Collaborating with The Data Place

Employer led workshop provides learners with hands on experience

Learners on our Skills Bootcamp in Data Analytics and Machine Learning recently attended a day of workshops and guest lectures from The Data Place, a social enterprise made up of data scientists, designers, community builders and strategists.

An introduction to data

Martin Howitt, Technical Lead, and Lucy Knight, Data Lead, taught our learners about what data actually is, the key aspects of how to create data models and problems that people may have with them.

The learners then took part in a practical exercise to put what they had learnt into practice, before hearing from Lucy about real life data models. Using these real projects allowed the students to identify what data models deem as determining factors and what aspects of data help to determine an outcome.

After this, the students had the chance to interact with each other and get to know each other better, as all their teaching takes place online.

Putting skills into action

In the afternoon, Lucy and Martin talked about the projects that they had been working on as actual contracts. They set the learners related tasks for each project which helped the learners to apply their newly learnt skills to real life experiences.

Reflecting on the day, student Deb Luvizetto-Costa said: “It was an excellent interactive day. It was good to hear some practical examples of some of the things we were learning. Lucy gave us an example of data analysis on a day-to-day non-professional situation that involved gaming/cheating, as well as some other examples of work they have done. I left happy and with the feeling that this is what I want to do professionally.”

Improving employability

Towards the end of the day, Martin and Lucy encouraged students to find data seeking projects that would help them increase their employability and put into practice all the skills they’ve learned on their Skills Bootcamp.

Student Jon Woodcock said: “Lucy and Martin inspired us to be professional data geeks during this entertaining day, with clever activities and jaw-dropping examples of their work. In a word, brilliant!”

Reflecting on The Data Place’s work with Bath Spa University, Martin said:

“The Data Place have been supporting Bath Spa University's Skills Bootcamps in Data Science for the last 12 months and have loved every visit to their beautiful campus. Our most recent workshop was held in an actual castle building and that's a new experience for us! The students have all been very engaged, and the support we got from lecturers and admin/technical staff was exceptional. Our workshops are quite fast paced, and it has been great to get out and meet people in person after such a long period of running virtual workshops. It's been just what we needed to get back into the swing of things.”