Free course · Advanced Technology

Machine Learning Starter

A free introduction to machine learning: the main types of learning, the end-to-end workflow, a few key algorithms, evaluating models and the realities of data quality and deployment.

Free · self-study · no certificate About 6 hours 2 modules · 5 lessons

What you will be able to do

  • Distinguish supervised and unsupervised learning
  • Describe the machine learning workflow from data to evaluation
  • Explain overfitting and how a model is evaluated fairly

Who it's for

  • Learners with some Python who want to explore machine learning
  • Analysts curious about predictive models

Before you start

Basic Python is helpful for the code examples.

Module 1 · about 120 minutes

Machine Learning Basics

Types of learning, the workflow and key algorithms.

  • Describe the types of learning
  • Follow a complete workflow in scikit-learn
  1. 1Lesson 1What is Machine Learning? & Types of Learning
  2. 2Lesson 2The Machine Learning Workflow
  3. 3Lesson 3Key ML Algorithms & When to Use Them

Module 2 · about 80 minutes

Trustworthy Models

Evaluation, overfitting, data quality and deployment.

  • Evaluate a model on unseen data
  • Spot data-quality and ethics problems
  1. 4Lesson 4Model Evaluation & Avoiding Overfitting
  2. 5Lesson 5Real-World ML: Ethics, Data Quality & Deployment
Final checkQuick Quiz — Machine Learning BasicsTest what you learned with a short quiz, marked instantly.

Further learning

  • Machine Learning (ML) — Build models that learn from data for prediction, classification, and decision-making.
  • Data Science — Collect, clean, and analyze data to support decisions in government, NGOs, and business.
  • Python — Practical Python programming for automation, data work and back-end development — from first scripts to a deployed, tested application.

Want the full Machine Learning (ML) program?

This free course is an introduction. The full program is taught live by an instructor, with practical assignments, assessments, projects and a certificate.

See the Machine Learning (ML) program