Start here: choose your learning route

You can begin without programming or ML experience. Start with the readiness check below. It chooses support, not admission or a grade. All routes work toward the same selected module outcomes. Canvas remains the authority for assessed work and deadlines.

New to Python? Start with Python Foundation

Begin with Introduction to Python: A Guided Beginner Course. Use its getting-started notebook, then Modules 1–10 and the guided mini project as needed. The author estimates about 12 guided hours plus independent practice; budget this preparation explicitly rather than hiding it inside a short ML exercise. Students with existing skills can demonstrate readiness and skip familiar sections.

That course teaches notebook use, values, decisions, loops, lists, functions and debugging. Dictionaries/libraries are a preview and file reading is outside its core. Complete our Python-to-ML bridge afterward for dictionaries, imports, paths, CSV/JSON and dataframes. Python Foundation's Binder is a separate environment: it does not install this course or its ML frameworks.

Readiness check: attempt before opening the answers

1. Find a downloaded folder and identify its README. Explain what folder a relative path starts from.
2. In Python, predict int("12") + 3 and explain why "12" + "3" differs.
3. Trace total = 0 followed by a for loop that adds each value from [2, 4, 6] to total.
4. Write a function that returns twice an input; call it on 5. Explain return versus print.
5. Retrieve the minutes from {"minutes": 15} and explain how a list of these records differs from one dictionary.
6. Calculate the mean and median of [2, 3, 10]. Does a missing observation equal zero?
7. Of 20 actual positive cases, a system finds 15. Of 25 flagged cases, 15 are positive. State both fractions in words.
8. Explain why tomorrow's measured outcome cannot be an input to today's forecast.

Answers and routing

1. Relative paths start from the current working folder. Review acquisition and navigation if uncertain.
2. 15 versus the text 123. Review Foundation Modules 2–4.
3. 12. Review Foundation Modules 7–8.
4. def double(x): return 2*x; double(5) returns 10. Printing displays a value rather than returning it to the caller. Review Foundation Module 9.
5. record["minutes"]; a list contains multiple items, a dictionary maps keys to values. Use our bridge after the Foundation preview.
6. Mean 5; median 3. Missing means unavailable. Review Module 4's foundation bridge and glossary.
7. Recall is 15/20; precision is 15/25. These are ML entry concepts, not prerequisites for Python.
8. It is unavailable when the decision is made; using it leaks future information. Module 5 develops this idea.

The diagnostic is a routing aid rather than a validated test. Recheck uncertain items by solving a changed example without the answer visible. A student who needs support should receive planned time and help, not a lower learning target.

The learning cycle

Read the module outcomes; use its foundation bridge; work through its guided construction; run the notebook; make one purposeful change; complete the mastery check; compare feedback. Save code, readable results and your explanation. Restart and run all before submitting execution evidence.

Use the glossary, troubleshooting, environment choices, and project companion. If studying alone, keep a question log and write the strongest counterargument to your recommendation. If enrolled, use the instructor's published private support route; never post student records or credentials in GitHub issues.