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Calendar

HW + Forecasting exercises are released Wednesdays and due the following Tuesday.
Quizzes (on the readings) take place on Fridays. Readings are released Mondays.

Note: “Discussion” refers to lectures that are in a flipped classroom format, but they are still held during a regular lecture slot.

Week 1

Jan 17
Lecture 1: Class Overview (What is forecasting, why should we expect to be able to train it as a skill, course roadmap)
Notes / HW1 (due 01/23) / Course Overview / Slides
Jan 19
Discussion 1: Calibration (short intro to calibration, followed by activity)
Discussion Worksheet / Discussion Solutions

Week 2

Jan 22
Lecture 2: Scoring Rules
Notes / Slides
Jan 24
Lecture 3: Fermi Estimation
Notes / HW2 (due 01/30) / Slides
Jan 26
Discussion 2: Fermi Estimation Practice
Discussion Worksheet / Quiz on Reading: What are (probabilistic) beliefs? (through end of Exercise 13-5)

Week 3

Jan 29
Lecture 4: Zeroth and First Order Forecasting
Notes / Slides
Jan 31
Lecture 5: Base Rates and Reference Classes
Notes / Slides / HW3 (due 02/06)
Feb 2
Discussion 3: Base Rates practice
Discussion Worksheet / Quiz on Reading: Review of Bayesian Statistics

Week 4

Feb 5
Lecture 6: “Other” Options
Slides / Notes
Feb 7
Lecture 7: Combining Forecasts (Part 1)
Slides / Notes / HW4 (due 02/13) / Data for HW4 Lab (also available in the lab Jupyter Notebook)
Feb 9
Discussion 4: Likelihood Thermometer
Discussion Worksheet / Quiz on Reading: The Inner Game of Forecasting (due 2/9)

Week 5

Feb 12
Lecture 8: Combining Forecasts (Part 2)
Slides / Notes
Feb 14
Lecture 9: Common Probability Distributions
Slides / Notes / HW5 (due 2/20)
Feb 16
Discussion 5: Combining Forecasts Practice
Discussion Worksheet / Quiz on Reading: Prediction Markets (pages 1-8, due 2/17)

Week 6

Feb 19
Presidents' Day
Feb 21
Lecture 10: Prioritizing Information
Slides / HW6 (due 02/27) / Notes
Feb 23
Discussion 6: Wits & Wagers
Discussion Worksheet / No Quiz!

Week 7

Feb 26
Lecture 11: Turning Considerations Into Probabilities
Slides / Notes
Feb 28
Lecture 12: Numerical Methods for Combining Considerations
Slides / HW7 (due 3/5) / Notes / Final Project Description / Final Project Proposal instructions (due 03/19)
Mar 1
Discussion 7: Confidence Intervals Practice
Discussion Worksheet / Discussion Solutions / Quiz on Reading: Benford's Law and Zipf's Law

Week 8

Mar 4
Lecture 13: Cognitive Biases Pt. 1
Slides / Notes
Mar 6
Lecture 14: Cognitive Biases Pt. 2
Slides (same as previous) / HW8 (due 3/12)
Mar 8
Discussion 8: Cognitive Biases
Discussion Worksheet Version 1 / Discussion sheet Version 2 / Discussion Solutions / Quiz Reading

Week 9

Mar 11
Lecture 15: Independence Assumptions
Slides / Notes
Mar 13
Lecture 16: Independence Assumptions (Part 2)
Notebook / Notes / HW9 (due 03/19)
Mar 15
Discussion 9: Independence Assumptions
Discussion worksheet / Quiz Reading

Week 10

Mar 18
Lecture 17: Beliefs Across Time (Martingales)
Notes
Mar 20
Lecture 18: Kelly Betting
Notes / Notebook / HW10 (due 04/05)
Mar 22
Discussion 10: Wits & Wagers
Discussion worksheet

Spring Break

Mar 25
Spring Recess
Mar 27
Spring Recess
Mar 29
Spring Recess

Week 11

Apr 1
Lecture 19: Information Hygiene
Slides / Notes
Apr 3
Lecture 20: Regression to the Mean and Statistical Traps
Slides / Notes / HW 11 (due 04/12)
Apr 5
Discussion 11 (optional): Martingales and Kelly Betting
Discussion Worksheet / Quiz on Reading: Election Forecasting

Week 12

Apr 8
Lecture 21: Guest Speaker: Forecasting with LLMs
Slides
Apr 10
Lecture 22: Guest Speaker: Pandemic Forecasting
HW 12 (due 4/19)
April 12
Discussion 12: Forecasting on the Fly
Discussion Worksheet / Quiz on Reading: AI Forecasting

Week 13

Apr 15
Lecture 23: Guest Speaker: Forecasting and Decision-Making
Apr 17
Lecture 24: Forecasting the Future of AI
Slides / Research Slides
Apr 19
Discussion 13: Forecasting your Own Life
Discussion Worksheet / Quiz on Reading: Aumann's Agreement Theorem

Week 14

Apr 22
Lecture 25: Winner's Curse
Slides / Notebook
Apr 24
Lecture 26: Predictions Affecting Outcomes
Slides
Apr 26
Final Project Poster Session
Quiz on Reading: Pandemic Forecasting

RRR Week

Apr 29
RRR Week
May 1
RRR Week
May 3
RRR Week

Week 16

May 5
Final Projects Due