1. Defining your why gives you more direction.
2. Once you have your first why go a level deeper and ask yourself, why is that your why and come up with a second why.

• Nervous about learning new things and technology moving fast?
• Want to learn faster, applying knowledge across multiple subjects?
• Approach courses with a life-changing perspective
• People reported being more comfortable learning and being in new environments with increased speed

Why This Course

• The completion rate of Nanodegrees is at best 34% ([1][2]) with private undergrad colleges at 64% [3]
• Traditional education is based on an industrial-age model. (See Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk [4])
• In the Information Age, we need a learning paradigm shift.
• Traditional Learning Structure:
  • Structured learning times (classes)
  • Imposed deadlines (quarter, semester)
  • Guidance on what to learn (teachers)
• Self-Directed Learning Structure”
  • Loose learning times (online classes a 24/7 access)
  • Loose deadlines (complete this by next week or at your own paces)
  • Guidance is shared between you and the structure of the online class
• Time for a change
• Understanding Data Analytics helps to have
  • Positive emotion and self-talk guide
  • Techniques for developing mental models of a domain
  • Overview of Data Analytics domain

Robert Joseph, Ph.D.

• Advanced Degrees From MIT and CMU
• Data Scientist and Former Director at Stanley Black & Decker
• University Professor for over 15 Years, 10 of them fulltime teaching adult learners
• State of the art development for over 20 years
• Patent for Internet DJ
• Father of 2 Awesome Teenage Boys

Class Philosophy

• You are ultimately responsible for your learning.
• No course will give you everything you need because everyone needs something different.
• Use supplemental sources; some listed on the Resources page. 
• Map out your own learning path based on your and as you learn more continue to update your needs based on new information.
• Use this and all courses as a guide and the entire knowledge source.

HAVE FUN AND CHOOSE POWERFULLY!

• Stops at lights
• Stops at cars
• Follows road
• Changes Lanes

1. Dashboard – explore Nike’s factory data.
2. Machine Learning example – With petal data cluster the iris types
3. Machine Vision Facial Tracking – technique can be used from helping disable to game control and more
4. Deep Learning – sophisticated problems being solving by computers

Use your:

• Understanding of Data Analytics
• Mental Models
• Jobs and Skills Interesting to you

To build an initial roadmap of your learning journey. Change anytime and as much or as little as you want. It is your journey so have at it.

1. Data Access – allow users to see data that has been hidden from view or unavailable
2. Data Visualization – allowing users to explore data and develop conclusions
3. Predictive – with a degree of certainty forecasting future events based on historical events
4. Prescriptive – with predicting the future suggesting solutions to achieve the future desired outcome
5. Automation – to automate a process for monitoring, predicting the future, defining what can be done to achieve the desired future outcome and then doing the action without human intervention.

1. Data Visualization: Allowing end-users to view data in a way that supports understanding and making good business decisions
2. Artificial Intelligence: Making computer systems emulate the way that humans solve problems
   1. Machine Learning: uses historical data to predict the future (supervised and unsupervised)
   2. Neural Network: more advance data usage to detect patterns
   3. Other Techniques
3. Soft Skills
4. Programming: using commands given to computers to create user interfaces, analytical algorithms and process to solve, automate and support data-driven business decisions
5. Data Sources: where data is being stored
   1. Types: Types of databases and data location for getting data for decision making (ex. SQL and NoSQL Databases, Streaming Data from Internet Of Things (IOT) Devices)
   2. Structure
6. Math
7. Concepts
   1. Big Data
   2. Cloud
   3. Edge Computing

• Ratings help us to make the course better
• Ratings help you to reflect on what you learned

Once you have selected a problem to solve, you’re ready to execute a data analytics project. It has the following parts:

First, collect the raw data -> refine the data -> understand the data -> make sense of the data -> create the appropriate system for doing the analysis -> get the system in the end-user’s hand.

1. Multiple Data Sources – Data can exist in many forms — from Excel spreadsheets being maintained on someone’s desktop to ERP systems used company-wide for the running of the organization. All of the pertinent data needs to be placed in a storage location that data scientists can retrieve.
2. Data Storage – This is the location where data are stored. The raw data are stored so that you can always go back and get information if you need it in the future.
3. Data Preparation – Data are very rarely ready for analysis so there is a data preparation process that consists of data cleaning (filling in missing values or correcting incorrect values) and data manipulation (this may consist of using business rules to augment the data).
4. Data Learning – this step consists of seeking to gain insights and action items from the data. This can be in the form of a machine learning model, visualization dashboard, or deep learning system to integrate with the final workflow of the company.
5. Learning Deployment – if the work is not being used then it is not making a positive impact on the company. The learning deployment allows end-users to take advantage of all the work that was done.
6. Foundation – this is the infrastructure that is needed to make all of the above possible.

