Udacity as a Learning Platform - it's advantageous position

1. Susmita Pruthi
ASSIGNMENT 5
Interplay of declarative, procedural and conditional knowledge in Udacity
NU ET511 | Assignment 3 | Self Awareness and Self Regulation
Learning is an interplay of declarative, procedural and conditional knowledge.
Enroll in a free course at http://www.udacity.com/. (Enroll in any one of the 3
Beginners courses). Go through a few classes in the course and evaluate it from
the following perspectives:
1. In the classes you attended, were all three types of knowledge covered? How was
the interplay managed?
2. What strategies were used to convert information from short-term memory to
long-term memory?
3. What media elements lent strength to this type of course delivery and use of
which media could have enhanced the learning experience?
4. From an experiential learning point of view, analyze your method of learning in
the Udacity course (metacognition) and describe the tools/methods you used
while taking the course.
5. How would you translate this Udacity course experience to your own workplace? 1

2. Regulation
NU ET511 | Assignment 3 | Self Awareness and Self
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER
SCIENCE (CS101)
Building a Search Engine
2

3. Susmita Pruthi
1. In the classes you attended, were all three types of knowledge covered?
How was the interplay managed?
Yes all the three types of knowledge were covered:
NU ET511 | Assignment 3 | Self Awareness and Self Regulation
 Declarative knowledge refers to information that can be stated verbally.
It includes the recall of specific facts, principles, trends, criteria, and
ways of organizing events. With respect to UDACITY Course taken by me
it included -Basic theory of program, Backis Naur
Form, variables, processors, strings, indexing etc
 Procedural knowledge is knowledge of how to do things - how to write
the code, run the program, debugging of programs, etc
 Conditional Knowledge is a the ability to ascertain whether to use
declarative or procedural or both and how. This was applied in the
various Problem sets, the option to discuss the said video on the Forum
 The interface enabled the interplay. For each lesson nugget, these items
were planned, tagged and hence appeared to be seamless. The
Declarative and Conditional were more or less integrated in a structured
format. 3

4. Susmita Pruthi
2. What strategies were used to convert information from
short-term memory to long-term memory?
NU ET511 | Assignment 3 | Self Awareness and Self Regulation
 The step-by-step videos synced with audio
 Each nugget was followed by an interactive exercise
followed by an explanation of the answer.
 Each Unit was closed with 1 or many Problem sets
 A video based recorded Q&A session like an FAQ
reconfirming the earlier learnt concepts
 The sections of Instructor Comments & Supplementary
Material were mostly empty in this course
4

5. Susmita Pruthi
3. What media elements lent strength to this type of course
delivery and use of which media could have enhanced the
NU ET511 | Assignment 3 | Self Awareness and Self Regulation
learning experience?
 It seemed like a live session – the video and the language
used seemed like the real than planned.
 The stop for quiz in the middle of the video(Narration) as
part of video kept the continuality of the learning.
5

6. Susmita Pruthi
4. From an experiential learning point of view, analyze your
method of learning in the Udacity course (metacognition)
and describe the tools/methods you used while taking the
NU ET511 | Assignment 3 | Self Awareness and Self Regulation
course.
 Taylor (1999) defines metacognition as “an appreciation of
what one already knows, together with a correct
apprehension of the learning task and what knowledge and
skills it requires, combined with the agility to make correct
inferences about how to apply one’s strategic knowledge
to a particular situation, and to do so efficiently and
reliably.”
 There was an attempt from my side to multi-task – while
the concept was being explained, search for info on the
internet, bring in my earlier knowledge of programming
and content development, collate, cross reference, and
add additional references before moving on.
6

7. Susmita Pruthi
5. How would you translate this Udacity course experience to your own
workplace?
 I would like to relate it my recent experience – Sales Cadre Training
NU ET511 | Assignment 3 | Self Awareness and Self Regulation
sessions on
 Selling Skills,
 Partner Management and
 Team management – monitoring and reviewing
 Having conducted a face-to-face extensive round, there is a nascent
need for continuing re-affirmation of learning and development.
 As it is a soft skill and very situation based, a Critical Mistake Analysis
approach would be a great followup.
 Existing program included role plays by all the participants and
feedback basis the role plays, resulting in a variety of learning
happening.
 Going forward, if such Role Plays are converted into Videos with
strategically placed quizzes – MCQs, True False, Multi choices –
followed up with what would happen when each option was chosen, it
would be a great experiential learning.
 A Sales person’s group forum would also value add in sharing and 7
discussing learning.