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Objectives:

  1. Familiarize ourselves with influential literature in the field, including the terminology, notation, and style commonly used in academic writing.
  2. Gain a historical perspective on how important machine learning ideas and best practices have developed over time.
  3. Connect concepts from academic papers to machine learning workflows and approaches we’ve covered in class.

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Directions (before class):

  1. Aim to spend approximately 1-hour reading the paper and focus on gaining a high-level understanding of the authors’ contribution. That is, direct your attention to the problem the authors are trying to solve and their main conclusions, not the technical details.
  2. It is okay to skim some of the jargon and mathematical definitions so long as you can extract the main ideas. Most professionals will do this when reading a paper for the first time.
  3. It is okay to not understand parts of the paper, even after re-reading. Even experienced researchers struggle to understand some parts of technical papers in their fields.
  4. While reading the paper, aim to identify at least three interesting discussion points. These could be key assertions made by the authors, connections with course material, points where you were confused, or examples you found particularly interesting. Prepare a formal discussion question for each discussion point, but note that you likely won’t have time to discuss all three points you identified.

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Directions (during class):

  1. Start by having each person briefly explain their understanding of the paper’s purpose, main findings, and intended contribution. Ask questions when someone brings up a point you hadn’t thought of while reading, and try not to repeat things that have already been shared.
  2. Rotate through the discussion questions prepared by group members, aiming to have everyone contribute to each discussion topic. Don’t feel obligated to share one thought then never speak again, instead strive to have an earnest conversation about each item for as long as the topic remains interesting. It’s okay if you don’t have enough time to get through all of the group’s interest items.
  3. When discussing an item, try to stay grounded within the context of the paper and our course. This means references to specific evidence, experiments, figures, or claims from the paper whenever possible.

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Directions (after class):

  1. Submit a 1-2 paragraph reflection (at most one page) describing the most important idea your discussion group took away from the paper, how it connects to topics from class, and how the discussion changed or deepened your understanding of the paper. Simply summarizing the paper is not enough and will not receive full credit. Focus on what you learned, what surprised you, or how your thinking changed from specific moments in your group’s discussion. You are expected to make at least one specific reference to something your group discussed.
  2. Fill out the peer feedback form. Note that your responses will remain confidential.

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What makes a good discussion item?

Good discussion items:

Less effective discussion items: