Structured learning is a powerful tool that can be applied by people of all ages to achieve their goals. The key is to create a clear plan and stick to it.
By breaking down learning into manageable chunks, anyone can make progress and feel a sense of accomplishment. For example, a child learning to read can start by sounding out simple words and gradually move on to more complex ones.
The benefits of structured learning are numerous, and they can be seen in various aspects of life. Research has shown that people who use structured learning techniques tend to perform better in school and at work.
With the right approach, anyone can develop a love for learning that lasts a lifetime.
What is Structured Learning
Structured learning is a type of educational experience that goes beyond traditional lectures. It involves experiential, supervised, in-depth learning experiences that offer students the opportunity to explore career interests.
In a structured learning experience, students are typically supervised and engage in hands-on activities, such as internships or community-based projects. This type of learning is designed to provide students with practical experience and skills.
Structured learning experiences can take many forms, including internships, community-based projects, and experiential learning. These experiences are often designed to align with specific career clusters or educational objectives.
Here are some key characteristics of structured learning experiences:
- Experiential: Structured learning experiences involve hands-on activities and real-world applications.
- Supervised: Students are typically supervised by experienced professionals or mentors.
- In-depth: Structured learning experiences are designed to provide students with in-depth knowledge and skills.
- Aligned with career clusters or educational objectives: Structured learning experiences are often designed to align with specific career clusters or educational objectives.
In the context of neural networks, structured learning refers to a new learning paradigm that leverages structured signals in addition to feature inputs. This approach can improve model accuracy, particularly when the amount of labeled data is relatively small.
Worth a look: Structured Learning Environment
Techniques and Methods
Structured learning involves a range of techniques and methods to achieve accurate predictions. These techniques form a large class of structured prediction models, including Bayesian networks and random fields.
Some popular algorithms and models for structured prediction are inductive logic programming, case-based reasoning, and structured SVMs. These methods are useful for making predictions that take into account the relationships between different pieces of data.
To get started with structured learning, you can consider the following techniques:
- Conditional random fields
- Structured support vector machines
- Structured k-nearest neighbours
- Recurrent neural networks, in particular Elman networks.
The Collins structured perceptron is another implementation worth exploring.
Techniques and Methods
Structured prediction is a technique used in various domains, including bioinformatics, NLP, speech recognition, and computer vision. It's a powerful tool for solving complex problems, such as translating natural language sentences into syntactic representations like parse trees.
One example of structured prediction is sequence tagging, a class of problems prevalent in NLP. Sequence tagging involves input data that are often sequential, like sentences of text.
The sequence tagging problem appears in several guises, including part-of-speech tagging (POS tagging) and named entity recognition. In POS tagging, each word in a sequence must be 'tagged' with a class label representing the type of word.
The main challenge of sequence tagging is to resolve ambiguity, as shown in the example where the words "sentence" and "tagged" can also be verbs. To overcome this challenge, a sequence model like a hidden Markov model or conditional random field can be used.
These models predict the entire tag sequence for a sentence via the Viterbi algorithm, taking into account the conditional dependence between tags. This approach is more effective than simply performing classification of individual tokens.
Here are some key techniques used in structured prediction:
- Hidden Markov model: predicts the entire tag sequence for a sentence
- Conditional random field: predicts the entire tag sequence for a sentence
- Viterbi algorithm: used to find the most likely tag sequence
Perceptron
The perceptron is a powerful algorithm for learning linear classifiers, and when combined with an inference algorithm, it becomes a valuable tool for structured prediction.
This is especially true when using the structured perceptron by Collins, which combines the perceptron algorithm with the Viterbi algorithm for sequence data.
One of the key functions in the structured perceptron is ϕ(x,y), which maps a training sample x and a candidate prediction y to a vector of length n.
The function GEN generates candidate predictions, and the algorithm uses the Viterbi algorithm or a max-sum to find the argmax over GEN(x).
In practice, the structured perceptron is a useful algorithm for structured prediction, especially when dealing with sequence data.
Here are some of the key techniques used in the structured perceptron:
- Viterbi algorithm
- Max-sum algorithm
TensorFlow Neural Learning
TensorFlow Neural Learning is a powerful tool that allows developers to train neural networks with structured signals, which can improve model accuracy and robustness. This is achieved through Neural Structured Learning (NSL), a new learning paradigm that leverages structured signals in addition to feature inputs.
