PSYC1105 DW2

PSYC1105—Critical Thinking

Summer Session -I- 2021

General Information

Asynchronous delivery of materials via Blackboard.

Instructor Information

Instructor	Email	Office Location & Hours
Pablo Gomez	[email protected]	Office Hours: MONDAYS 10 am and by appointment.

Goals

1. Students will identify the value and meaningfulness of deep and critical thinking.

2. Students will develop a plan for deep work.

3. Students will identify biases in thinking.

4. Students will generate strategies to overcome biases in thinking.

5. Students will develop methods for critical thinking in your discipline.

Definitions

I aim to give you the conditions to develop two rare and valuable skills for your college life and beyond.

Both skills require practice, and this class will just be the beginning of that practice.

Critical Thinking

A purposeful, self-regulatory judgment, a human cognitive process. As a result of this non-linear, recursive process, a person forms a judgment about what to believe or what to do in a given context; it is the opposite of accepting authority. It means that students will take their private beliefs as appropriate starting points.

Deep Work

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It pushes your cognitive capacities, creates value, and improves your skills.

Course Materials

Textbooks

This class has the low-cost materials designation, which means that you will spend less than $40.

Deep Work, by Cal Newport. ISBN-10: 1455586692 ISBN-13: 978-1455586691.

“Deep work is the killer app of the knowledge economy: it is only by concentrating intensely that you can master a difficult discipline or solve a demanding problem.” —The Economist

Thinking fast and slow, by Daniel Kahneman. ISBN-10 0374533555 ISBN-13: 978-0374533557. (Same comments as above.)

“It is an astonishingly rich book: lucid, profound, full of intellectual surprises and self-help value. It is consistently entertaining and frequently touching, especially when Kahneman is recounting his collaboration with Tversky . . . So impressive is its vision of flawed human reason that the New York Times columnist David Brooks recently declared that Kahneman and Tversky's work ‘will be remembered hundreds of years from now,' and that it is ‘a crucial pivot point in the way we see ourselves.' They are, Brooks said, ‘like the Lewis and Clark of the mind' . . . By the time I got to the end of Thinking, Fast and Slow, my skeptical frown had long since given way to a grin of intellectual satisfaction. Appraising the book by the peak-end rule, I overconfidently urge everyone to buy and read it.” ―The New York Times Book Review

Activities

Fire-pit chat

On Mondays at 10 am, I will open the zoom room to chat about the week ahead, the readings, and questions that you might have about the class, the deep life, or anything else. Attendance is not mandatory. And I do mean it when I say they will be by the fire-pit.

The zoom link is here Join URL: https://csusb.zoom.us/j/86746681695

Also available via Blackboard

Reading

The volume of readings for this course is significant but not overwhelming. Keep in mind that the we are compressing a 15 week semester into less than 6 weeks, so plan accordingly.

Discussion Questions

As a reading check, I will provide discussion questions for you to answer. I expect to see some thinking and evidence of reading, but most questions can be answered in one paragraph unless noted.

Thinking Challenge

I will pose two thinking challenges for the class, and I will ask you to produce a new demonstration or a creative analysis. These challenges should take you between 1 and 2 pages to complete.

Important: I do not count words or obsessed about length, but when I see a lack of reflection, I send the work back for a rewrite.

Grades

1. Discussion questions: 60 % of your final grade. If you have nice handwriting, you can turn in a picture of your handwritten responses. If not, please type.

Grading scale:

3 points means “Good job.”

2 points means “Fix specific questions.”

1 point means “Significant rewrites are necessary.”

If you make the corrections, you can go up one point in the grade.

2. Thinking challenges: 40% of the final grade. Each challenge has equal weight.

Grading scale:

4 points means “Good job.”

3 points means “Fix specific cosmetic issues.”

2 points means “Some content fixing necessary”.

1 point means “Significant rewrites are necessary.”

