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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Model Thinking by University of Michigan

4.8
stars
2,204 ratings

About the Course

We live in a complex world with diverse people, firms, and governments whose behaviors aggregate to produce novel, unexpected phenomena. We see political uprisings, market crashes, and a never ending array of social trends. How do we make sense of it? Models. Evidence shows that people who think with models consistently outperform those who don't. And, moreover people who think with lots of models outperform people who use only one. Why do models make us better thinkers? Models help us to better organize information - to make sense of that fire hose or hairball of data (choose your metaphor) available on the Internet. Models improve our abilities to make accurate forecasts. They help us make better decisions and adopt more effective strategies. They even can improve our ability to design institutions and procedures. In this class, I present a starter kit of models: I start with models of tipping points. I move on to cover models explain the wisdom of crowds, models that show why some countries are rich and some are poor, and models that help unpack the strategic decisions of firm and politicians. The models covered in this class provide a foundation for future social science classes, whether they be in economics, political science, business, or sociology. Mastering this material will give you a huge leg up in advanced courses. They also help you in life. Here's how the course will work. For each model, I present a short, easily digestible overview lecture. Then, I'll dig deeper. I'll go into the technical details of the model. Those technical lectures won't require calculus but be prepared for some algebra. For all the lectures, I'll offer some questions and we'll have quizzes and even a final exam. If you decide to do the deep dive, and take all the quizzes and the exam, you'll receive a Course Certificate. If you just decide to follow along for the introductory lectures to gain some exposure that's fine too. It's all free. And it's all here to help make you a better thinker!...

Top reviews

GK

Feb 24, 2017

Great content and lectures, that possibly provides new dimensions to look/explain the situation in context, I guess I will comeback for references to continue with this journey in to 'Model Thinking'

AA

Nov 23, 2020

very informative and insightful on how to use the various models at our disposal to take optimal decision. Also, was nostalgic to go back in time where these models were part of my university degree.

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476 - 498 of 498 Reviews for Model Thinking

By Ton T N K

Sep 11, 2020

That's great!

By ruyanan

May 2, 2021

看到了看问题的不同角度

By Marek L

Sep 23, 2016

Very good!

By Glory G

Oct 11, 2019

excelente

By ರತೀಷ್ പ

Jan 14, 2016

Excellent

By zhangmutanxi

Mar 21, 2016

great

By Mahmudul H

Jun 27, 2018

good

By Luiz C d P W F

Apr 4, 2017

Ver

By Adem A

Sep 6, 2016

T

By Nick M W

Mar 7, 2016

S

By Milady M

Mar 6, 2017

i would like to see some subtitles in Spanish, to help me understand much better the main idea ! but in generally is so good and helpful!

By Hoong W L

Oct 23, 2016

It is interesting and mind opening during the beginning and the middle of the course. Learned some interesting principle.

By Jaroslav A

Mar 6, 2021

Interesting but so boring

By Eli M

Mar 14, 2016

There have been some undesirable references to equations, in terms of equating modeling to economic growth and investment. I was interested by the syllabus and its outline of theories and the means to use models to study social sciences and systems sciences. After week 1, though, it was not a very interesting course so I considered trying to simply survey most of the videos to gain some more information, not necessarily for any more insight from the Professor from the University of Michigan.

By Kätlin K

Apr 28, 2022

Expected to understand why things take place. The more I try to understand this material, the less sense it makes. All I see is a person throwing random numbers like these are a logical course of things. Very disappointed.

By barry f

Aug 18, 2020

Interesting topic but poor lecture method. Abandoned the course because lecturer difficult to follow

By Maya R

Jan 25, 2021

Mathematical ability and statistics are required for this course.

By Cole P

Jan 17, 2022

I couldn't get through it, a little tour of wikipedia would be far more enlightening:

- The lecturer remarks that application to the real world (and model fertility) are a goal of the course, but spends almost no time talking about real world applications.

- A lot of the lectures are getting bogged down in simple math: why do I need to go through look-up table examples for cellular automata?

- Lots of mistakes in each lecture, quiz questions are fairly poorly structured (asking who invented a particular model doesn't actually reinforce understanding)

- Class structure doesn't seem very thought out. Each category of models has an intro video that gives an overview as-if I were in a 10th grade english class, with 10+ minutes wasted with an overview where we should just jump right in.

To be honest, I'm not even very certain the lecturer understands many of the models he's presenting very well.

By terrylknox

Feb 28, 2021

The videos may be useful for some but are difficult for others to follow (attention, accessibility, and other issues). This, combined with the lack of reading materials available (none) make information - especially the maths component of the course - harder to understand and absorb, given the quick nature and short timeline of the course. Given that the quizzes contain some math problems, it would be more helpful to have reading materials and small exercises to prepare for those quizzes instead of redoing the quiz rendering the learning process poor.

By Ryan K

Feb 14, 2017

Cons:

-Too dated - links to many of the materials are unavailable.

-Instructors knowledge of some the models he cover is questionable (regression)

Pros:

-Covers a lot of materials

By Yuqin L

Feb 14, 2021

If your first language is not English, you will find it very hard to follow the video as the author talks too fast to understand.

By Stan M

Feb 15, 2021

dropped

By Maryam s s O A

Oct 2, 2020

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