Teaching method
Dataquest's courses teach data & AI skills faster than other platform — with better retention. The best way to understand why Dataquest delivers better learning outcomes is to understand the principles that guide the design and development of the learning experience.
Three pillars
An outcome-based platform requires a different structure than a typical platform. Contextual learning is built around the principles of project-based learning. A learner picks a project on a topic that interests them and then learns how to work toward an outcome of completing that project. The challenges presented in this structure are tied to a real-world example, which makes the lessons more impactful, memorable, and easier to apply to novel situations.
The largest expense when it comes to learning is time. Dataquest courses maximize learning time by emphasizing the most relevant and applicable content for the chosen topic. Lessons are typically completed in 5–10 minutes, with hands-on exercises that immediately reinforce the concept just learned. This approach keeps learners moving quickly toward an outcome and reduces the friction of staying engaged.
Paths get learners step-by-step through the foundational skills they need to become well-rounded data practitioners. Paths aren't repetitive, and they don't have gaps. Each lesson builds on the last to maximize the learning of foundational skills along the way.
The best way to learn how to complete data projects is by building data projects. Dataquest learners spend their time working through real-world data challenges that teach learners to combine multiple skills and tools to solve a problem or accomplish a task.
Contextual learning has several benefits:
In this project, we'll pretend we're working as data analysts for a company that builds Android and iOS mobile apps. We make our apps available on Google Play and in the App Store.
We only build apps that are free to download and install, and our main source of revenue consists of in-app ads. This means that the number of users of our apps determines our revenue for any given app. Our goal is to analyze data to help our developers understand what type of apps are likely to attract more users.
First, we'll download and read in data about app sales in the Google Play store and the Apple app store.
# Download Google Play store data from pyodide.http import pyfetch google = await pyfetch("https://dq-marketing-site.s3.amazonaws.com/googleplaystore.csv") with open("googleplaystore.csv", "wb") as f: f.write(await google.bytes())
# Download Apple store data apple = await pyfetch("https://dq-marketing-site.s3.amazonaws.com/AppleStore.csv") with open("AppleStore.csv", "wb") as f: f.write(await apple.bytes())
# Load the data into pandas import pandas as pd google = pd.read_csv('googleplaystore.csv') apple = pd.read_csv('AppleStore.csv')
google.head()
| App | Category | Rating | Reviews | Size | Installs | Type | Price | Content Rating | Genres |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photo Editor & Candy Camera | ART_AND_DESIGN | 4.1 | 159 | 19M | 10,000+ | Free | 0 | Everyone | Art & Design |
| Coloring book moana | ART_AND_DESIGN | 3.9 | 967 | 14M | 500,000+ | Free | 0 | Everyone | Art & Design |
| U Launcher Lite – FREE | ART_AND_DESIGN | 4.7 | 87,510 | 8.7M | 5,000,000+ | Free | 0 | Everyone | Art & Design |
Research-backed
Applied learning is a proven approach to improving student engagement and retention. We've used leading principles in digital instructional design to guide our course development.
This is a learner's ability to apply what they've learned to a novel situation — "Transfer is the ultimate aim of education, as ensuring that the facts and skills learners learn are going to be usable in a variety of situations is the point of learning" (Mckeough, Lupart, & Marini, 1995).
Problem-based Learning (PBL) is an active approach to learning wherein learners collaborate to understand and solve complex, ill-structured problems (Barrows, 2000; Savery, 2006). PBL students are more motivated to reach their outcomes and engage in deeper learning and problem-solving approaches.
This learning environment promotes authentic contexts and activities, access to expert performances, multiple roles and perspectives, reflection and articulation, coaching and scaffolding, and collaborative knowledge-building (Herrington & Oliver, 2000).
SCL is an "environment that allows learners to take some real control over their educational experience and encourages them to make important choices about what and how they will learn" (Doyle, 2008. p. xv). SCL evokes a change in attitude from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, and it refocuses an instructor's role from a teacher to a facilitator."
Time matters
The largest expense when it comes to learning is time. Motivation is key to learning, and making quick, measurable progress is one of the best ways to build and maintain a learning habit.
Learning happens best with the correct degree of challenge. Too much challenge can be a blocker, especially if the help is unavailable. Dataquest's proprietary answer-checking system automatically evaluates coding exercises and provides guidance on incorrect submissions. This keeps learners from getting stuck and losing motivation. This allows us to create open-ended exercises that mimic how people work in the real world.
Lectures are the foundation of many online and in-person courses. They have also been proven to be less effective than active learning. They pose a number of issues for online learning, like the difficulty of trying to find a particular fact in a video, or the disengaged nature of viewing them. We've eliminated video lectures from our platform in favor of an interactive coding environment.