be able to consider some arguments that are submitted not too long after this deadline). The point is not to criticize or expose mistakes, but instead to collect some of the best examples of different forms of arguments by you as models for other students to emulate.
We hope that you have fun and learn a lot in Week 7. Keep up the good work!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
The Lectures and Exercises for Week 7 are now available on the website. This week's topic is Causal Reasoning. You will learn how to distinguish sufficient conditions from necessary conditions and then how to use data to test hypotheses about which events are sufficient or necessary for which other events. Finally, you will learn how to distinguish correlation from causation. It is sad that some diners had to die to make this lesson possible, as you will see. :-( If you want more examples or more detailed discussions of causal reasoning, we recommend that you read Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, Chapter 9. As always, this reading is not required, but it might be helpful.
As we mentioned in a previous announcement, we have added a new optional and ungraded feature to our course. Each of you may submit one (and only one) argument on a topic of your choice in the form of either a video of up to one minute or a written argument of up to 100 words. You should feel free to include your name and country, but that is not required. Your arguments should be respectful, sincere, explicit, and as clear as possible. If you submit your argument as a video, please provide a written transcript in order to speed up the process. After the arguments are submitted, all students may vote up (not down) on arguments submitted by other students. Then we will select a few of the best examples and comment on them in the lectures for Week 12. Within a few days, we will set up a new discussion forum where you can submit your arguments, starting a separate thread for each argument. In order to incorporate your work into Week 12, you will need to submit your videoed or written arguments by one week from now—11:59 pm Eastern US time on Friday, January 11, 2013 (though we might be able to consider some arguments that are submitted not too long after this deadline). The point is not to criticize or expose mistakes, but instead to collect some of the best examples of different forms of arguments by you as models for other students to emulate.
We hope that you have fun and learn a lot in Week 7. Keep up the good work!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Sat 5 Jan 2013 1:11 PM CET
Construct Your Own Arguments
Hello, Think Againers! You have all been doing such a great job analyzing and evaluating arguments that we want to give you a chance to construct arguments of your own on topics that you choose. This exercise is optional and will not be graded, but we hope that many of you will participate in this experiment.
Each of you may submit one (and only one) argument in the form of either a video of no more than one minute or a written argument of no more than 100 words. You should feel free to tell us your name and country in the video (but this introduction will count towards the one minute, though not towards the 100 words). You may argue for whatever conclusion you want on whatever topic you want, but your arguments should be respectful, sincere, and as clear as possible. Please try to make your premises and conclusions explicit and precise. Those who submit arguments in video should also provide a written transcript of what they say in order to make the process go as smoothly and as quickly as possible.
As soon as your arguments are submitted, we will give other students a chance to vote up (not down) on the arguments that they like. Then we will pick a few of the best arguments to show and analyze in the video lectures during Week 12 — the final week of Think Again. In order to incorporate your work into Week 12, you will need to submit your videoed or written arguments by 11:59 pm Eastern US time on Friday, January 11, 2013 (though we might be able to consider some arguments that are submitted not too long after this deadline). All students will then have until Friday, January 18, 2013, to vote on other students' arguments. After that, we will choose some arguments to comment on in Week 12. The point is not to criticize or expose mistakes, but instead to collect some of the best examples of different forms of arguments as models for other students to emulate. The lectures with comments on the chosen arguments will then be captioned and posted along with the other videos for Week 12 on Friday February 8.
Within a week, we will send you technical details about how to post your arguments (probably in a new discussion forum with a separate thread for each submitted argument). For now, we just wanted to alert you to this plan so that you can start thinking about which argument you might want to submit. Our hope is that this exercise will be fun and instructive for us all.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Each of you may submit one (and only one) argument in the form of either a video of no more than one minute or a written argument of no more than 100 words. You should feel free to tell us your name and country in the video (but this introduction will count towards the one minute, though not towards the 100 words). You may argue for whatever conclusion you want on whatever topic you want, but your arguments should be respectful, sincere, and as clear as possible. Please try to make your premises and conclusions explicit and precise. Those who submit arguments in video should also provide a written transcript of what they say in order to make the process go as smoothly and as quickly as possible.
As soon as your arguments are submitted, we will give other students a chance to vote up (not down) on the arguments that they like. Then we will pick a few of the best arguments to show and analyze in the video lectures during Week 12 — the final week of Think Again. In order to incorporate your work into Week 12, you will need to submit your videoed or written arguments by 11:59 pm Eastern US time on Friday, January 11, 2013 (though we might be able to consider some arguments that are submitted not too long after this deadline). All students will then have until Friday, January 18, 2013, to vote on other students' arguments. After that, we will choose some arguments to comment on in Week 12. The point is not to criticize or expose mistakes, but instead to collect some of the best examples of different forms of arguments as models for other students to emulate. The lectures with comments on the chosen arguments will then be captioned and posted along with the other videos for Week 12 on Friday February 8.