If you make the corrections, you can go up one point in the grade. Revisions are due the last day of the term (6/7/2021)

I know that COVID times are hard. So, I am adjusting down the grading scale:

A > 90.0%;

A- > 86.6% B+ > 83.3% B > 80.0%;

B- > 76.6% C+ > 73.3% C > 70.0%;

C- > 66.6% D+ > 63.3% D > 60.0%

I am essentially giving you a free pass on one assignment. Whether you miss it because your internet went down, because you were following a band on tour, because of illness, or anything else, you do not need to tell me. Not because I don’t care, but because with this scale, I am telling you, whatever reason you have to miss something, it is good enough for me.

However, if you decide to reach out to ask for an extension or to tell me that the Wi-Fi went down at 11:58 pm, I will probably be ok with it, but then the conventional grading scale will apply:

A > 93.3% A- > 90.0%;

B+ > 86.6% B > 83.3% B- > 80.0%;

C+ > 76.6% C > 73.3% C- > 70.0%;

D+ > 66.6% D > 63.3% D- > 60.0%

This is a bit of tough love, but one of the goals of the course is for you to focus your attention on the tasks that matter, and I think your schoolwork is something that matters. The submission portals in Blackboard will close at the scheduled time (11:59 PM). So please, do not be the student that sends me an email at 12:01 with a “I don’t know what happened, but I couldn’t submit my homework ….”

Course Schedule

All assignments are due at 11:59 of the listed date.

DW: Deep Work book

TFS: Thinking Fast and Slow book

The podcasts are:

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/change-your-mind/

and

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-my-life-so-hard/

Day	Topic	Reading	Questions/Challenge
WED 6/2	Introductions	Watch video of the syllabus	Nothing due
MON 6/7	What is deep work	DW-Intro and Ch 1 Fire-pit chat	DW-Question Set 1
WED 6/9	Depth has value	DW-Ch 2 and 3	DW-Question Set 2
MON 6/14	Your rules	DW-Rules 1-3 Fire-pit chat	DW-Question Set 3
WED 6/16	Thinking challenge #1		Challenge #1 Due
MON 6/21	Our thinking machine	TFS Ch 1-3	TFS-Question Set 1
WED 6/23		TFS Ch 7-9 Fire-pit chat	TFS-Question Set 2
MON 6/28	Heuristics and biases	TFS Ch 10-14	TFS-Question Set 3
WED 6/30		TFS Ch 15-18	TFS-Question Set 4
MON 7/5	Critical thinking in your life	TFS Ch 35-38 Fire-pit chat	TFS-Question Set 5
Wed 7/7	How to change your mind		Challenge #2 Due

Additional Information and Resources

Accessibility

This course is committed to the principles of openness and accessibility. Any reasonable request for accommodations will be honored, and to facilitate that process, I encourage you to follow the policies stated by the Office of Services to Students with Disabilities  https://www.csusb.edu/ssd

Academic Violations

Plagiarism and cheating are violations of the Standards for Student Conduct (Title 5, §41301, California Code of Regulations) and may be dealt with by both the instructor and the Student Conduct Administrator. 

Procedures for addressing cheating and plagiarism are found below. Questions about academic dishonesty and the policy should be addressed to the Office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development ([email protected]). 

Plagiarism is the act of presenting the ideas and writing of another as one's own. Cheating is the act of obtaining or attempting to obtain credit for academic work through the use of any dishonest, deceptive, or fraudulent means.

Cheating includes but is not limited to:

· Copying, in part or in whole, from another's test, software, or other evaluation instruments;

· Submitting work previously graded in another course unless this has been approved by the course instructor or by the departmental policy;

· Submitting work simultaneously presented in two courses, unless this has been approved by both course instructors and by the department policies of both departments.

· Using or consulting during examination sources or materials not authorized by the instructor;

· Altering or interfering with grading or grading instructions;

· Sitting for an examination by a surrogate, or as a surrogate;

· Any other act committed by a student in the course of his or her academic work, which defrauds or misrepresents, including aiding or abetting in any of the actions defined above.

Plagiarism is academically dishonest and subjects the offending student to penalties up to and including expulsion. Students must make appropriate acknowledgment of the source where material written or compiled by another is used.

Please refer to the academic regulations bulletin: http://bulletin.csusb.edu/academic-regulations/

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