7 ms·

Another free course: Model Thinking

106 points by corey 15y ago

corey 15y ago
The instructor is actually from University of Michigan, so it appears that this phenomenon is spreading.
- callahad 15y ago
  Similarly, SAAS Class is taught by instructors from UC Berkeley.
Vivtek 15y ago
Clearly, this is a plot to prevent me from getting anything done.
pault 15y ago
I just spent several hours today digging through Poor Charlie's Almanack trying to build a more complete understanding of his mental models. You always hear references to them, but I have yet to find a list of them in one place. Not unlike the Colonel's eleven herbs and spices. What great timing.
- jroid 15y ago
  Here you go... http://thinkmentalmodels.com/page67/page67.html http://thinkmentalmodels.com/page67/page67.html
  - pault 15y ago
    Yeah, that keeps popping up, but the summaries on the rest of the site seem to be of poor quality, and it felt a bit scammy. $3 isn't much, but I don't want to support these "scrape together a bunch of blog posts and sell it as an ebook" types. I'll just wait for the class.
melling 15y ago
Time for a HN spreadsheet for all the classes?
- dhawalhs 15y ago
  I built this over the Thanksgiving weekend to keep a track of all the classes: http://www.class-central.com/ http://www.class-central.com/
  - pault 15y ago
    That's really nice, I think it deserves its own submission.
  - TeMPOraL 15y ago
    Nice! Will definitely come in handy :). Don't forget to add Model Thinking to the list!
  - anatoly 15y ago
    A nit: the start date field, in an amusingly non-intuitive way it took me a few seconds to figure out, sorts alphabetically by the month's name rather than by the date. Nice list, thanks for putting that together!
donald_draper 15y ago
For the future, it would be really cool if those courses would feature one preview lecture and a schedule to decide if one wants to get into it or not - now that it's getting so broad.
- Tichy 15y ago
  I just sign up for all of them and decide which ones I'll keep watching once they start.
itmag 15y ago
What are some more... unconventional classes HNers would be interested in taking? Internet marketing? Better thinking? Something like this: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3285535 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3285535 Optimizing communications with the opposite sex if male? Language hacking? Aka learning languages faster/smarter. Study hacking? Ie optimizing college, or autodidactic pursuits. Give me some tips on stuff you would like to learn via an online class.
- tryitnow 15y ago
  I'd like a class on how to pick which online classes I should take. Actually, I'm only partially joking. I am guessing that there's just going to be an explosion of these opportunities in a couple of years. I believe in lifelong learning, but this is ridiculous, there's only so many hours in the day. A class dedicated to teaching people how to plot their own course through all of the educational opportunities that are becoming available would actually be quite valuable. For example, which courses you take and in which sequence is hard to figure out. Some inputs might be your learning style, your existing knowledge base, your IQ, your available time, whether you're a thinker or a doer, etc, etc.
  - itmag 15y ago
    Yeah, that's a decent idea actually. May I post it here? http://ideashower.posterous.com http://ideashower.posterous.com
    - pault 15y ago
      This is something that I gave a lot of thought to a few years back when the MIT OCW was a bit of a mess. It would be really cool to be able to track your progress through a "playlist" of online courses (hours of lectures watched, quizes taken, etc). I agree that the availability of these types of courses is going to quickly become unmanageable in the very near future. A site that can successfully gamify this could be fun.
  - officemonkey 15y ago
steveeq1 15y ago
Scott Page who is the guy who is giving this class wrote an excellent book called "The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies": http://tinyurl.com/cbv2pm9 http://tinyurl.com/cbv2pm9 Certain types of mental models are covered in the book, but not in a concentrated way. The book was also highly recommend in one of Nassim Taleb's books (I think it was "The Black Swan").

106 points by corey 15y ago

corey 15y ago

The instructor is actually from University of Michigan, so it appears that this phenomenon is spreading.

callahad 15y ago
Similarly, SAAS Class is taught by instructors from UC Berkeley.

Vivtek 15y ago

Clearly, this is a plot to prevent me from getting anything done.

pault 15y ago

I just spent several hours today digging through Poor Charlie's Almanack trying to build a more complete understanding of his mental models. You always hear references to them, but I have yet to find a list of them in one place. Not unlike the Colonel's eleven herbs and spices. What great timing.

jroid 15y ago
Here you go... http://thinkmentalmodels.com/page67/page67.html http://thinkmentalmodels.com/page67/page67.html
- pault 15y ago
  Yeah, that keeps popping up, but the summaries on the rest of the site seem to be of poor quality, and it felt a bit scammy. $3 isn't much, but I don't want to support these "scrape together a bunch of blog posts and sell it as an ebook" types. I'll just wait for the class.

melling 15y ago

Time for a HN spreadsheet for all the classes?

dhawalhs 15y ago
I built this over the Thanksgiving weekend to keep a track of all the classes: http://www.class-central.com/ http://www.class-central.com/
- pault 15y ago
  That's really nice, I think it deserves its own submission.
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  Nice! Will definitely come in handy :). Don't forget to add Model Thinking to the list!
- anatoly 15y ago
  A nit: the start date field, in an amusingly non-intuitive way it took me a few seconds to figure out, sorts alphabetically by the month's name rather than by the date. Nice list, thanks for putting that together!

donald_draper 15y ago

For the future, it would be really cool if those courses would feature one preview lecture and a schedule to decide if one wants to get into it or not - now that it's getting so broad.

Tichy 15y ago
I just sign up for all of them and decide which ones I'll keep watching once they start.

itmag 15y ago

What are some more... unconventional classes HNers would be interested in taking? Internet marketing? Better thinking? Something like this: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3285535 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3285535 Optimizing communications with the opposite sex if male? Language hacking? Aka learning languages faster/smarter. Study hacking? Ie optimizing college, or autodidactic pursuits. Give me some tips on stuff you would like to learn via an online class.

tryitnow 15y ago
I'd like a class on how to pick which online classes I should take. Actually, I'm only partially joking. I am guessing that there's just going to be an explosion of these opportunities in a couple of years. I believe in lifelong learning, but this is ridiculous, there's only so many hours in the day. A class dedicated to teaching people how to plot their own course through all of the educational opportunities that are becoming available would actually be quite valuable. For example, which courses you take and in which sequence is hard to figure out. Some inputs might be your learning style, your existing knowledge base, your IQ, your available time, whether you're a thinker or a doer, etc, etc.
- itmag 15y ago
  Yeah, that's a decent idea actually. May I post it here? http://ideashower.posterous.com http://ideashower.posterous.com
  - pault 15y ago
    This is something that I gave a lot of thought to a few years back when the MIT OCW was a bit of a mess. It would be really cool to be able to track your progress through a "playlist" of online courses (hours of lectures watched, quizes taken, etc). I agree that the availability of these types of courses is going to quickly become unmanageable in the very near future. A site that can successfully gamify this could be fun.
- officemonkey 15y ago

steveeq1 15y ago

Scott Page who is the guy who is giving this class wrote an excellent book called "The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies": http://tinyurl.com/cbv2pm9 http://tinyurl.com/cbv2pm9 Certain types of mental models are covered in the book, but not in a concentrated way. The book was also highly recommend in one of Nassim Taleb's books (I think it was "The Black Swan").