Within a week, we will send you technical details about how to post your arguments (probably in a new discussion forum with a separate thread for each submitted argument). For now, we just wanted to alert you to this plan so that you can start thinking about which argument you might want to submit. Our hope is that this exercise will be fun and instructive for us all.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Wed 2 Jan 2013 6:28 PM CET
Announcement concerning quizzes and typos
Greetings, Intrepid Courserians!
Now that we have moved on to the unit on inductive arguments, you should have taken one (or more) of the second set of quizzes for week five. These quizzes, like the last, and like the quizzes for Week 8, will count towards your final grade on the course. Unfortunately, these quizzes contain a couple of typographical errors; we want to offer our heartfelt thanks to those of you who have pointed these out to us! It is because of your help, among other things, that we will be able to improve this course very significantly the next time we offer it.
At this time, the quizzes cannot be edited without deleting anyone's scores, though they will be corrected for future students who enroll in Think Again. If your score was aversely affected by a typographical error, don't panic. These errors, along with your discussions about them, are being monitored and recorded by our staff. At the end of the course, any quiz scores that were aversely affected by genuine errors will be corrected. In the meantime, enjoy the lectures and exercises for Week 6, which concern inductive arguments!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Now that we have moved on to the unit on inductive arguments, you should have taken one (or more) of the second set of quizzes for week five. These quizzes, like the last, and like the quizzes for Week 8, will count towards your final grade on the course. Unfortunately, these quizzes contain a couple of typographical errors; we want to offer our heartfelt thanks to those of you who have pointed these out to us! It is because of your help, among other things, that we will be able to improve this course very significantly the next time we offer it.
At this time, the quizzes cannot be edited without deleting anyone's scores, though they will be corrected for future students who enroll in Think Again. If your score was aversely affected by a typographical error, don't panic. These errors, along with your discussions about them, are being monitored and recorded by our staff. At the end of the course, any quiz scores that were aversely affected by genuine errors will be corrected. In the meantime, enjoy the lectures and exercises for Week 6, which concern inductive arguments!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Wed 2 Jan 2013 5:01 AM CET
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
The new year has come for some of you, but not for others, because our students are all around the world. (Notice the discounting term and the argument marker!) Anyway, I wanted to wish you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR! Thanks for all of your hard work in Think Again.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Tue 1 Jan 2013 12:57 AM CET
Welcome to Week 6
Great to see you again, Courserians! You are almost ready for Week 6 of Think Again, which will go live within an hour. We continue to be extremely pleased with how much you have been helping each other in the discussion forums. In particular, we would like to thank Marloes van Baren, Marian Lenehan, Carol Spencer, Joe Lubich, and Michael Poelman for their very constructive contributions to these forums. You have all provided us with a great deal of help in thinking about how we can improve this course when we offer it again.
In Weeks 4-5, you have been studying formal deductive logic with Ram. In Weeks 6-8, Walter will work with you on evaluating inductive arguments. Week 6 begins with an explanation of the differences between deductive and inductive arguments. Then we turn to four main types of inductive arguments: generalizations from samples, applications of generalizations to particular cases, inferences to the best explanation, and arguments from analogy. Some of the lectures this week are a bit experimental (and perhaps weird!), as you will see. We hope you enjoy them.
If you want more examples or more detailed discussions of these kinds of inductive arguments, we recommend that you read Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, Chapters 8 and 10. As always, this reading is not required, but it might be helpful.
That's it for now. Enjoy Week 6. Keep up the good work!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
In Weeks 4-5, you have been studying formal deductive logic with Ram. In Weeks 6-8, Walter will work with you on evaluating inductive arguments. Week 6 begins with an explanation of the differences between deductive and inductive arguments. Then we turn to four main types of inductive arguments: generalizations from samples, applications of generalizations to particular cases, inferences to the best explanation, and arguments from analogy. Some of the lectures this week are a bit experimental (and perhaps weird!), as you will see. We hope you enjoy them.
If you want more examples or more detailed discussions of these kinds of inductive arguments, we recommend that you read Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, Chapters 8 and 10. As always, this reading is not required, but it might be helpful.
That's it for now. Enjoy Week 6. Keep up the good work!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Sat 29 Dec 2012 2:33 AM CET
Welcome to Week 5 of Think Again!
Greetings Courserians! You are finished with the first four weeks of our course, and about to start week 5. This is the second week of Unit 2 -- the unit in which we learn the rules for evaluating deductive arguments for validity. In week 4, we learned the rules for evaluating the validity of deductive arguments that use truth-functional connectives. In week 5, we will learn the rules for evaluating the validity of deductive arguments that use statements about the relations between various categories.
