| 1 | The Coin Flip Lab | Can a good process produce a bad outcome? | Distinguishing process from outcome | randomness, uncertainty, outcome | Describe one situation where luck played a role in a result | Find a sport statistic that shows a great player having a bad game |
| 2 | Process vs. Outcome | How do we judge whether a decision was good? | Evaluating decision quality independently of results | process, outcome, hindsight bias | Explain the difference between a good decision and a lucky result | Find a news story where a decision looks bad in hindsight but may have been reasonable |
| 3 | Thinking in Probabilities | What does "probably" actually mean? | Probability estimation | probability, frequency, confidence level | Express a belief as a percentage: "I think there is a 70% chance that..." | Track weather forecasts for one week and compare to actual results |
| 4 | The Decision Journal | How can writing down our reasoning help us improve? | Deliberate reflection | hindsight bias, Decision Journal, reasoning | Record one real decision and your reasoning before you see the result | Review an old journal entry: was your reasoning sound? |
| 5 | Meet Your Brain's Shortcuts | Why does our brain take shortcuts? | Recognizing heuristics | heuristic, availability, representativeness | Name one mental shortcut you used today | Find an ad that uses a cognitive shortcut |
| 6 | The Loss Aversion Lab | Why does losing hurt more than winning feels good? | Identifying loss aversion | loss aversion, prospect theory, risk | Describe a choice you made because you were afraid of losing something | Find an ad designed to make you afraid of missing out |
| 7 | The Sunk Cost Trap | Why is "I already started" a bad reason to continue? | Recognizing sunk cost reasoning | sunk cost fallacy, commitment, investment | Describe a time you kept doing something because you had already invested in it | Find an example of sunk cost in a business or government decision |
| 8 | Bias Hunters | Where do cognitive biases show up in everyday life? | Bias identification in real contexts | cognitive bias, framing, confirmation bias | Find one example of a bias you studied this week in an ad or social media post | Track one bias per day for a week |
| 9 | Expected Value | How do we compare uncertain options systematically? | Expected value calculation | expected value, probability, payoff | Calculate the expected value of a simple game | Find a real-world decision that could be analyzed with expected value |
| 10 | Signal vs. Noise | How do we know when we have enough information to decide? | Information filtering | signal, noise, sample size | Identify one situation where you had signal vs. one where you only had noise | Find a news story where the conclusion outran the evidence |
| 11 | Reversible vs. Irreversible | Should all decisions be made at the same speed? | Decision stakes calibration | reversible, irreversible, stakes | Classify five recent decisions as reversible or irreversible | Design a "decision checklist" for a high-stakes choice |
| 12 | Your Choices Affect Others | How do individual decisions create collective outcomes? | Systems thinking in decisions | externality, ripple effect, interdependence | Describe one choice you made today that affected someone else | Find a community example where many individual choices created a shared problem |
| 13 | The Prisoner's Dilemma | When is cooperation better than competition? | Game theory and cooperation | Prisoner's Dilemma, cooperation, zero-sum, dominant strategy | Explain when it is rational to cooperate even when betrayal could win | Play the Prisoner's Dilemma with a real partner; compare results |
| 14 | The Commons Simulation | Why do rational individuals sometimes destroy shared resources? | Collective action analysis | Tragedy of the Commons, shared resource, overuse | Describe one real-world common resource and the challenge it faces | Research a real solution to a commons problem |
| 15 | Identify Your Friction Point | How do we find the root cause of a recurring problem? | Root cause analysis | 5 Whys, friction point, root cause | Complete the 5 Whys for one real recurring problem | Find a case where solving the root cause eliminated many downstream problems |
| 16 | Design Your Decision Protocol | How do we build a systematic response to a recurring problem? | Protocol design | protocol, trigger, default, decision rule | Draft a protocol with trigger, default response, and check | Compare your protocol to an existing checklist used by professionals |
| 17 | Test and Collect Data | How do we know whether our protocol is working? | Experimental thinking | experiment, data, iteration | Identify one metric that would show whether your protocol is working | Compare your initial prediction to your actual data |
| 18 | Patch, Present, Reflect | What did I learn about how I make decisions? | Synthesis and communication | iteration, patch, retrospective | Explain one thing you would do differently in your protocol v2.0 | Present your Decision Journal to someone who was not in the class |
| Ext. 1 | Bayesian Updating | How should new evidence change what I believe? | Probability updating | Bayesian reasoning, prior, posterior, evidence | Update a belief based on one piece of new evidence | Apply Bayesian reasoning to a real news story |
| Ext. 2 | Decision Trees | How do we map multi-step decisions with branching paths? | Decision tree analysis | decision tree, probability branch, expected value | Draw a decision tree for one real upcoming decision | Find a professional context (medicine, business) where decision trees are used |