Applied Machine Learning
This course will introduce the learner to applied machine learning, focusing more on the techniques and methods than on the statistics behind these methods. The course will start with a discussion of how machine learning is different than descriptive statistics, and introduce the scikit learn toolkit through a tutorial. The issue of dimensionality of data will be discussed, and the task of clustering data, as well as evaluating those clusters, will be tackled. Supervised approaches for creating predictive models will be described, and learners will be able to apply the scikit learn predictive modelling methods while understanding process issues related to data generalizability (e.g. cross validation, overfitting). The course will end with a look at more advanced techniques, such as building ensembles, and practical limitations of predictive models. By the end of this course, students will be able to identify the difference between a supervised (classification) and unsupervised (clustering) technique, identify which technique they need to apply for a particular dataset and need, engineer features to meet that need, and write python code to carry out an analysis.
Curriculum
- 3 Sections
- 26 Lessons
- 0 Quizzes
- 96h Duration
Week 1
- Introduction
- Key Concepts in Machine Learning
- Python Tools for Machine Learning
- An Example Machine Learning Problem
- Examining the Data
- K-Nearest Neighbors Classification
- Zachary Lipton: The Foundations of Algorithmic Bias (optional)
Week 2
- Introduction to Supervised Machine Learning
- Overfitting and Underfitting
- Supervised Learning: Datasets
- K-Nearest Neighbors: Classification and Regression
- Linear Regression: Least-Squares
- Linear Regression: Ridge, Lasso, and Polynomial Regression
- Logistic Regression
- Linear Classifiers: Support Vector Machines
- Multi-Class Classification
- Kernelized Support Vector Machines
- Cross-Validation
- Decision Trees
- Useful Things to Know about Machine Learning
Week 3
- Model Evaluation & Selection
- Confusion Matrices & Basic Evaluation Metrics
- Classifier Decision Functions
- Precision-recall and ROC curves
- Multi-Class Evaluation
- Practical Guide to Controlled Experiments on the Web (optional)