We are impressed at the amount of help that you've been offering each other on the discussion forums, and also at the amount of help that you've been offering us -- the instructors -- in pinpointing typos, unclarities, and other errors in our assignments or our videos. We are trying to make improvements and adjustments in response to your comments, and we also hope and expect that this course will be greatly improved in the future as a result of all your helpful feedback. So thank you!
You will notice that there are far fewer lectures for week 5 than for previous weeks. There is a reason for this. What we are trying to do in unit 2 of this course is to teach you about some important tools for evaluating the validity of arguments: truth-tables and Venn diagrams. Mastering these tools requires lots of practice using these tools -- and using them in situations that are not exactly identical to the situations that we discussed in the lectures. Therefore, week 5 includes lots of ungraded practice exercises, as well as lots of quizzes. Both the exercises and the quizzes test your mastery of these tools by asking you to apply them in new ways. For instance, in each quiz we invent a new expression and then we give you information about the truth-table or the Venn diagram for that expression: your job is to figure out, from the truth-table or the Venn diagram that we give you for that invented expression, how to evaluate the validity of the arguments that use that expression.
There are four graded quizzes at the end of week 5. Now, if you don't have time to take four quizzes, don't worry: we know that many of you are very busy, and you do not need to take all four quizzes. If you take the first quiz and do well enough on it, then you don't need to take any of the three other quizzes. But if you'd like to improve your quiz score -- or if you'd simply like more practice applying the lessons of Unit 2 -- then please take the next quiz. And you may also wish to take the one after that, and the one after that. You have the option of taking all four quizzes, and if you take that option, you will end up learning the material in Unit 2 very thoroughly indeed. But, again, if you're too busy to take all four quizzes, that's fine too.
Also, if you'd like to read something that will help you to grasp the material that we'll be discussing this week, look at chapter 7 of "Understanding Arguments", Eighth Edition (edited by Sinnott-Armstrong and Fogelin).
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
We are impressed at the amount of help that you've been offering each other on the discussion forums, and also at the amount of help that you've been offering us -- the instructors -- in pinpointing typos, unclarities, and other errors in our assignments or our videos. We are trying to make improvements and adjustments in response to your comments, and we also hope and expect that this course will be greatly improved in the future as a result of all your helpful feedback. So thank you!
You will notice that there are far fewer lectures for week 5 than for previous weeks. There is a reason for this. What we are trying to do in unit 2 of this course is to teach you about some important tools for evaluating the validity of arguments: truth-tables and Venn diagrams. Mastering these tools requires lots of practice using these tools -- and using them in situations that are not exactly identical to the situations that we discussed in the lectures. Therefore, week 5 includes lots of ungraded practice exercises, as well as lots of quizzes. Both the exercises and the quizzes test your mastery of these tools by asking you to apply them in new ways. For instance, in each quiz we invent a new expression and then we give you information about the truth-table or the Venn diagram for that expression: your job is to figure out, from the truth-table or the Venn diagram that we give you for that invented expression, how to evaluate the validity of the arguments that use that expression.
There are four graded quizzes at the end of week 5. Now, if you don't have time to take four quizzes, don't worry: we know that many of you are very busy, and you do not need to take all four quizzes. If you take the first quiz and do well enough on it, then you don't need to take any of the three other quizzes. But if you'd like to improve your quiz score -- or if you'd simply like more practice applying the lessons of Unit 2 -- then please take the next quiz. And you may also wish to take the one after that, and the one after that. You have the option of taking all four quizzes, and if you take that option, you will end up learning the material in Unit 2 very thoroughly indeed. But, again, if you're too busy to take all four quizzes, that's fine too.
Also, if you'd like to read something that will help you to grasp the material that we'll be discussing this week, look at chapter 7 of "Understanding Arguments", Eighth Edition (edited by Sinnott-Armstrong and Fogelin).
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Fri 21 Dec 2012 9:27 PM CET
Welcome to Unit 2 (Week 4)!
Congratulations, Courserians! You are finished with the first of our course's four units, and about to start the second. Thank you all for helping each other out so much in the discussion forums.
Now that you've learned how to identify, analyze, and reconstruct arguments, you are ready for Unit 2 of the course, which will cover weeks 4 and 5. In this unit, we learn how to evaluate arguments for validity. In particular, we will learn some rules of valid argument.
We will begin in week 4 by learning about phrases like "and", "or", "if", and "not", and how these phrases can work as "truth-functional connectives". Wondering what all this means, and what it has to do with rules of valid argument? Check out the next lecture to find out!
Also, if you'd like to read something that will help you to grasp the material that we'll be discussing this week, look at chapter 6 of "Understanding Arguments", Eighth Edition (edited by Sinnott-Armstrong and Fogelin).
