Advances in cognitive science have resolved, clarified, and sometimes complicated some of the great questions of Western philosophy: what is the structure of the world and how do we come to know it; does everyone represent the world the same way; what is the best way for us to act in the world. Specific topics include color, objects, number, categories, similarity, inductive inference, space, time, causality, reasoning, decision-making, morality and consciousness. Readings and discussion include a brief philosophical history of each topic and focus on advances in cognitive and developmental psychology, computation, neuroscience, and related fields. At least one subject in cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, or artificial intelligence is required. An additional project is required for graduate credit.

This is a two-part interactive game for middle school students that introduces them to the concepts of globalization and interdependence. In the first part, the students discover how clothing is sourced globally. The second part describes the issues related to the pieces and parts of a MP3 planner (this part is a little dated, but I have been able to connect it back to cell phones).

Games can be played as a group with the utilization of a Smartboard type device.

The resources includes an educator guide and integration with Google Classroom. I have used it as part of a larger lesson segment in Business Exploratory on Corporate Social Responsibility and Globalization.

This course is designed to provide both undergraduate and graduate students with a fundamental understanding of human factors that must be taken into account in the design and engineering of complex aviation and space systems. The primary focus is the derivation of human engineering design criteria from sensory, motor, and cognitive sources to include principles of displays, controls and ergonomics, manual control, the nature of human error, basic experimental design, and human-computer interaction in supervisory control settings. Undergraduate students will demonstrate proficiency through aviation accident case presentations, quizzes, homework assignments, and hands-on projects. Graduate students will complete all the undergraduate assignments; however, they are expected to complete a research-oriented project with a final written report and an oral presentation.

Frameworks and Models for Technology and Policy students explore perspectives in the policy process -- agenda setting, problem definition, framing the terms of debate, formulation and analysis of options, implementation and evaluation of policy outcomes using frameworks including economics and markets, law, and business and management. Methods include cost/benefit analysis, probabilistic risk assessment, and system dynamics. Exercises for Technology and Policy students include developing skills to work on the interface between technology and societal issues; simulation exercises; case studies; and group projects that illustrate issues involving multiple stakeholders with different value structures, high levels of uncertainty, multiple levels of complexity; and value trade-offs that are characteristic of engineering systems. Emphasis on negotiation, team building and group dynamics, and management of multiple actors and leadership. This course explores perspectives in the policy process - agenda setting, problem definition, framing the terms of debate, formulation and analysis of options, implementation and evaluation of policy outcomes using frameworks including economics and markets, law, and business and management. Methods include cost/benefit analysis, probabilistic risk assessment, and system dynamics. Exercises include developing skills to work on the interface between technology and societal issues; simulation exercises; case studies; and group projects that illustrate issues involving multiple stakeholders with different value structures, high levels of uncertainty, multiple levels of complexity; and value trade-offs that are characteristic of engineering systems. Emphasis on negotiation, team building and group dynamics, and management of multiple actors and leadership.

In this 60 minute lesson, students will be able to:

Understand what confirmation bias is and how it can influence your decision making
Identify types of overconfidence and give examples that show up in everyday life
Explore strategies to avoid confirmation bias and overconfidence

Estimated Lesson Time: 85 minutes

Students will be able to:
-Identify how the endowment effect and sunk costs affect our decision making
-Discuss how the endowment effect and sunk costs are connected to our personal finances
-Demonstrate making decisions after you’ve already spent time, money, or effort
-Choose strategies that are helpful in combating the endowment effect and sunk costs

ANSWER KEY LINKS: Create a Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF) account to access answer keys. They will be listed under the Full Year Curriculum tab.

Our subject is the ethics of leadership, an examination of the principles appealed to by executive authority when questions arise about its sources and its legitimacy. Most treatments of this subject resort to case-studies in order to illustrate the application of ethical principles to business situations, but our primary emphasis will be upon classic works of imaginative literature, which convey more directly than case-studies the ethical pressures of decision-making. Readings will include works by Shakespeare, Sophocles, Shaw, E.M. Forster, Joseph Conrad, George Orwell, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Henrik Ibsen, among others. Topics to be discussed include the sources of authority, the management of consensus, the ideal of vocation, the ethics of deception, the morality of expediency, the requirements of hierarchy, the virtues and vices of loyalty, the relevance of ethical principles in extreme situations.

This course begins with a comparative review of conventional and advanced multiple attribute decision making (MADM) models in engineering practice. Next, a new application of particular MADM models in reliable material selection of sensitive structural components as well as a multi-criteria Taguchi optimization method is discussed. Other specific topics include dealing with uncertainties in material properties, incommensurability in decision-makers opinions for the same design, objective ways of weighting performance indices, rank stability analysis, compensations and non-compensations.

Core subject for students majoring in management science. Surveys individual and social psychology and organization theory interpreted in the context of the managerial environment. Laboratory involves projects of an applied nature in behavioral science. Emphasizes use of behavioral science research methods to test hypotheses concerning organizational behavior. Instruction and practice in communication include report writing, team decision-making, and oral and visual presentation. Twelve units may be applied to the General Institute Laboratory Requirement.

