The Learning Problem Course Introduction
Course Design (1/2)
Machine Learning: a mixture of theoretical and practical tools
•
theory oriented
•
derive everything deeply for solid understanding
•
less interesting to general audience
•
techniques oriented
•
flash over the sexiest techniques broadly for shiny coverage
•
too many techniques, hard to choose, hard to use properly
our approach: foundation oriented
Hsuan-Tien Lin (NTU CSIE) Machine Learning Foundations 1/27
The Learning Problem Course Introduction
Course Design (2/2)
Foundation Oriented ML Course
•
mixture of philosophical illustrations, key theory, core techniques,
usage in practice, and hopefully jokes :-)
—what every machine learning user should know
•
story-like:
•
When Can Machines Learn? (illustrative + technical)
•
Why Can Machines Learn? (theoretical + illustrative)
•
How Can Machines Learn? (technical + practical)
•
How Can Machines Learn Better? (practical + theoretical)
allows students to learn ‘future/untaught’
techniques or study deeper theory easily
Hsuan-Tien Lin (NTU CSIE) Machine Learning Foundations 2/27
The Learning Problem Course Introduction
Course History
NTU Version
•
15-17 weeks (2+ hours)
•
highly-praised with English
and blackboard teaching
Coursera Version
•
8 weeks of ‘foundation’ (this
course) + 7 weeks of
‘techniques’ (coming course)
•
Mandarin teaching to reach
more audience in need
•
slides teaching improved
with Coursera’s quiz and
homework mechanisms
goal: try making Coursera version
even better than NTU version
Hsuan-Tien Lin (NTU CSIE) Machine Learning Foundations 3/27
The Learning Problem Course Introduction
Fun Time
Which of the following description of this course is true?
1 the course will be taught in Taiwanese
2 the course will tell me the techniques that create the android
Lieutenant Commander Data in Star Trek
3 the course will be 15 weeks long
4 the course will be story-like
Reference Answer: 4
1 no, my Taiwanese is unfortunately not
good enough for teaching (yet)
2 no, although what we teach may serve as
foundations of those (future) techniques
3 no, unless you choose to join the next
course
4 yes, let’s begin the story
Hsuan-Tien Lin (NTU CSIE) Machine Learning Foundations 4/27