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Now that you've learned how to identify, analyze, and reconstruct arguments, you are ready for Unit 2 of the course, which will cover weeks 4 and 5. In this unit, we learn how to evaluate arguments for validity. In particular, we will learn some rules of valid argument.
We will begin in week 4 by learning about phrases like "and", "or", "if", and "not", and how these phrases can work as "truth-functional connectives". Wondering what all this means, and what it has to do with rules of valid argument? Check out the next lecture to find out!
Also, if you'd like to read something that will help you to grasp the material that we'll be discussing this week, look at chapter 6 of "Understanding Arguments", Eighth Edition (edited by Sinnott-Armstrong and Fogelin).
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Sat 15 Dec 2012 4:57 AM CET
Welcome to Week 3 of Think Again
Congratulations, Courserians! You are almost ready for Week 3 of Think Again, which will go live within an hour. We hope that you are enjoying and learning from the Lectures, Exercises, and Discussion Forums, including the new Google+ Hangouts. Thanks again for being so helpful to other students in the forums.
After identifying and analyzing arguments in Weeks 1-2, Week 3 will explain how to reconstruct an argument. The lectures begin by explaining validity and soundness as standards for deductive arguments. Then you will learn how to organize the parts of an argument in order to show how they fit into a structure of reasoning. The goal is to make an argument look as good as possible so that you can learn from it. At the end of this week, we will reconstruct one example in detail.
If you want more examples or more detailed explanations of reconstruction and related methods, then we recommend that you read Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, Chapter 5. As always, this reading is not required. In case you do want to read this supplemental material, we posted links to websites in the Course Material Feedback Forum at https://class.coursera.org/thinkagain-2012-001/forum/thread?thread_id=230. We are still negotiating hard with the book publisher to try to get a reduced price and longer rental times for Coursera students, and we will let you know as soon as they succumb to our very strong arguments.
This week includes your first quiz. It comes in two versions. You may choose which version to take first. After you take the first version, you will receive answers and explanations. This feedback should help you decide whether you want to take the second version, and it should also help you do better on the second version, if you do take it. Only your best grade will count towards the Statement of Accomplishment, so you might not need to take the second version of the quiz if you do well enough on the first version. That is up to you, but we do hope that both quizzes will be an additional learning experience. It would be best if you could take this quiz within a week or two, while this material is still fresh in your mind and before you go on to the new topics in future weeks. However, we will leave the quiz up until two weeks after the course ends so that you will be able to take it later if you have to put it off.
As you know, we restructured the discussion forums in Week 2. If you have suggestions regarding better ways to structure the forums, we would appreciate hearing from you in the Forum Organization Feedback Forum in the Course Material Feedback Forum at https://class.coursera.org/thinkagain-2012-001/forum/thread?thread_id=1923
That's it for now. Enjoy Week 3. Keep up the good work!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
After identifying and analyzing arguments in Weeks 1-2, Week 3 will explain how to reconstruct an argument. The lectures begin by explaining validity and soundness as standards for deductive arguments. Then you will learn how to organize the parts of an argument in order to show how they fit into a structure of reasoning. The goal is to make an argument look as good as possible so that you can learn from it. At the end of this week, we will reconstruct one example in detail.
If you want more examples or more detailed explanations of reconstruction and related methods, then we recommend that you read Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, Chapter 5. As always, this reading is not required. In case you do want to read this supplemental material, we posted links to websites in the Course Material Feedback Forum at https://class.coursera.org/thinkagain-2012-001/forum/thread?thread_id=230. We are still negotiating hard with the book publisher to try to get a reduced price and longer rental times for Coursera students, and we will let you know as soon as they succumb to our very strong arguments.
This week includes your first quiz. It comes in two versions. You may choose which version to take first. After you take the first version, you will receive answers and explanations. This feedback should help you decide whether you want to take the second version, and it should also help you do better on the second version, if you do take it. Only your best grade will count towards the Statement of Accomplishment, so you might not need to take the second version of the quiz if you do well enough on the first version. That is up to you, but we do hope that both quizzes will be an additional learning experience. It would be best if you could take this quiz within a week or two, while this material is still fresh in your mind and before you go on to the new topics in future weeks. However, we will leave the quiz up until two weeks after the course ends so that you will be able to take it later if you have to put it off.
As you know, we restructured the discussion forums in Week 2. If you have suggestions regarding better ways to structure the forums, we would appreciate hearing from you in the Forum Organization Feedback Forum in the Course Material Feedback Forum at https://class.coursera.org/thinkagain-2012-001/forum/thread?thread_id=1923
That's it for now. Enjoy Week 3. Keep up the good work!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Fri 7 Dec 2012 10:37 PM CET
Two News Items
Dear Think Againers,
We are very happy to announce that the Google+ Hangouts feature of our course is now live. Yeah!!! To hang out, just go to the homepage for the course and click either on the link to Google+ Hangouts in the top right corner or on the new link on the left side. Please use these video hangouts to discuss the course or just meet (and now see!) your classmates.
