Courses tagged with "Computer storage" (8)

How can we get people to save more money, eat healthy foods, engage in healthy behaviors, and make better choices in general? There has been a lot written about the fact that human beings do not process information and make decisions in an optimal fashion. This course builds on much of the fascinating work in the area of behavioral economics and allows learners to develop a hands-on approach by understanding its methods and more importantly, how it can be harnessed by suitably designing contexts to “nudge” choice.

In three modules, learners will be able to a). explain and interpret the principles underlying decision-making and compare the nudging approach to other methods of behavior change, b). learn how to critique, design and interpret the results of experiments; and c). design nudges and decision-tools to help people make better decisions.

Understanding experimental design and interpretation is central to your ability to truly use behavioral economics and will set you apart from people who merely know about the behavioral research. After the first two weeks learning the basic principles, we will devote two weeks to studying experimental design and analysis, and the final two weeks to understanding processes for designing nudges and for helping people make better decisions.

You will also witness and participate in weekly topical debates on various topics like “does irrationality impact welfare?” or “what strategy is better for improving welfare – nudging or education?” If you’ve been fascinated with the buzz surrounding behavioral economics but are not sure how to actually use it, this course is for you.

Several leading scholars, policy makers, business people, authors and commentators will briefly join our debate and discussion sections. These guest lecturers include Professor Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard University), Professor John Lynch (University of Colorado), Rory Sutherland (Ogilvy Group), Owain Service (Behavioural Insights Team, UK Cabinet Office), Shankar Vedantam (NPR Columnist and Author – The Hidden Brain), Professors Andrew Ching, Avi Goldfarb, Nina Mazar, and Claire Tsai, Min Zhao (University of Toronto) and many others!

This global health and life sciences course enables learners to investigate health problems affecting large populations – the whole world in fact! By understanding the big numbers in global mortality and their causes and distributions you will learn how to think numerically about global health. We will use real data from real people to ask the questions: What are the major causes of death in the world? Why do we need cause of death statistics? How does counting the dead help the living?
 
We begin with a historical perspective on global mortality and end with a hopeful look toward future trends. In between, you will learn about how death prior to old age can be avoided, worldwide mortality rates, and specific diseases such as HIV, malaria, childhood conditions, chronic diseases, and risk factors such as smoking. This course will help you use population statistics to understand how rapid gains in health are possible.

Faculty Development is a broad range of activities that institutions use to renew or assist faculty, supervisors, preceptors, field instructors, clinical educators, and status appointees in their roles. These activities are designed to improve an individual's knowledge and skills in teaching, education, administration, leadership and research.

This education and teacher training course highlights foundational areas of teaching and learning for health professional teachers that can be applied directly to their teaching context and practice. Core topics such as orienting the learner and delivering feedback are addressed through videos and applied activities.

View Health Professional Teaching Skills – Level 2 – Strategies
View Health Professional Teaching Skills – Level 3 - Professionalism

This education and teacher training course provides teaching strategies for health professional teachers that can be applied directly and immediately to their teaching context and practice.

Clinical teaching tools will be discussed through videos and helpful resources will be provided. Participants will also learn about asking effective questions in order to help promote active learning.

View Health Professional Teaching Skills – Level 1 – Foundational
View Health Professional Teaching Skills – Level 3 - Professionalism

This course focuses on professionalism for health professions teachers. It addresses the issues clinical teachers face in a digital world by looking at implications of social media accounts and online profiles. Professionalism will also be discussed in the context of role-modeling along with looking at the value of role-modeling in clinical education.

View Health Professional Teaching Skills – Level 1 – Foundational
View Health Professional Teaching Skills – Level 2 – Strategies

How can we strengthen libraries and librarians in the advancement of knowledge, creativity, and literacy in the 21st century? Though libraries have been loved for over 3,600 years, their relevance in the digital age is being questioned, and their economic and social impacts are poorly understood. What is really essential about libraries and librarians, today and tomorrow? How can library members and all who support the mission of 21st-century librarianship raise the profile and support of these timeless values and services, and ensure universal access to the universe of ideas in all our communities? This course is based on what works. We’ll take an inspired, strategic, evidence-based approach to advocacy for the future of strong communities – cities, villages, universities and colleges, research and development centres, businesses, and not-for-profits.

