How it works

You do the thinking. The Coach makes you do it properly.

This isn't a lecture and it isn't a quiz. You read something, say what you think it means, and get challenged on it. What survives the challenge is kept. The Coach will not give you the answer — not on the first try and not on the tenth.

Use it like this: say what you half-think, even when you're not sure. A rough answer is something the Coach can work with. A guess you don't believe isn't. Being wrong here costs you nothing.

What it's for

Understanding the sentence in front of you is the floor, not the goal. What this course is after is whether you can say what a claim rests on, where it breaks, and what would change your mind. That's why the Coach keeps asking for a because — and then goes after it.

Four kinds of thinking come up over and over, and you tag each finding with the ones it used: Causal (did A actually produce B, and through what?) · Pattern (where does this same shape turn up again?) · Strategic (given this, what follows, and what would you do?) · Critical (how do I know this is right?). They show as coloured dots on the finding, so by the end of a unit you can see which kinds of thinking you actually did.

Getting in

Three things and you're going.

A name and a PIN
Sign in with a nickname or your first name — never your full name — and a four-digit PIN. No email, no surname. The PIN only stops a classmate with the same first name opening your work. Don't reuse one you use elsewhere.
Two doors
The Learning Tree and The Course. Both are yours, and most people move between them. Your name travels with you from one to the other.
Then a unit
Six units, five lessons each, always the same five. Nothing is locked — you can go wherever you like.

The two halves

One system. You'll use both.

🌳
The Learning Tree
Microeconomics drawn as a tree. You explore the topics, read a real case, and pick the evidence out of the text yourself — finding by finding, your reading grows into your own tree. No two students build the same one. You choose a topic off the tree, and that's how a lesson opens.
📚
The Course
Six coached units. The Coach asks instead of telling, your reasoning builds a Thinking Board, and the wizards and quizzes test whether it holds up cold.
🔗
Joined by you
Sign in once here and your name is carried in the link when you cross to the Tree — so the work is one piece of work, not two.

A unit is five lessons

The subject changes. The method doesn't.

1
Concepts
Put the unit's key ideas into your own words. The Coach does not hand over a definition — it asks until you've built one, and it insists on every part of it.
2
Debunk the Fallacies
Critical thinking. Claims that sound obviously true — the ones you probably already believe — put up at full strength and not debunked for you. You have to find what breaks them.
3
The Wizard
A working model in your hands. Three beats every time: predict before you touch anything, do the task, then defend your reasoning. You can hit a target by dragging at random, so hitting it proves nothing — what gets challenged is the reasoning.
4
Falsify the Theory
Strategic thinking. The hardest lesson. Build an explanation of a real case, then name what would prove you wrong — and then meet evidence you couldn't see while you were building. You're told at the start that both halves are coming.
5
Recap & Quiz
Sixteen questions. Every option is explained, right or wrong, and a miss links you straight back to the lesson it came from.

Learn the routine once in the first unit, and every unit after it is only new material.

What's on the screen in a lesson

Two panes. On a laptop, or a tablet held sideways, they sit side by side; on a phone they stack, reading first.

Left · the step
What this step is asking of you, at the top.
Left · the reading
Stays on screen the whole time. You're never asked to remember a passage you can't see any more.
Tap any paragraph
The Coach puts that paragraph into plain words. Free help — as often as you like, and it doesn't count against your tries.
The answer box
Type what you think, then press Enter or Send ›. Your own words — there's no multiple choice in a coached lesson. You can even answer the Coach's question with a question and it will keep the thread.
The Coach's reply
It restates what you said, names what was sound in it, says plainly what doesn't hold, then sends you to a specific place in the text with something to do there. The bold words are the two or three terms that carry the point.
‹ Prev · Retry · Next ›
Back a step, take this step again, or move on. On the last step, Next becomes Finish · export, which writes your findings to your Board.
Right · the journal
What's happened in this lesson, in order.
Right · your tree
The findings you've saved in this lesson, grouped by theme.
Right · the legend
Above the journal, and it tells you where each finding stands: the Coach is asking, challenged (the Coach pushed back and it did not hold), or confirmed (it held up).
Save to the tree ›
Puts a finding on your Board. You give it a theme, one line, a because, the passage it came from, and which of the four lenses it used. The because is the part that gets challenged.
Click a finding
The passage it came from is brought back up in the reading and highlighted. Use this constantly.

Your Thinking Board

Whatever survives the challenge is stored — and it stays with you. Open your Thinking Board ›

🌳
Findings you can defend
A claim reaches your Board only if it's anchored to something you actually read and it withstands the Coach's pushing back. Nothing gets there by being asserted.
↩
Click back to the source
Every finding remembers its passage. Reasoning you can't trace back to a sentence isn't reasoning you have yet.
🧠
The Coach remembers
Come back tomorrow and it knows what you established, where you struggled, and what you said in your own words — across lessons and across units. Which cuts both ways: if you argued something in week two and say the opposite in week nine, it will put the two side by side and ask which one you're keeping.
🗑
You can take one off
Delete a finding if you no longer stand behind it.

Loop back and forth — the part most people miss

Nothing here runs one way only, and nothing is locked behind anything else.

Tree → lesson → Tree
Pick a topic off the tree, work the lesson, then look at your tree again. It won't look the same.
Finding → its passage
One click, and the text it rests on is back on screen and highlighted.
Quiz miss → the lesson
Every wrong option explains itself and links back to the lesson it came from. Follow it — that's what it's for.
Finished lesson → again
Reopen it and your tries reset. The Coach still remembers you; the lesson isn't used up.
Unit 1 → unit 5
Your Board doesn't reset between units. Something you settled in the first unit is still there to argue with in the fifth.
Reading → Coach → reading
Tap a paragraph for plainer words, then go straight back to the step.