Next, the hairy challenge is on! I (Walter) promised to shave my head and post the video if "at least one third of students who began the class also complete it." At the end of exactly one week of the course, the total number of active users during that week was recorded at a whopping 86,050. I believe that this is a new record both for the highest total active users and possibly also for the highest activity percentage among registered users (then 171,719) in Coursera history. (Notice the guarding terms!) One third of 86,050 is 28,683, so that is now the magic number. If that many of you complete the course, then I will shave my head and post the video. Indeed, I will shave it if you even come close enough! But we might have to argue about what counts as close enough, of course. So, keep up the good work.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
We are very happy to announce that the Google+ Hangouts feature of our course is now live. Yeah!!! To hang out, just go to the homepage for the course and click either on the link to Google+ Hangouts in the top right corner or on the new link on the left side. Please use these video hangouts to discuss the course or just meet (and now see!) your classmates.
Next, the hairy challenge is on! I (Walter) promised to shave my head and post the video if "at least one third of students who began the class also complete it." At the end of exactly one week of the course, the total number of active users during that week was recorded at a whopping 86,050. I believe that this is a new record both for the highest total active users and possibly also for the highest activity percentage among registered users (then 171,719) in Coursera history. (Notice the guarding terms!) One third of 86,050 is 28,683, so that is now the magic number. If that many of you complete the course, then I will shave my head and post the video. Indeed, I will shave it if you even come close enough! But we might have to argue about what counts as close enough, of course. So, keep up the good work.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Tue 4 Dec 2012 2:16 AM CET
Welcome to Week 2
Hello, Courserians! I hope you are enjoying Think Again. You are all doing a magnificent job on the exercises and in the forums. I LOVE the way you are all helping each other figure out arguments. Thanks for being so cooperative.
We know that some of you appreciate the flexibility of having no hard deadlines, but others might benefit from more structure, and some guidelines also might facilitate social interactions. With that in mind, we recommend that you try your best to finish the lectures, exercises, and quizzes for each week within two weeks after they first go live. That way, you will never get too far behind, and the discussion forum for the week that you are studying will still be active when you have questions. This pace is not required, but it will be helpful to stay on schedule.
In the forums, some of you have asked to have the lectures and exercises posted earlier than Monday mornings at 9:00 am East Coast US time, so that you can view them and do exercises over the weekend. In response to your requests, we will post the lectures and exercises for Week 2 at 3:00 p.m. East Coast US time today (Friday 11/30). That is about 2 hours from now. Of course, if you want to wait until after the weekend to start work on Week 2, that is fine. In future weeks, we will also try to post the videos and exercises some time on Friday afternoon.
Some of you have also suggested that we provide more structure to the discussion forums to reduce duplicate threads and to facilitate mored focused discussions. We will not change the Week 1 lecture forums, since that would be confusing at this point, but we will try a new structure for Week 2 under the Video Lectures forum. Each Lecture/Exercise pair will have a devoted forum.
I am working hard with the book publisher to produce a version of the recommended textbook for those of you who are having trouble getting it. The main barrier is getting legal permission to distribute some of the readings electronically worldwide. To get around these barriers, we will probably need to delete a few materials, but the main text will not be affected much. The publisher tells me that a special version will become available next week, probably by Wednesday. I will send links as soon as I can.
Please continue to let us know how we are doing. Your suggestions for improvements are welcome. The best place to do this is in the Course Material Feedback or Technical Feedback forums.
In the forum on "Study Groups", we have listed two special meetings: (1) I (Walter) will visit San Juan, Puerto Rico, this weekend, and I would be happy to meet with any of you to discuss the course or life in general. (2) Lynne O'Brien, who is coordinating Duke's Coursera projects, will be in Tokyo next week, and she would love to meet with anyone taking a Duke Coursera course to get feedback on current courses and to hear ideas for future courses. If you are interested in attending either of these meetings, you can find details in a thread of the Study Group forum. Please go there to sign up if you want.
As mentioned in previous announcements, the pilot program for Google+ Hangouts will start this week. I will send details when they become available.
In case you are wondering, we now have over 170,000 students in the class! There is still room for more.
That's it for now. Enjoy Week 2. Keep up the good work!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
We know that some of you appreciate the flexibility of having no hard deadlines, but others might benefit from more structure, and some guidelines also might facilitate social interactions. With that in mind, we recommend that you try your best to finish the lectures, exercises, and quizzes for each week within two weeks after they first go live. That way, you will never get too far behind, and the discussion forum for the week that you are studying will still be active when you have questions. This pace is not required, but it will be helpful to stay on schedule.
