The Fifth Elephant 2019

I have been actively learning new things (beyond what was required for my formal education) since I was a teenager. A few things I have learned in this time are: mathematics, engineering, economics, philosophy, public speaking, a dozen or so musical instruments, a dozen or so programming languages). But the list of things I am yet to learn is not getting any shorter. I realized that I had to get better at learning itself, and started reading about research from cognitive science. I started exploring mathematics with my toddler which forced me to think deeply about how we learn and how we can get better at it.

After almost a decade of doing this, I started building a personalized system for learning anything in the optimal manner. This involves ideas like spaced repetition systems, chunking, meta-cognition. This system heavily relies on data (in particular, links to good pedagogical content) and the relationships between them (i.e. taxonomy & concept graph). I incorporated ideas from psychology (gamification, learning styles) and data science (summarization, recommendation) so that this knowledge discovery platform allows you to understand any topic through most efficient paths.

In this talk, I will explain the architecture of this personalized learning platform.

Outline

• My journey
• History of learning systems
• Learning how to learn: Research in cognitive science:
  • Spaced repetition systems
  • Chunking
  • Growth Mindset
  • Focused vs Diffused modes
  • No speed limit
  • Learning styles
• Building a concept graph
• Curating pedagogical resources
• Personalization
  • What you already know?
  • Multimedia
  • How much time do you have?
• Data science:
  • Summarization
  • Recommendation

Speaker bio

I have been learning things deeply and making things for almost 15 years now. I completed dozens of hard MOOCs in mathematics, computer science, economics, psychology etc. I have used this knowledge to build useful things - be it music, apps, electronic/robotic appliances (like automatic portable roti making machine) or DIY-furniture. I have also been exploring mathematics with my 5-year old child, which forced me to think deeply about how people learn and how we can get better at it.

Links

• https://nilesh.trivedi.pw

Slides

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1n-tkTbF1k96wAiAsIl1Tk7B6Co83lSHMV-X9tjry_Nw/edit?usp=sharing