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What does instagram have in common with a casino? What does your spotify algorithm know about you? How many ads have you had to see today?
We inhabit this digital world and interact with it daily. But how do we make sense of the technologies and platforms that shape our daily interactions? What kinds of questions should we be asking of them, and how might we go about finding answers?
Critical Thinking for the Everyday is an interactive course that creates a space in which you can investigate some of the bricks on which our lives are built by expressing doubts, asking questions and evaluating explanations. Through skepticism, curiosity, and self-reflection, this course aims to empower you to evaluate the systems, data, and assumptions that guide the digital world around us. You will reflect on the everyday relationships we have with the apps, algorithms and technologies that form part of our digital lives. What factors determine the ways in which we use apps, and why does this matter? How would we like the technologies around us to evolve? You will explore how apps influence our behaviors, what personal data we willingly or unknowingly share, and how we can better navigate the information age.
By offering a series of case-studies that require us to turn a mirror on ourselves and our own habits, this course encourages 鈥榗ritical thinking鈥� as an ordinary and everyday practice of participating with the world around you. With real-world examples, you will engage in thoughtful reflection and discussion, developing the skills to question, critique and influence the technological landscape.
The course will culminate into a capstone project and presentation where you will critique a specific design feature on an app or a digital platform, with a view to showing how it evolved and how it affects the ways in which a specific set of users interact with the app. Through this project, you will think about why the specific feature was introduced, address the role the feature is playing in influencing the digital lives of others and consider its implications for you.
“The engaging teaching style, combined with interactive activities and thoughtful discussions, made each class not only enjoyable but deeply insightful. These sessions have sharpened my thinking and will certainly benefit me far beyond the classroom.These sessions have sharpened my thinking and will certainly benefit me far beyond the classroom.”
– Aarnav, Grade 9, Delhi Public School
This course is designed for anyone interested in sharpening their skills of critical thinking, problem solving and analytical reasoning. It is also for anyone interested in the intersection of technology and society and for those who want to become more thoughtful, informed users of the digital tools that shape their everyday experiences. No matter what stream you choose, this course will teach you how to apply critical thinking in various interdisciplinary fields of work.
Prerequisites: High proficiency in written & spoken English. You will be required to submit your latest mark sheet in the application form.
By the end of the programme, you will:
| Week | Lecture Module | Project Module |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Expressing Doubts
Understand the role of skepticism provoking a process of critical enquiry. Understand our 鈥榲irtual鈥� lives, and why we need to be skeptical of the ways in which these are governed. |
Project Stage 1
Share aspects of our virtual lives through discussion, and arrive at the specific app or digital platform that is to be studied. |
| Week 2 | Raising Questions
Understand the various kinds of questions, and building enquiry is structured through the structuring of pertinent questions Untangle the unanswered questions about our digital habits, and consider potential flaws in the technologies we interact with. |
Project Stage 2
Identify the group of users that the project will focus on, and review the methods through which the project will be studied and developed |
| Week 3 | Evaluating Explanations
Make decisions about what to trust, and evaluate the robustness of sources of knowledge on the internet. Place the information gathered about digital lives and app governance into a suitable explanatory framework. |
Project Stage 3 Work on strengthening the argument to be presented by synthesizing the material collected and asserting a causal link.聽 |
| Week 4 | Sharing Insights聽
Present your capstone projects, share insights and participate in collaborative peer review to critically engage with others’ project ideas. |
Presentation Day Present your capstone projects, share insights and participate in collaborative peer review to critically engage with others’ project ideas |
| Week 5 | 颁辞耻苍蝉别濒濒颈苍驳:听
Get a chance to ask questions to the faculty and the mentor and get their answers and perspective.聽 You are encouraged to ask questions to the faculty around the following aspects:
|
Mentoring:
You are encouraged to ask questions to the mentor around the following aspects:
|
As your capstone project you will critique a specific design feature on an app or digital platform, with a view to showing how it evolved and how it impacts the ways in which a defined group of users interact with the app. The form and feel of your response is up to you: you can make a video, do a live demonstration, play an audio recording, or talk through a series of slides. You will have 6-8 minutes to present your project. In your presentation, you must showcase the feature, how and why the feature came to be, the group of users you have considered and what their challenges in navigating this app or digital platform are.
Krittika Bhattacharjee is an educator and theatre-maker. She has taught the Undergraduate Writing Programme鈥檚 flagship course 鈥� Introduction to Critical Thinking 鈥� since 2018. Krittika is trained in History (University of Delhi and University of Oxford) and Religious Studies (University of Edinburgh). Her PhD is in Religious Studies, and her doctoral thesis studied the ways in which tourists to the Scottish island of Iona interacted with its religious reputation. Krittika has taught several courses at institutions in Oxford, Edinburgh and Delhi 鈥� on cults, on war, on the Bible in literature 鈥� but she enjoys most of all the tricky work of teaching 鈥楥ritical Thinking鈥�.
In parallel with her continued interest in structured learning and teaching, Krittika works in independent theatre as an actor and writer. She co-runs the Tadpole Repertory Theatre Trust, a New Delhi-based artists鈥� collective, and takes particular pleasure in ensemble work and short-form comedy (or 鈥渟ketch鈥�). Krittika鈥檚 scholarly interest in ethnography as a means of capturing lively data follows her into the theatrical work she makes. At the same time, her actorly-self bobs behind her, willing itself into classrooms at Ashoka.
Grading, Assessments, Certification and much more
All Ashoka Horizons courses offer a certificate on satisfactory completion of the programme.聽
Class participation will be assessed based on your active engagement in live sessions, contributions to discussion forums, and involvement in Teaching Fellow-led activities.聽
Academic dishonesty is cheating of any kind, including misrepresenting one鈥檚 own work and taking credit for the work of others. Plagiarism is a kind of academic dishonesty including but not limited to submitting the work of others as your own. Using AI tools for anything other than editing and revising language, and failing to disclose this information, would also count as academic dishonesty.
Achieve More鈥ith Horizons:
*For select students, subject to discretion of the faculty
This programme聽 is administered through an online platform. Students are expected to have a foundational understanding of computer usage, including but not limited to sending emails and conducting Internet searches. Consistent access to the Internet and a computer that aligns with the are also requisite for participation in the programme.
Have a question about Ashoka Horizons Achievers Programme? Write to us on horizons@ashoka.edu.in
The project module was quite interesting and insightful throughout the course. Through this module, the TF effortlessly conveyed the importance of different topics encapsulating major aspects of critical thinking including premises and various fallacies, an aspect we should apply daily.
It was quite good as most people built on each others points and respectfully laid their opinions rather than talking over each other.
Navyug Mohnot
Visiting Faculty, 51茶馆
Schedule:To be announced
Dr Brainerd Prince
Associate Professor, Plaksha University
PhD, Middlesex University
Schedule:
To be announced
Prof. Arpita Das
Associate Professor of Practice of Academic Writing, 51茶馆
MA, SOAS, University of London; Founder, Yoda Press
Schedule:To be announced