This course explores the social relevance of neuroscience, considering how emerging areas of brain research at once reflect and reshape social attitudes and agendas. Topics include brain imaging and popular media; neuroscience of empathy, trust, and moral reasoning; new fields of neuroeconomics and neuromarketing; ethical implications of neurotechnologies such as cognitive enhancement pharmaceuticals; neuroscience in the courtroom; and neuroscientific recasting of social problems such as addiction and violence. Guest lectures by neuroscientists, class discussion, and weekly readings in neuroscience, popular media, and science studies.

Subject enhances students' ability to take effective action in complex organizational settings by providing the analytic tools needed to analyze, manage, and lead the organizations of the future. Emphasis on the importance of the organizational context in influencing which individual styles and skills are effective. Employs a wide variety of learning tools, from experiential learning to the more conventional discussion of written cases. Subject centers on three complementary perspectives on organizations: the strategic design, political, and cultural "lenses" on organizations. Restricted to first-year Sloan master's students.

This resource is a collaborative assessment that takes about five 50-minute class periods (without the presentation time) that can be used after completing the Junior Achievement Economics for Success program. Outcome topics include goals, budgeting, credit, and insurance. Other prior knowledge includes how to create, format, and collaborate using a presentation app (Google Slides). Keep in mind that this project is used in a class that also teaches keyboarding, personal finance, and computer applications.  This is part of a unit assessment.

The Piggy Bank Primer: Budget and Saving e-book for 7 through 9 year olds uses a story, activities, and puzzles to introduce basic economic conceptsŃsaving, savings plan, spending, costs, benefits, goods, services, and opportunity cost.

For the last century, precepts of scientific management and administrative rationality have concentrated power in the hands of technical specialists, which in recent decades has contributed to widespread disenfranchisement and discontent among stakeholders in natural resources cases. In this seminar we examine the limitations of scientific management as a model both for governance and for gathering and using information, and describe alternative methods for informing and organizing decision-making processes. We feature cases involving large carnivores in the West (mountain lions and grizzly bears), Northeast coastal fisheries, and adaptive management of the Colorado River. There will be nightly readings and a short written assignment.

This course examines joint fact-finding within the context of adaptive and ecosystem-based management. Challenges and obstacles to collaborative approaches for deciding environmental and natural resource policy and the institutional changes within federal agencies necessary to utilize joint fact-finding as a means to link science and societal decisions are discussed and reviewed with scientists and managers. Senior-level federal policymakers participate

How do we make choices in the face of uncertainty? In this episode of TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate), MIT professor Kerry Emanuel joins host Laur Hesse Fisher to talk about climate risk. Together, they break down why the climate system is so hard to predict, what exactly scientists mean when they talk about “uncertainty”, and how scientists quantify and assess the risks associated with climate change. Although this uncertainty shrinks every day — as researchers refine their work, computing power grows, and models improve — what we do and how quickly we act will ultimately come down to how much risk we are willing to accept.

Small Business Management in the 21st Century offers a unique perspective and set of capabilities for instructors. The authors designed this book with a “less can be more” approach, and by treating small business management as a practical human activity rather than as an abstract theoretical concept.

The text has a format and structure that will be familiar to you if you use other books on small business management. Yet it brings a fresh perspective by incorporating three distinctive and unique themes and an important new feature (Disaster Watch) which is embedded throughout the entire text. These themes assure that students see the material in an integrated context rather than a stream of separate and distinct topics.

First, the authors incorporate the use of technology and e-business as a way to gain competitive advantage over larger rivals. Technology is omnipresent in today’s business world. Small business must use it to its advantage. We provide practical discussions and examples of how a small business can use these technologies without having extensive expertise or expenditures.

Second, they explicitly acknowledge the constant need to examine how decisions affect cash flow by incorporating cash flow impact content in several chapters. As the life blood of all organizations, cash flow implications must be a factor in all business decision-making.

Third, they recognize the need to clearly identify sources of customer value and bring that understanding to every decision. Decisions that do not add to customer value should be seriously reconsidered.

Small Business Management in 21st Century boasts a new feature called Disaster Watch scenarios. Few texts cover, in any detail, some of the major hazards that small business managers face. Disaster Watch scenarios, included in most chapters, cover topics that include financing, bankers, creditors, employees, customers who don’t pay, economic downturns, and marketing mistakes.

From changes in traditional foods to concerns of displacement from rising seas, this coastal community in the Pacific Northwest is assessing potential impacts to make decisions for their future.

Introduction to mathematical modeling, optimization, and simulation, as applied to manufacturing. Specific methods include linear programming, network flow problems, integer and nonlinear programming, discrete-event simulation, heuristics and computer applications for manufacturing processes and systems. Restricted to Leaders for Manufacturing students. One objective of 15.066J is to introduce modeling, optimization and simulation, as it applies to the study and analysis of manufacturing systems for decision support. The introduction of optimization models and algorithms provide a framework to think about a wide range of issues that arise in manufacturing systems. The second objective is to expose students to a wide range of applications for these methods and models, and to integrate this material with their introduction to operations management.

A computational and application-oriented introduction to the modeling of large-scale systems in a wide variety of decision-making domains and the optimization of such systems using state-of-the-art optimization software. Application domains include transportation and logistics, pattern classification, structural design, financial engineering, and telecommunications system planning. Modeling tools and techniques covered include linear, network, discrete, and nonlinear programming, heuristic methods, sensitivity and postoptimality analysis, decomposition methods for large-scale systems, and stochastic programming.