How it behaves

⏱
Your pace, nobody else's
Nothing is timed. No deadline in the app, no penalty for taking a week over a unit or an hour over one step. Stop mid-lesson, close the tab, come back next week — the Coach picks up where you left off.
🌙
There at any hour
The Coach doesn't keep office hours. Asking it something at 2am costs you nothing.
✍️
Answer in your own words
Typing is more work than ticking a box, and that's where the learning is. Two honest sentences beat a paragraph of hedging.
15
15 distinct coaching approaches, in four levels
Each time you miss, the Coach helps a different way, and the help grows with the tries. Level 1, the smallest nudge: it asks what part you did not understand, gives a small hint, sends you back to recheck one spot, repeats a small part of the instruction, or answers a simpler, similar question. Level 2, refocus and connect: one or two options to think about, the question restated, say exactly what you don't understand, or a time you met this problem in your own life. Level 3, guided instruction: a question to think differently, a partial answer to continue from, a short lesson on the mistake, or a parallel problem. Level 4, when you are stuck or worn out: the answer re-explained as the text gives it, or a five-minute break. Never the same approach twice in a row, and the point you did not settle comes back in the quiz with its reading.
📄
Your own reading
Thirteen works to choose from — Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Marshall, Jevons, Bastiat, Cournot, and documents from the US Department of Justice, the FTC, the Energy Information Administration and the EPA. Pick yours in My space; when one fits what you're working on, the Coach brings it in and quotes it.

What it won't do

Said plainly, so you don't waste time on it.

Give you the answer early
Not because you ask for it. It will clarify any passage as often as you like and help fourteen different ways first; only at the last level, when everything else has been tried, does it re-explain the answer as the text gives it, and even then it asks you to put it in your own words.
Check work from elsewhere
It won't mark an answer you got somewhere else.
Grade you
The quiz scores. The Coach doesn't.
Summarise a whole text
There's no document summariser. Tapping a paragraph gets you that paragraph in plain words — that's the closest thing to it.
Teach you to speed-read
No reading-speed trainer, and nothing reads aloud.
Let you move the panes
The split is fixed: side by side on a laptop or a tablet held sideways, stacked on a phone.
Take your own upload
You can't add your own PDF to the library yet.
Chase you
No reminders, no notifications, no streaks.
Screen by screen
Welcome the first page
New here?
A name and a four-digit PIN, twice. That's the whole sign-up.
Been here before?
The same name and PIN opens your space, on any device.
Sign out
"Not you? Sign out", beside your name. Your work stays where it is.
The two doors
Grow your tree, or start the course.
Forgotten your PIN
There's no reset in the app — ask your instructor. A new name and PIN gives you a new, empty space.
I teach this course
For teachers only: open it under the sign-in, type the teacher code you were given, then create your space or sign in with your name and PIN — an account you already have becomes a teacher's. A teacher's sign-in opens "The class" on the dashboard for twelve hours; after that, sign in again. Students never need it, and without a teacher's sign-in the class view stays closed.
Your syllabus
For teachers: the syllabus page (also linked from "The class" on the dashboard). Drop a PDF, Word, .txt or .md file, give it a title, say whether the Coach may quote it or only paraphrase it, and optionally pick a unit. The list below shows each upload's state, pages and passages; it is read today and indexed overnight, so it is usable tomorrow. Retry a failed one, or delete one.
My space your texts
What it holds
Your Board, your conversations with the Coach, and the texts you've chosen to read alongside the course.
Choosing your texts
Tick the ones you want. The Coach leans on those when one fits the step.
If you choose none
The Coach uses whatever fits. Choosing just points it at your books.
Why two aren't quoted
The OpenStax textbook and Pigou can't be reproduced under their licence, so the Coach paraphrases and names them instead of quoting.
The Course, a unit, a lesson getting around
Open Unit N ›
Opens a unit from the course page.
‹ The Course
Back up, from inside a unit.
ILT-coach, top left
Back to the course outline, from anywhere.
‹ Back
One step back. Your findings are saved either way.
A lesson page
Tells you what the lesson covers before you start it.
Any order you like
The five-lesson order is how the method builds, not a gate.
The Wizard lesson 3
Predict
Say what you expect before you touch the model.
The task
A specific thing to achieve by moving the model.
Defend
Locked until the task is genuinely done. Then the Coach challenges your reasoning — not your dragging.
Why each is different
The shape of a model decides which question you're forced to ask. Unit 1 is a plane you click, not a slider. Hiring is a table built one worker at a time, not a graph you can read an answer off.
Starting over
Just keep moving it. Nothing is spent.
Recap & Quiz lesson 5
Sixteen questions
Four on each of the unit's first four lessons.
Every option explained
Including the ones you didn't pick, so a miss teaches you something instead of just scoring zero.
The link after a miss
Goes straight to the lesson that question came from.
Taking it again
You can.
Thinking Board & progress the Dashboard link
What's there
Your Thinking Board — every finding you saved and the Coach's verdict on each — above it your progress step by step and lesson by lesson, and a weekly read on how you're moving.
Where the numbers come from
Your own record, worked out the moment you open the page. Nothing is stored, so a number on that screen cannot drift away from what actually happened — and where something isn't measured yet it says so in words instead of showing you a figure.
Fixing a finding
On your own Thinking Board you can correct the wording of a finding, or take one off. Your verdict from the Coach doesn't change when you do — only your words.
Stuck? Tap the paragraph you're stuck on first — that's free and it doesn't count. Then say what you half-think, even badly. If a question doesn't make sense, say so and the Coach will ask it again in plainer words. If it's the app rather than the economics that has you stuck, this page is the place — it covers every screen and every control.
Start the course › My space Thinking Board & progress