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No one, and let me repeat that, no one "gets" linear algebra, differential equations, or frequency domain on the first pass. It takes years to absorb and multip

No one, and let me repeat that, no one "gets" linear algebra, differential equations, or frequency domain on the first pass. It takes years to absorb and multiple passes. See: Bruner / Spiral Curriculum. Ebbinghaus / Spacing effect Hattie / Deep-surface-transfer learning Chunking ("How People Learn" has a good copy on this) Etc. The way you do this is you take a course, and then you take more courses. After a few years, it all connects and makes sense. The first course, I find, is often best short, simplified, and applied. Once you get through that, you can go deeper. Different angles are nice too. For linear algebra: - Quantum computing - Statistics and probability - Machine learning - Control theory - Image processing - Abstract algebra / groups / etc. - Computer graphics All come to mind. On a mile-high level, this course seems ideal for a first pass. On a detailed level, I'm confused by some licensing issues.

almostgotcaught 2y ago
> No one, and let me repeat that, no one "gets" linear algebra, differential equations, or frequency domain on the first pass. It takes years to absorb and multiple passes... I don't understand the point of this comment. On the one hand you're trying to encourage people by saying "don't feel bad you didn't get it the first time" but then you throw a mountain more work/terms/books at them? You think it's encouraging to a student to hear that if they didn't succeed in this robotics class because the LA coverage wasn't great ...... they should go take quantum computing, control theory, abstract algebra classes?
banku_brougham 2y ago
Really for my linear algebra courses in pure math i was comfortable--but some applications courses would help me understand the usefulness.
btilly 2y ago
Not with the way it is taught. But if the course structure is changed slightly to have reinforcement of early concepts woven through the course, people learn much better. At least that was my experience when I taught it. See https://bentilly.blogspot.com/2009/09/teaching-linear-algebra.html https://bentilly.blogspot.com/2009/09/teaching-linear-algebr... for more detail on my experience.

almostgotcaught 2y ago

> No one, and let me repeat that, no one "gets" linear algebra, differential equations, or frequency domain on the first pass. It takes years to absorb and multiple passes... I don't understand the point of this comment. On the one hand you're trying to encourage people by saying "don't feel bad you didn't get it the first time" but then you throw a mountain more work/terms/books at them? You think it's encouraging to a student to hear that if they didn't succeed in this robotics class because the LA coverage wasn't great ...... they should go take quantum computing, control theory, abstract algebra classes?

banku_brougham 2y ago

Really for my linear algebra courses in pure math i was comfortable--but some applications courses would help me understand the usefulness.

btilly 2y ago

Not with the way it is taught. But if the course structure is changed slightly to have reinforcement of early concepts woven through the course, people learn much better. At least that was my experience when I taught it. See https://bentilly.blogspot.com/2009/09/teaching-linear-algebra.html https://bentilly.blogspot.com/2009/09/teaching-linear-algebr... for more detail on my experience.