NSL generalizes to Neural Graph Learning and Adversarial Learning, making it a flexible framework that can be used to train various types of neural networks, such as feed-forward, convolution, and recurrent neural networks.
The NSL framework in TensorFlow provides easy-to-use APIs and tools for developers to train models with structured signals, including Keras APIs and TF ops and functions. These tools enable training with graphs (explicit structure) and adversarial perturbations (implicit structure).
Developers can install the prebuilt NSL pip package by running a simple command, and the framework can be used to train models with a low amount of supervision or even unsupervised learning.
Here are some of the key benefits of using NSL:
- Improved model accuracy, particularly when the amount of labeled data is relatively small
- Robustness against malicious attacks, which are designed to mislead a model's prediction or classification
Getting Started
To get started with structured learning, you'll need a TensorFlow version of 1.15 or higher. This is a requirement for NSL.
Fortunately, NSL also supports TensorFlow 2.x, with the exception of version 2.1, which contains a bug that's incompatible with NSL.
Intriguing read: Transfer Learning in Tensorflow
If you're new to NSL, watching our video series on YouTube is a great place to start. It provides a complete overview of the framework and discusses several aspects of learning with structured signals.
If you prefer hands-on learning, our colab-based tutorials are a good option. They allow you to interactively explore NSL and cover topics such as training with natural graphs, training with synthesized graphs, and adversarial learning.
You can find more examples and tutorials under the examples directory.
Recommended read: Ai and Machine Learning Training
Learning Experiences
Structured learning experiences are designed to offer students the opportunity to more fully explore career interests. This can be a valuable way to gain practical experience and build skills in a specific field.
A structured learning experience typically includes more than just lectures, and can feature additional methods such as internships, community-based programs, or hands-on training. For example, a community-based internship can provide students with the opportunity to work off-campus and gain experience in a specific career path.
Structured learning experiences are often designed to have specific learning outcomes and forms of assessment, which can help students track their progress and achieve their goals.
Learning Experience Definition
A structured learning experience is more than just a lecture, it includes at least two additional methods as appropriate for the objectives.
Structured learning experiences, such as internships, offer students the opportunity to explore career interests in a hands-on way, and are designed to be experiential, supervised, and in-depth.
For students, a structured learning experience can be defined as a supervised internship that takes place off campus towards a specific career path.
Internships can be categorized based on an individual's level of independence, such as a Community Based Internship.
A structured learning experience features learning outcomes credits and forms of assessment.
Here are the different types of structured learning experiences:
- Structured learning experience includes more than lecture and at least two additional methods as appropriate for objectives.
- Structured learning experience (SLE) means experiential, supervised, in-depth learning experiences that are designed to offer interns the opportunity to more fully explore career interests.
- Structured learning experience that features learning outcomes credits and forms of assessment.
- Structured learning experience that features learning outcomes credits and forms of.
My Personal Story
I chose to start my career at McKinsey to learn quickly in a structured way. This structured environment helped me build the fundamentals of a great problem solver.
I was fortunate to have mentors and sponsors to accelerate my learning. People trusted me to execute on a task from end-to-end.
After two years, I opted to enter an unstructured learning environment, where I was the first "business" hire in a business unit. I learned a ton about how to run a business.
I was forced to figure everything out by myself, which was arguably harder than learning from a mentor and established structure. I spent a lot of time Googling and making split-second judgment calls that I got burned for.
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Nurturing Young Minds: Activities for Preschoolers
Engaging in storytelling with preschoolers can help develop their language skills, as research suggests that children's vocabulary increases by 50% when they're exposed to 10,000 words by age 3.
Reading books with colorful pictures and simple text is a great way to introduce preschoolers to new words and concepts.
Studies show that hands-on activities like playdough and finger painting can improve fine motor skills in preschoolers.
Singing songs and reciting nursery rhymes can help preschoolers develop their phonological awareness and language skills.
Discover more: What Is the Hardest Code Language to Learn
Outdoor play is essential for preschoolers, as it allows them to explore and learn about the natural world, developing their curiosity and problem-solving skills.
Providing opportunities for free play can help preschoolers develop their social skills, as they learn to interact with others and take turns.
Role-playing with preschoolers can help them develop their social and emotional skills, such as empathy and self-regulation.
See what others are reading: Statistical Learning Skills
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_prediction
- https://medium.com/sygmo/structured-vs-unstructured-learning-507d61343913
- https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/structured-learning-experience
- https://umonicsplus.com/structured-learning-activities/
- https://github.com/tensorflow/neural-structured-learning
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