Team

1. Data Engineers – responsible for getting the data from the data source and delivering it to a central location for usage. They also may be responsible for cleaning the data and formatting the data in a usable form.
2. Data Scientists – responsible for performing analysis of the data. This analysis is based on delivering value to the business.
3. Data Analyst – responsible for Data Access and Data Visualization, allowing end-users to get access to the data in a way that allows those end-users to explore the data and draw their own conclusions. through reports and dashboards.
4. Data Architects along with Data Engineering and IT are responsible for the underlying structure that the system is built on. Many companies place this structure in the cloud (e.g. AWS, Azure, or some other cloud platform)

1. Faster understanding
2. Agility in thinking
3. Knowledge without fear

EL³G™ stands for:

1. Emotion and Self-Talk – can enhance or hinder your learning.
2. Learning to Learn How to Learn – broadens your learning and understanding ability
3. Generalization – demonstrates how to use these techniques to apply to everything.

1. Emotions are the biggest barrier to learning and are all about the choices that we make.
2. Fear, Frustration, and Self-doubt are all choices
3. Developing that ability to choose is a like muscle, you can strengthen with practice.

• Our Mindsets Matter
• Dr. Crum is a professor, psychologist, and researcher investigating how mindsets affect health and behavior.

Click on this link to see the entire video

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – You’re Right.”
– by Henry Ford, American Industrialist

• Changing what you tell yourself changes not only how you view things but also the actions that you take.
• Stories can be very powerful so create stories that will help you reach your goals.

1. Direct your learning
2. Pull knowledge in from different subject area
3. Provide a repeatable method for problem-solving

Give someone a fish and
They eat for a day

Teach someone to fish and
They eat for a lifetime

Teach someone to Learn “how to learn to fish” and
Everything is possible!
— modified by Robert

1. Figure out what you are trying to learn and why
2. As you are learning, filter the information into its simplest context.
3. Act quickly in doing something fun and relevant to the information you’ve learned.
4. Figure out a process on how to get yourself out of learning gaps by the following:
   1. Identify what you know
   2. Identify what you don’t know
      1. Break operations down into smaller steps and test assumptions.
      2. As you verify your assumptions, refine your thinking.
   3. Develop a plan on how to learn what you don’t know.
5. This may require that you repeat the above steps several times as you continue to learn and grow. You don’t always solve the problem in one step but sometimes small steps towards the goal continue to get you there until you have that eureka moment and it all falls into place.
6. Become a continuous universal learner

Process for transferring knowledge from one thing to another. There are two types:

1. Near – apply skills in one area to a similar area
2. Far – apply what you learn to a different context

Strategies

1. explicit teaching
2. group learning
3. reflection
4. analogies and metaphors
5. try generalizing

1. Thought about and used my skills in one area to apply them to a new area
2. I worked to gain an understanding of the important components of comedy and how they fit together.
3. Organizing principles in a way that made sense to me.
4. I used additional sources to build on my knowledge
5. I did not let negative talk creep into my learning
6. I found an ally with a common goal
7. All this allowed me to co-create something that I had never done before.

1. Everyone creates mental models to represent the world around them.
2. Mental models can be extended in many ways and here are two that I want to talk about:
   1. Decomposing concepts — this is used to identify building blocks
   2. Abstracting concepts — moving from specific to general

<!–

• Mental models are representations based on a perspective and usage that highlight aspects of real-world concepts.
• Mental models often have multiple layers to them.
• Mental models allow you to reason and draw conclusions in one domain and make similar solutions in totally different domains.

–>

1. Set a goal and make a plan. You can always change it but setting a goal and making a plan brings it to life. It gets you underway.
2. Goals and plans can be changed as you get more information.
3. Learning is a continuous process that begins when you first conceive of an idea.

1. Take care of yourself
2. Think about your internal needs before you start and come up with a plan on how to have them met.
3. It is OK to change your plans and your thoughts but starting is key

1. Define what you think your needs are.
2. Ask others for help.
3. It is OK not to have everything all worked out. Starting is the first step.