We will cover:

• Values and transformative impacts of libraries and librarianship
• Research on current perceptions of libraries and librarians
• Role of relationships in advocacy
• Principles of influence and their impact on advocacy
• Strategic thinking and planning in advocacy
• Effective communication: messages, messengers, and timing

Guest speakers share their ideas, recommendations and successes. These leading advocates include, among others: 

• Barbara Band, Emmbrook School, Berkshire
• Cathy De Rosa, OCLC
• Ken Haycock, University of Southern California
• Joe Janes, University of Washington
• Nancy Kranich, Rutgers University
• Victoria Owen, University of Toronto
• John Szabo, Los Angeles Public Library

Previous participants have said that this course – “showed me the value of building relationships,” and “made me approach our library’s advocacy much differently”, and “helped me see advocacy in a new light."

Advocacy is growing in urgency and importance on the agenda of all library associations.  In this highly competitive environment, associations help their members and their communities to build advocacy capacity.  This course meets that strategic need. It is offered in partnership with the Canadian Library Association and the American Library Association.

"

For the full description, please see the syllabus at:
http://courses.edx.org/c4x/University_of_TorontoX/LA101x_2/asset/LA101X__2015__Syllabus.docx

We live on the surface of a dynamic and yet paradoxically stable planet that experiences a remarkable range of energetic phenomena, from waves and currents in the ocean to wind and thunderstorms in the atmosphere. This course traces how the remarkable concept called energy is the natural way of describing, understanding and unifying these diverse phenomena. The course traces the cascade of energy from sunlight to its final destination in a thermal form, considering differential surface heating, the role of convection and buoyancy and the formation of the Earth’s circulation system, and the links to the ocean circulation system. We consider the curvature and rotation of the Earth as key constraints on a system driven by sunlight and energy transformations.

Before your course starts, try the new edX Demo where you can explore the fun, interactive learning environment and virtual labs. Learn more.

How much time will the course take?

Obviously the answer will depend on your background and motivation to master the course material. Each week will consist of 5 or 6 segments that will each take 5 to 10 minutes to watch or listen to once. There will be some exploratory questions for each lesson and a confirmation quiz for each week. There will be one exploratory activity for each week. The average commitment will be 2-3 hours per week with perhaps 20 hours required for the whole course.

What background does the course assume?

We’ll ask you to pull out a calculator from time to time (but not all the time!) simply as this will help you really master the key ideas. The key thing is to have a curiosity and interest in what makes our planet tick!

What kind of learning activities will the course involve?

The activities are designed to use basic household objects, and our own senses, to engage with observations of the world, and to think about what these mean and lead to. We’ll get you to sense how cold or warm different objects get when left in the sun, and to observe how energy explains things we see and hear.

What difference will the course make to my life?

The course has the conviction that it is hard to care for or value things that we don’t appreciate or have never considered. Although harsh in certain places and times, the Earth’s surface is remarkably habitable. Many forms of life can make their way in many kinds of terrain and climate. What produces these conditions? How are they maintained? We will seek to answer those questions in rudimentary form at least.

What conversations will the course help to perform?

Courses often imagine a context in which the course material is discussed, and this one is no different. It imagines a setting with family or friends where you might have just learned of a news event involving a storm like a hurricane or thunderstorm, or where a community might have experienced a flood or a drought, or merely unusual weather. You might have heard of El Nino or climate change in the news. This course will give you a background to better engage in a conversation about these great matters, and offer a better sense of the complexity, challenge and wonder connected to living on the surface of such an energetic planet.

INQ101x is designed with K-12 teachers in mind. Teacher candidates, higher education instructors, and other educators may also find it relevant. In six weeks, we discuss some of the major themes and challenges of integrating inquiry and technology as a community of practitioners. We collect and share resources and exchange ideas about what works for specific topics and age groups.