In the forums, some of you have asked to have the lectures and exercises posted earlier than Monday mornings at 9:00 am East Coast US time, so that you can view them and do exercises over the weekend. In response to your requests, we will post the lectures and exercises for Week 2 at 3:00 p.m. East Coast US time today (Friday 11/30). That is about 2 hours from now. Of course, if you want to wait until after the weekend to start work on Week 2, that is fine. In future weeks, we will also try to post the videos and exercises some time on Friday afternoon.
Some of you have also suggested that we provide more structure to the discussion forums to reduce duplicate threads and to facilitate mored focused discussions. We will not change the Week 1 lecture forums, since that would be confusing at this point, but we will try a new structure for Week 2 under the Video Lectures forum. Each Lecture/Exercise pair will have a devoted forum.
I am working hard with the book publisher to produce a version of the recommended textbook for those of you who are having trouble getting it. The main barrier is getting legal permission to distribute some of the readings electronically worldwide. To get around these barriers, we will probably need to delete a few materials, but the main text will not be affected much. The publisher tells me that a special version will become available next week, probably by Wednesday. I will send links as soon as I can.
Please continue to let us know how we are doing. Your suggestions for improvements are welcome. The best place to do this is in the Course Material Feedback or Technical Feedback forums.
In the forum on "Study Groups", we have listed two special meetings: (1) I (Walter) will visit San Juan, Puerto Rico, this weekend, and I would be happy to meet with any of you to discuss the course or life in general. (2) Lynne O'Brien, who is coordinating Duke's Coursera projects, will be in Tokyo next week, and she would love to meet with anyone taking a Duke Coursera course to get feedback on current courses and to hear ideas for future courses. If you are interested in attending either of these meetings, you can find details in a thread of the Study Group forum. Please go there to sign up if you want.
As mentioned in previous announcements, the pilot program for Google+ Hangouts will start this week. I will send details when they become available.
In case you are wondering, we now have over 170,000 students in the class! There is still room for more.
That's it for now. Enjoy Week 2. Keep up the good work!
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram
Fri 30 Nov 2012 7:29 PM CET
Welcome to Week 1
Welcome to Think Again: How to Reason and Argue! We are officially the largest course that Coursera has offered so far, thanks to all of you. Hurrah!
After months of preparation, we are very excited to get going. The first week of lectures and exercises will become accessible within an hour or two. In future weeks, the lectures and other materials will typically be made available around 9:00 am, Eastern US time on Mondays.
This first week of lectures define what an argument is in order to help you identify which passages contain arguments. You will also learn to distinguish different purposes of arguments, including persuasion, justification, and explanation. Then the lectures will turn to some very general features of language, because language is the material out of which arguments are made. The last three lectures of this week are more advanced, so we made them optional. They will not be covered on the quiz, but they are included in case you want to go into more depth. The basic lectures total about an hour, and the optional lectures add about another 30 minutes.
There will be short sets of exercises after each lecture. The answers to these exercises will all be explained. These exercises should take about another hour total this week. The point of these exercises is only to make sure that you understand the material in the attached lecture. They are not intended to be difficult. If you miss too many of these exercises, and if you do not understand the explanations of the answers, then it might be a good idea to listen again to the relevant lecture before proceeding to the next lecture. All of these exercises are ungraded and optional, but we hope they that will be useful to you.
The lectures can be accessed by clicking on the words "Video Lectures" on the left side of the course home page. Then the exercises can be accessed in two ways: either by clicking on the word "Exercises" on the left side of the page OR by clicking on the page-and-pencil icon to the right of each lecture name on the Lectures page. Please try to remember to do the exercises before going on to the next lecture, if you want to. Later in the course, there will be four quizzes that will appear in "Quizzes" on the left side of the page. This section will be empty until the first Quiz is opened in week three.
The best way to learn about arguments is to practice constructing your own arguments and analyzing arguments given by other people, especially people with whom you disagree. The discussion forums provide some opportunities to do this with students from around the world. You will also have the exciting chance to meet face-to-face with your classmates in Google+ Hangouts starting in the second week. We are proud to be piloting this feature, which is a collaboration between Coursera and Google. We will send details when this feature is set up. It will also be useful for you to encourage a few friends or family members to take the course with you, so that you can discuss arguments with them in person. It is not too late to join the course. Indeed, people can join at any time before the course ends, because all materials will remain accessible from the time that they are put up until two weeks after the final lectures appear (in order to enable students to enjoy holidays and catch up later, if they want).
Discussion forums can be accessed by clicking on the words "Discussion Forums" on the left of the page. We set up several discussion forums:
(1) One forum is for "General Discussion" of whatever you want.
(2) A forum called "Study Groups" is specifically for setting up meetings and study groups.
(3) A forum called "Schedule Hangouts" is for setting up Google+ Hangouts.
