Skip to content
Skip to main content

About this free course

Download this course

Share this free course

Digital thinking tools for better decision making
Digital thinking tools for better decision making

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

8 Session 3 Summary

In Session 3 you learned to use the Python interactive console as a sort of ‘big calculator’. You used it to find answers to a range of intriguing problems. You also:

  • learned about ‘Fermi problems’. These are problems for which you can generate a useful ‘ballpark’ estimate even though you have very little information to go on. This led to the ‘wisdom of crowds’ – the idea that if a large number of people estimate something, the average estimate is likely to converge on the true value.
  • saw that individuals as a rule are not very good at estimating facts about society. This is sometimes because they follow instinctive shortcuts, rather than applying the more systematic approach used for Fermi problems.
  • met the concepts of fast and slow thinking: intuitive shortcuts contrasted with a more deliberate and analytical approach.

Session 4 is about putting together an argument. Have you ever sat in front of a blank page, desperately trying to pull your ideas together as a deadline hurtles towards you? If so, argument maps may be just what you need!

You can now go to Session 4 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .