This book should be the one taught in class ~~~~
598898
So much material to digest ~ so many classic lines, great stories, and gut busting laugh out loud moments.

I think people are done a disservice when they stop at Huckleberry Finn....
1234227
This is a course that should be taught in high school before anyone enters the work world!! I would not have made so many financial mistakes had I known these few simple methods!! This book is a life changer!!
3615217
this ought to be a required textbook in all the schools and colleges in the world.it is that good without a doubt.
3712618
I was given this book by a very dear friend and I couldn't put it down until I had read it at least once.  I am now almost through it the third time.  I really believe this is a book that should or could be used in high school to let the ones of that age know what life is really all about. I have read a lot of books, but this is the most informative, educational, interesting and down right most important book I have ever read.  If I had the money I would buy a truck load of these and give them to schools if they promised to use them in a class on the mind and consciousness thinking. I give it six stars at least.  Jim
3590665
This really is the best book I've purchased for my entire curriculum, wish I had gotten it from day one
1161173
Prof. Abu-Mostafa is an amazing teacher and I must recommend this book highly.

This book is possibly the best "short" introduction to the subject. The authors really know how to communicate the _essentials_ of Machine Learning. You can always pick up a 1000+ page tome after reading this one.

I would highly recommend reading this book in conjunction with Prof. Abu-Mostafa's video lectures on You Tube. The book comes to life after hearing his lectures. The complex subject almost seems simple (!) and I've spent hours totally spellbound at the sheer lucidity of his video lectures.

The lectures and the book track each other quite well. Prof. Abu-Mostafa teaches SVMs and a few other topics in his lectures on You Tube but they are, unfortunately, not covered in the book. Perhaps a newer edition of the book would include them?

I would also highly recommend his Learning from Data MOOC course -- check the website of the book for information on if/when it would be offered next.
1039323
This is the perfect book!  It really turned me around....It is designed for a student... excellent examples, great sample dialog  my instructor said it was the one text you should purchase  if you were serious about being a therapist!!! I now agree it is one of the best in a two year curriculum  for someone who keeps all their books!!!  I love appendix A&B, interpersonal model very beneifical on pg283!  I realize that it as a great section on attachment theory!
1872247
Wonderful! :)  Perfect for my class.  Wish it was in ebook form though.
1588335
Having been a counselor in a Texas community college for the past thirty one years I can readily state that I am thrilled to still be able to gather new ideas from colleagues who are decades my junior.

Mr. Filine in his book assesses the current state of higher education for the masses without "dissing" those who labor in the profession and the same time slyly encourages us to reach out beyond the "way we taught."

Without explicitly stateing so I found between the lines that perhaps teachers are becoming superfluous unless we understand the context of the educational process in respect to technology, popular culture, and learning taking place quite literally at the speed of light. He alludes to this on p. 56, "...(teachers) play a complementary part in the symphony of learning." This metaphore flashes to mind the spanish word for teacher, maestro.

Mr. Filene's chapter on mandatory class discussion addresses the universal entity that all students bring to class which is fear. By teachers confronting this head on we take a quantum step in the learning/teaching equation. Empowering the student is directly proportional to empowering the teacher and it is the key to the entire process.

I have a sign on my office door in two inch bold print that states, "UNAUTHORIZED LEARNING NOT ALLOWED." Fortunately in our electronic world it is not possible to adher to this dicate. To wit I stumbled across Mr. Filene's book by going on line, looking at the NY Times home page, clicking on the an educational story, referencing a book mentioned in said article, being exposed to another book on the Amazon site, and then thirty minutes and $50 later having to wait a whole three days for my three ordered books.

The tag line from _Glen Gary Glen Ross_ was "ABC", always be closing. The tag line from _the Joy of Teaching_ in my view is "ABL"...must I say what the L denotes.

Thanks for a great read.
1053751
As a teacher and academic, I would like for this book to be required reading for all incoming first year college students. I plan to add it to my own syllabuses and have been recommending it to all my colleagues. It's a wonderful teatise on how being wrong is essential in learning and developing our intelligence.
4701091
Too bad this book wasn't around back when I was in college.  It is a compelling, easy-to-read, all-in-one college level course in history, theology, economics, science, philosophy, sociology, political science, animal rights, and, frankly, English composition.  This is one of the few new books of late I want to have permanently in my home library.  This is really a must read.  It really is.
4757866
Best book for beginners teaches like in a classroom. Explain every thing to basics
2399496
I just wrapped up teaching a semester CS1 course using Zelle's book.  I hope I never have to use another book besides this, because this text is simply fantastic.

This was the third version of CS1 I've taught, and the first using Python instead of C.  The use of Python definitely contributed to the smashing success of this class (as did an exceptionally strong group of students), but much of the credit must go to this book.

Honestly, Zelle just nailed it.  The examples are illustrative and convincing:  his is one of the few books that manages to avoid the trap of silly and unreal examples that therefore provide no context for a student.  His writing is crystal clear and very well organized, replete with very helpful diagrams and illustrative examples (did I mention the examples?), and he has obviously paid a lot of attention to the aspects of programming that students find most difficult.

And the exercises:  wow.  This is the first time I haven't felt the need to write my own (although I did anyway, because it's fun).  They are fair but challenging (sometimes very), and for those of us on the teaching end, you'll be happy to know that the instructor's resources come with _complete_ sets of working solutions to all of the exercises.

Three chapters stand out in particular.  First is the chapter on graphics (Ch. 5).  Students love graphics, and Zelle has included a very nice wrapper on top of the TKinter library, which makes for a GUI package that students can actually use.  Second, there's the final chapter that actually introduces recursion and some of the interesting algorithms from the science (searching/sorting, permutations, etc.). I had a lot of fun demonstrating the difference between sorting /usr/share/dict/words with insertion sort (about 6 days) and merge sort (about 6 seconds).

But possibly the best chapter is one I almost skipped:  the chapter on software development, which is centered around a case study development of a "racquetball" simulation.  At the last minute, I decided to use this chapter as the jumping off point for integrating the ideas we'd seen up to mid-term into real software development.  I am convinced that this made the class.

Now there are a couple of things you might want to add as an instructor:  The main one is the fact that Python is such a high-level language, with so much hand-holding built in, that I'm worried that students going on to later CS classes in other languages could get a nasty surprise.  I finished up my class with a primer on languages with static type systems, in which you don't have wonderful Pythony things like string/list slicing, built-in hashtables, etc.  In a second edition of this book, I'd like to see another chapter on this.

Second is a very small quibble, and really just boils down to a difference with Zelle about the order in which I like to teach this material.  I ended up using every chapter in the book, but in the order 2,3,4,7,8,6,9,11,5,10,12,13.  As yet another thing I love about this book, the chapters are independent enough from each other, that I was able to do this with only careful selection of the sections.  Actually the book lends itself very well to alternative orderings.

In short, I simply have nothing bad to say about this book, and lots of good.  Zelle hit this one out of the park.  Everybody should be using it.
2556518
...that actually talks about empowering students! I am hoping to read Teach Like a Pirate next. I'm curious to see if there are similarities/differences.
As a student teacher hoping to get her first job next year, I am hoping to implement something like this in my own classroom. Students are given the responsibility to keep track of the schedule, work on their own projects, stop the class for an important announcement, and teach the class at times. This is something that really appeals to me since I see my poor students bored out of their minds in class everyday. Hopefully it works for me as well!
2969101
Very informative book on point for class that it is needed for
3533325
The best way to review this book is by bringing you in to a potential story. Imagine if you will, you are a college student who is just about to graduate with your education degree. You have taken all the best classes, done all your student teaching and passed all the tests. But there is still that little nagging voice.."How will I make the best of my very first class? Will I be able to teach them or will I get distracted and disorganized? How do I even start to tell my students I am on their side and ready to help them learn??" You feel the overwhelm coming like a storm when suddenly a friend tells you about a great book he just read which will make his first class so much better than the nightmare he imagined (buried under papers and scoldings from the school administration)! I can imagine that Lois Ronaldi's book will do just that...it will be a supportive and firm guide to keep by your night table for those first few years. It may also help those teachers who seem to be stalled and need a little guidance to get back on track. This book is a smooth read and had some cute illustrations to help drive her points home. Lois Rinaldi has been filled with great stories and advise to encourage for years. I am so glad she put it in such a perfect handbook from which so many will benefit. Enjoy it!
4593012
Judith::I was reading your book last night (I am an Empath-Rock) and thinking how you have created a new nomenclature for teachers of intuition to use that is simple, clear, pragmatic and student friendly. The way you teach and talk about intuition, healing and spirituality is very similar to my teacher style. I refer to your writings in my program and your books are on the reading list.

Francesca McCartney, PhD
Academy of Intuition Medicine
Energy Medicine University
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Body-of-Health-The-New-Science-of-Intuition-Medicine-for-Energy-and-Balance/dp/1577314883/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Body of Health: The New Science of Intuition Medicine for Energy and Balance</a>[...]