Annie Murphy Paul on Thinking Outside the Brain

Description

When a problem is hard, the usual advice is to concentrate harder. Science writer Annie Murphy Paul argues that the brain works better when it has help from outside the skull. This course works through her book The Extended Mind in three parts. The first covers the body: reading your own internal signals, naming your emotions, taking movement breaks and using gestures. The second covers surroundings, from time outdoors to the case against open-plan offices. The third covers relationships and what makes a team think as one.

Each lesson has a video from Paul, followed by flip cards, click-through examples, a short scenario and a reflection prompt. Several lessons walk through the research studies she cites.

About the expert

Annie Murphy Paul is a science writer and journalist. The course is built on her book The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, which grew out of a 1998 philosophy paper by Andy Clark and David Chalmers asking where the mind stops and the rest of the world begins. In the videos she explains the research behind each practice.

What you’ll be able to do

• Explain what embodied, situated and socially distributed cognition mean, and why the brain is not the only place thinking happens
• Read your body’s internal signals, and name what you feel so a stressful moment loses some of its grip
• Schedule movement breaks during the workday instead of before or after it, and know why that timing matters
• Use gestures to work through abstract ideas and to hold a listener’s attention
• Step outside or change your route to recover from stress and break a cycle of rumination
• Reduce distraction in an open-plan office, and make the case for a quieter workspace
• Build a team that thinks as a ‘we’ rather than a set of individuals, using Paul’s four practices

Who it’s for

People whose work is mostly thinking: analysts, writers, designers, managers, anyone who has to concentrate for a living. It also suits team leads who want their group to work better together.

What’s inside

11 lessons, self-paced:

1. Introduction
2. Use Your Head
3. Listen to Your Body
4. The Power of Affect Labeling
5. Thinking With Movement
6. In Defense of Gestures
7. The Nature of Thought
8. The Privacy Principle
9. The Super-Powered Social Brain
10. Four Principles to Creating “Groupiness”
11. Conclusion

What you get

• 365 days of access from the date of purchase
• A certificate of completion when you finish the course
• Your place is saved, so you can stop and come back whenever you like
• Works on a computer, tablet or phone

You can also get this course, and every other course in the library, with All Access for $99.99 a year.