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Developing an introductory machine learning course

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Conference

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Publication Date

June 22, 2025

Start Date

June 22, 2025

End Date

August 15, 2025

Conference Session

Computing and Information Technology Division (CIT) Technical Session 5

Tagged Division

Computing and Information Technology Division (CIT)

Page Count

10

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/56255

Download Count

1

Paper Authors

biography

Caroline Crockett University of Virginia

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Caroline Crockett is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. She received her PhD degree from the University of Michigan in electrical engineering. Her research interests include image processing and conceptual understanding.

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Abstract

This paper presents the design of the introduction to machine learning (ML) course at the [university name removed]. This course is targeted toward first and second-year undergraduate students and thus has no prerequisite courses beyond the basic introduction to programming course; notably, there are no linear algebra nor probability prerequisite. A key design feature of the course is that it is entry level but still emphasizes the mathematical perspective of ML and conceptual understanding behind ML algorithms. This course presents the basic principles behind ML to make ML feel less like a "black box" and covers a range of applications, focusing on applications in the electrical engineering field. Students collect and interpret data, translate between textual and mathematical descriptions of systems, gain the skills necessary to implement and test ML functions in Python, and practice presenting data in easy-to-interpret plots.

Crockett, C. (2025, June), Developing an introductory machine learning course Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Montreal, Quebec, Canada . https://peer.asee.org/56255

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