(4) A forum called "Lectures" is for substantive discussion of the topics in the course. We set up a separate subforum for each week so that you can focus on issues raised during that week. This forum is the place to go if you have any questions about the lectures or exercises. You can also bring new examples of your own and respond to examples that other students bring. We posted a few questions at the beginning of each week just in order to help you get going.
(5) A forum called "Course Material Feedback" is for you to comment on the lectures, exercises, quizzes, forums, etc. We do plan to offer this course again, so your comments will be much appreciated. Please try to help us make this course better.
(6) A forum called "Technical Feedback" is specifically to alert us to—you guessed it—technical problems.
(7) A forum called "Where are you from and why are you taking this class?" is available because we can teach this course better if we know more about who is taking it. Also, if you have not yet done so, please remember to fill out the short survey at https://duke.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3dPbTc4Kn88W5iB
Please be polite when using these forums. You will be able to vote up or down posts in these forums so that the most useful posts will rise to the top and be seen first.
The topics this week are discussed in more detail with more examples in Chapters 1-2 of Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Robert Fogelin (Wadsworth/Cengage). Unfortunately, several online booksellers are already out of stock of the hardcopy book, but you can still get electronic copies (more cheaply!) at one of these links:
http://www.cengagebrain.com/shop/isbn/9780495603955
http://www.coursesmart.com/cengage-advantage-books-understanding-arguments/fogelin-sinnott-armstrong/dp/70000lti01397
We know that some students in Asia are having difficulty obtaining the book, so we are working on that problem. This textbook is not required in order to take the course, but it will probably be helpful and interesting to many of you.
We want students to get the most out of this class, and we're willing to go to extreme lengths to help make that happen. In the spirit of this record-breaking class, we would like to see at least one third of students who began the class also complete it. If we meet this goal, then I (Walter) will have my head shaved on camera and post the video for all of the students to see. Then I will donate my hair to "Locks of Love" — IF they will take it. You will be able to watch this video only if you stick with the course. But then, of course, you have many better reasons to do that anyway.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Duke University)
Ram Neta (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
After months of preparation, we are very excited to get going. The first week of lectures and exercises will become accessible within an hour or two. In future weeks, the lectures and other materials will typically be made available around 9:00 am, Eastern US time on Mondays.
This first week of lectures define what an argument is in order to help you identify which passages contain arguments. You will also learn to distinguish different purposes of arguments, including persuasion, justification, and explanation. Then the lectures will turn to some very general features of language, because language is the material out of which arguments are made. The last three lectures of this week are more advanced, so we made them optional. They will not be covered on the quiz, but they are included in case you want to go into more depth. The basic lectures total about an hour, and the optional lectures add about another 30 minutes.
There will be short sets of exercises after each lecture. The answers to these exercises will all be explained. These exercises should take about another hour total this week. The point of these exercises is only to make sure that you understand the material in the attached lecture. They are not intended to be difficult. If you miss too many of these exercises, and if you do not understand the explanations of the answers, then it might be a good idea to listen again to the relevant lecture before proceeding to the next lecture. All of these exercises are ungraded and optional, but we hope they that will be useful to you.
The lectures can be accessed by clicking on the words "Video Lectures" on the left side of the course home page. Then the exercises can be accessed in two ways: either by clicking on the word "Exercises" on the left side of the page OR by clicking on the page-and-pencil icon to the right of each lecture name on the Lectures page. Please try to remember to do the exercises before going on to the next lecture, if you want to. Later in the course, there will be four quizzes that will appear in "Quizzes" on the left side of the page. This section will be empty until the first Quiz is opened in week three.
The best way to learn about arguments is to practice constructing your own arguments and analyzing arguments given by other people, especially people with whom you disagree. The discussion forums provide some opportunities to do this with students from around the world. You will also have the exciting chance to meet face-to-face with your classmates in Google+ Hangouts starting in the second week. We are proud to be piloting this feature, which is a collaboration between Coursera and Google. We will send details when this feature is set up. It will also be useful for you to encourage a few friends or family members to take the course with you, so that you can discuss arguments with them in person. It is not too late to join the course. Indeed, people can join at any time before the course ends, because all materials will remain accessible from the time that they are put up until two weeks after the final lectures appear (in order to enable students to enjoy holidays and catch up later, if they want).
Discussion forums can be accessed by clicking on the words "Discussion Forums" on the left of the page. We set up several discussion forums:
(1) One forum is for "General Discussion" of whatever you want.
(2) A forum called "Study Groups" is specifically for setting up meetings and study groups.
(3) A forum called "Schedule Hangouts" is for setting up Google+ Hangouts.
