21a

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

The general theme of this book was the relationship between fast, intuitive thinking and slow, deliberate thinking. The author describes both systems of thinking and their benefits and weaknesses. He explains that system 1 and 2 interact with each other well the majority of the time, but they can also get in the way of each other. Learning and understanding the techniques for using both systems of thinking efficiently will help minimize errors we make in our lives.

I believe this book connected with what we are learning in this class by making me take a step back and think about which system of thinking I use for different things involving this class. Analyzing if I am using fast or slow thinking is something I have never considered, but after reading this book it is interesting to think about which system of thinking I am using. There are a variety of assignments in this class (interviews, reading reflections, blog comments, quizzes, etc.) and they all force us to use different ways of thinking to complete them. Now that I understand the systems of thinking, I can use the techniques learned in the book to try and use the correct system of thinking when needed. In my opinion, this will enhance my learning in this class by allowing me to grasp the information easier and apply it to my life.

If I had to design an exercise for this class based on the book Thinking, Fast and Slow, I would have each student think about 10 random decisions/actions they make regularly or have made in the past, and decide if they used fast, intuitive thinking or slow, deliberate thinking when doing it. By doing this, students will be able to see the interaction of fast and slow thinking in their lives.  I think this exercise would be interesting because a lot of people have never considered what system of thinking they use in their daily life, so this would be an eye-opener. Exercises that are predictable are normally the most boring for students, which is why this one could be intriguing and consequently successful.

I would say the biggest surprise moment when reading the book was just thinking about the idea that there is so much that goes into making each decision or action. Before reading this book, I didn’t know there were two different systems of thinking and I didn’t know that they had such a huge impact on our lives. I found this book very interesting because of the amount of information I learned and can now apply to my life. My original expectation of this book was that it would be a lot of information I already knew about, but it was very satisfying learning new information that is so relevant to my daily life.