Learning

Machine learning capabilities are only growing. Researchers are conducting promising experiments on a variant called deep learning , programs patterned after the very structure of the brain. Deep learning programs consist of layers of algorithms stacked atop each other. An input from one layer is then transmitted into the next, with each subsequent layer further processing the inputs. With this complex system, deep learning can easily recognize patterns and indulge in extremely high-level procedures?—?higher than what we've seen thus far from normal machine learning programs.

Games are more than just a gateway into CS; they can also serve as long-term learning tools. James Staffen, an undergraduate CS major at Penn State and a former Zulama student, is a big believer in learning CS by designing games. He started programming in high school and knows how challenging the learning process can be.

Learning to program is the new form of literacy. So much of the things we interact with have been touched by code. The more you can learn to code, the more interaction and impact you can have with the world around you. In other words, learning to code won't just give you technical knowledge?—?it'll also give you a new way to approach both how you work and life.

In the early ‘90s, a New Zealand man named Neil Fleming decided to sort through something that had puzzled him during his time monitoring classrooms as a school inspector. In the course of watching 9,000 different classes, he noticed that only some teachers were able to reach each and every one of their students. What were they doing differently?

Experts aren’t sure how the concept spread, but it might have had something to do with the self-esteem movement of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Everyone was special—so everyone must have a special learning style, too. Teachers told students about it in grade school. “Teachers like to think that they can reach every student, even struggling students, just by tailoring their instruction to match each student’s preferred learning format,” said Central Michigan University’s Abby Knoll, a PhD student who has studied learning styles. (Students, meanwhile, like to blame their scholastic failures on their teacher’s failure to align their teaching style with their learning style.)

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