(4) A forum called "Lectures" is for substantive discussion of the topics in the course. We set up a separate subforum for each week so that you can focus on issues raised during that week. This forum is the place to go if you have any questions about the lectures or exercises. You can also bring new examples of your own and respond to examples that other students bring. We posted a few questions at the beginning of each week just in order to help you get going.
(5) A forum called "Course Material Feedback" is for you to comment on the lectures, exercises, quizzes, forums, etc. We do plan to offer this course again, so your comments will be much appreciated. Please try to help us make this course better.
(6) A forum called "Technical Feedback" is specifically to alert us to—you guessed it—technical problems.
(7) A forum called "Where are you from and why are you taking this class?" is available because we can teach this course better if we know more about who is taking it. Also, if you have not yet done so, please remember to fill out the short survey at https://duke.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3dPbTc4Kn88W5iB
Please be polite when using these forums. You will be able to vote up or down posts in these forums so that the most useful posts will rise to the top and be seen first.
The topics this week are discussed in more detail with more examples in Chapters 1-2 of Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Robert Fogelin (Wadsworth/Cengage). Unfortunately, several online booksellers are already out of stock of the hardcopy book, but you can still get electronic copies (more cheaply!) at one of these links:
http://www.cengagebrain.com/shop/isbn/9780495603955
http://www.coursesmart.com/cengage-advantage-books-understanding-arguments/fogelin-sinnott-armstrong/dp/70000lti01397
We know that some students in Asia are having difficulty obtaining the book, so we are working on that problem. This textbook is not required in order to take the course, but it will probably be helpful and interesting to many of you.
We want students to get the most out of this class, and we're willing to go to extreme lengths to help make that happen. In the spirit of this record-breaking class, we would like to see at least one third of students who began the class also complete it. If we meet this goal, then I (Walter) will have my head shaved on camera and post the video for all of the students to see. Then I will donate my hair to "Locks of Love" — IF they will take it. You will be able to watch this video only if you stick with the course. But then, of course, you have many better reasons to do that anyway.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Duke University)
Ram Neta (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
Mon 26 Nov 2012 2:57 AM CET
Welcome to Think Again
Thank you very much for signing up for Think Again: How to Reason and Argue. Over the 12 weeks of the course, you will learn how to analyze and evaluate arguments and how to avoid common mistakes in reasoning. These important skills will be useful in deciding what to believe and what to do in all areas of your life. We will also have lots of fun.
Each week will contain a series of short lectures along with exercises after each lecture and a quiz at the end of each of the four parts of the course. You should expect to spend on about 2 hours per week watching the lectures, another 2 hours per week doing the exercises, and about 1 hour on each quiz. The course website will also contain detailed information about discussion forums, and we will post notices as the course develops.
You will get more out of this course if you share the adventure, so we suggest that you encourage a few friends or family members to take the course with you. You can learn from each other if you discuss your own examples of arguments in areas that interest you. It will become easy for you to find stimulating and amusing examples of arguments in newspapers, television, advertisements, books, other courses, and elsewhere.
We also suggest that you obtain and read the recommended textbook: Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Robert Fogelin, available from Wadsworth/Cengage Publishers at http://www.cengagebrain.com/shop/isbn/9780495603955. This textbook is not required in order to take the course, but it will probably be helpful to most of you.
We will be able to teach this course more effectively if we can get a better idea of who is taking it. To help us achieve this goal, please fill out a short survey at https://duke.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3dPbTc4Kn88W5iB. Thank you.
We will write you again when the first lectures and exercises become available on Monday, November 26. We are looking forward to it, and we hope you are, too.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Duke University)
Ram Neta (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
Each week will contain a series of short lectures along with exercises after each lecture and a quiz at the end of each of the four parts of the course. You should expect to spend on about 2 hours per week watching the lectures, another 2 hours per week doing the exercises, and about 1 hour on each quiz. The course website will also contain detailed information about discussion forums, and we will post notices as the course develops.
You will get more out of this course if you share the adventure, so we suggest that you encourage a few friends or family members to take the course with you. You can learn from each other if you discuss your own examples of arguments in areas that interest you. It will become easy for you to find stimulating and amusing examples of arguments in newspapers, television, advertisements, books, other courses, and elsewhere.
We also suggest that you obtain and read the recommended textbook: Understanding Arguments, Eighth Edition, by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Robert Fogelin, available from Wadsworth/Cengage Publishers at http://www.cengagebrain.com/shop/isbn/9780495603955. This textbook is not required in order to take the course, but it will probably be helpful to most of you.
We will be able to teach this course more effectively if we can get a better idea of who is taking it. To help us achieve this goal, please fill out a short survey at https://duke.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3dPbTc4Kn88W5iB. Thank you.
We will write you again when the first lectures and exercises become available on Monday, November 26. We are looking forward to it, and we hope you are, too.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Duke University)
Ram Neta (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
Mon 19 Nov 2012 2:49 PM CET