Week 7: Revision, Roadblocks, and Records?

After a week-long break, we’re back with Week 7 of my Senior Project. While I had planned to focus on teacher reviews, the breaking up of the “Linear Regression and Gradient Descent” lesson I discussed last week caused some delays.

Revisions

This week started with breaking up the giant that was “Linear Regression and Gradient Descent” into three smaller lessons: “Linear Models”, “Gradient Descent”, and “Linear Regression.” Continuing with what I discussed last week about pushing the Desmos Integration into the limelight, I decided to weave it directly into the lesson rather than treating it as a footnote, as was done previously. The restructuring also freed up space to give the readers a chance to build previously pre-built models themselves, giving them a better glimpse at how they function.

The most prominent is the model on Gradient Descent. Before, students were just shown animations that depict the process, but now, they can create it for themselves. For example, at the end of the lesson, students are expected to use Gradient Descent on functions of multiple variables, getting something like this:

Where the blue point descends down the red function.

This new lesson style also lends itself well to a video format. While outside the scope of the project, I keep finding myself contemplating how much more intuitive the course would be if it were over video. Rather than screenshots followed by instructions, students can see in real time what I’m doing and follow along. Although there isn’t enough time left within the Senior Project, it’s something I’m seriously considering in the future. Video lessons would make the material far more accessible and engaging, allowing it to reach much more of my target audience of high school students.

Setting that aside, one consequence of reworking the first lesson of my course is that teacher evaluation had to be delayed. The course is cumulative, so without the first lesson, the rest of the lessons would be incomprehensible. Not to worry, though, even with the delays, it’s still on pace with my original project timeline. Still, it’s better to get the course into the hands of teachers as soon as possible to give them more time to read over the course, so that will be the priority starting next week.

After the restructuring, I did a comprehensive overview of the entire course, making minor edits along the way. I also went about updating the site navigation, which was largely unmaintained in the previous weeks because it needed to be manually updated after every new lesson and every lesson deletion.

Overall, Week 7 was primarily focused on revision instead of new progress because the course is finishing up. Although it did delay feedback, the restructuring of the first lesson was crucial to maintain consistency between lessons.

Thank you for your continued support. See you all next week, where the focus will be right back on teacher feedback and evaluations. Their feedback will play a crucial role in determining what works and what needs to be improved.

But it’s not just their feedback that’s important. If you have any questions regarding the project, please leave them in the comments below.