Overall, it seems based on the survey results that our pace is about right – maybe slightly on the slow side, but that’s OK I think because the focus of part 1 of the course (which we’re doing now) is beginners.
7% of respondents said they don’t feel comfortable asking questions. In the comments, this is nearly entirely due to folks feeling intimidated with all the experienced practitioners here. Therefore I’ve created beginner-only topics for all the key parts of the course. Experienced folks: please keep an eye on them and help out! (And please don’t post any interesting but non-essential stuff there…) Beginners: your questions are most welcome either in this threads, or in the main lesson topics. The most important this is to ask them, because otherwise:
- Other beginners with the same question won’t learn either
- You won’t get your question answered!
A couple of comments showed that we haven’t done a good enough job of explaining how questions work:
You can ask questions during classes, or afterwards, by putting your question in the lesson topic. TA’s monitor those, and if your question gets >4 "like"s, and is beginner-friendly, then the TA’s let me know about it, and I answer it in the lesson. If you have a question that isn’t of general interest (i.e it doesn’t get many "like"s), then we won’t interrupt the lesson to answer it - instead I go through every single question the day after the class. When I last checked, I didn’t find any unanswered questions (although sometimes I miss some!)
Here’s a random selection of what’s “working well”:
Here’s a random selection of things to improve:
A few folks mentioned having a mid-lesson break. I think that’s a great idea so we’ll do it!
Regarding questions like “it would help if students are directed to the technical components of the lesson, along with the codes” – please ask these at the time so we can ensure you have the information you need! When I only read these questions in a mid-course survey, I’m worried that I’m giving you very delayed help. For future reference: all the components of the lesson and all code is linked from the top post of each lesson topic: Lesson 2 official topic . If you can’t find something, please let us know.
A couple of people posted comments like:
I don’t understand what I am supposed to be reading in the book
In short: lesson 1 goes with chapter 1, and lesson 2 goes with chapter 2. However, as mentioned in lesson 1, there is (intentionally) not a 1-1 correspondence. Rather than just tell you what the book says (which you can much better get by reading the book) I’m providing similar information but in a different (generally more hands-on and interactive) form. The previous iteration of this course was, however, largely a 1-1 correspondence with the book, so if you’d rather have lessons where I’m telling you what the book says, then watch the videos on https://course.fast.ai/.
Random sample of answers about what could you do differently:
Random samples of other comments:
