Algorithms and Data Structures
Signature Course No. 204 — A Signature AI Socratic Coaching Course.
A New Kind of Learning
Socratic coaching, delivered by an agentic AI coach.
Not a course you watch. An AI coach you work with.
The Lighthouse Coach begins by discovering how you think about the subject, teaches what is missing, and gives you realistic practice before asking you to prove that you can use it. You may test out of concepts you already understand, while capstones turn the learning into a practical plan, decision, conversation, or other real-world result.
The curriculum is deliberately authored; the AI delivers it through coaching. It is not an AI randomly generating lessons.
A coach that teaches by asking — not by lecturing
The Lighthouse Coach is an AI Socratic coach built on Cognosco Learning's Algorithms and Data Structures course, in the Personal Effectiveness & Well-Being category. It does not play videos at you. It holds a conversation: it asks you a question, listens to your answer, names the misconception it hears, affirms what you got right, and asks the next question — the way a great coach works in the room.
Software is two decisions, repeated thousands of times. How will this data be held, and what steps will be taken on it? Those decisions are invisible when they are right and painfully visible when they are wrong — in the page that takes nine seconds to load, the search that scans a million records to find one, the report that finishes after the meeting it was for. This course teaches you to make those two decisions deliberately.
You learn to count before you choose. How to count the cost of a method before you run it; how the classic structures — arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, hash tables, trees, heaps, graphs — each trade one kind of speed for another; and how the classic methods — recursion, divide and conquer, searching, sorting, shortest paths, greedy choice, dynamic programming, string matching — each fit a recognizable shape of problem.
Then the choice itself becomes the discipline. Knowing the catalogue is not the same as choosing from it. Given a stated workload, with stated sizes and stated frequencies, you will pick the structure and the method, state the cost of your pick, and state the cost of the runner-up you rejected. That is the working developer's algorithmic core, and it is a judgment skill, not a memory skill.
It works in two movements. First, Module 1 — The Structures and Their Costs — work through Concepts 1–9, finishing with The Structure Audit; then, Module 2 — Methods, Graphs, and Judgment — work through Concepts 10–18, finishing with The Workload Design.
Both capstones produce real artifacts — The Structure Audit, a written audit of a slow feature with every cost counted and every recommendation carrying its guarantee; and The Workload Design, a complete structural design for a new platform, defended in writing with a sensitivity register that states what change would flip each choice.
Every number in the course can be checked by hand. Every operation count, every growth claim, every worked trace is computed on inputs small enough to recompute with a pencil, and the steps are shown rather than asserted — an algorithms course that asks you to trust its traces would be teaching the opposite of its subject.
The course is self-paced and always on — roughly 30 minutes per concept, about 9 hours in full, taken in as many sittings as you like. You can type your answers, or talk out loud: the Voice Coach speaks its questions and listens to your spoken replies. Learners who already know the material can test out concept by concept.
This is the two hundred and fourth course in The Lighthouse Signature Series — the online counterpart to the one-day, in-person learning Cognosco Learning has delivered since 2002.
Course Facts
One full concept, coached end to end — free: verify your email and we’ll send you a link to start.
Already enrolled? Enter the course →
Diagnose → Learn & Practice → Prove → Capstone
Every learner moves through the same discipline a Cognosco instructor would insist on in the room.
Diagnose
The Coach starts where the course starts: with what you actually bring. Slow software is rarely slow because the machine is weak — it is slow because a structure was asked to do a job its shape makes expensive. Every concept opens with three questions that locate where you actually stand, and your answers shape how deeply the Coach works the concept with you. Everyone begins with Module 1 — no skipping the foundations you only think you have.
Learn & Practice
Work each concept in conversation with the Coach — spoken or written — then practice it against realistic situations until it holds up.
Prove
Every concept ends in proof: answer the check cold and demonstrate the skill. Know it already? Test out and take credit immediately.
Capstone
Finish with two capstones — The Structure Audit for Module 1 and The Workload Design for Module 2 — that pull the whole course together, and earn the certificate.
What You'll Learn
Count first, choose second. Complexity analysis as a working discipline: the operation count as a function of input size, the growth class stated honestly, and the case you counted — worst, average, or best — named every time.
Module 1 prices the structures. Arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, and hash tables, each with its operations priced and the workload it serves — and the one that breaks it — named; then recursion, divide and conquer, and the tree family through the balanced trees that keep the guarantee.
Module 2 spends that knowledge. Heaps, graphs and their traversals, shortest paths with their condition stated, searching and sorting matched to the data's state and shape, string methods and tries, and the greedy-versus-dynamic-programming distinction proven, not asserted.
And it closes with judgment. The five-move procedure — state the workload, rank by frequency times cost, price the pick and the runner-up, name the guarantee with its conditions, record what would change your mind — applied end to end in The Workload Design.
What you will learn
- Count the cost of an algorithm and state its growth class — and say what the count leaves out
- Choose among arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, and hash tables from a stated workload
- Think recursively, and split problems by divide and conquer without losing track of the cost
- Use trees, balanced search trees, and heaps — and know what each guarantees that the others do not
- Model connected data as a graph, traverse it, and compute shortest paths with their limits stated
- Search and sort with method — the right search for the data's state, the right sort for the data's size and shape
- Recognize the problems greedy choice solves exactly, the problems dynamic programming solves exactly, and the difference
- Match patterns in text and choose string structures for repeated lookup
- Defend a complete structural design for a stated workload, costs counted for the pick and the runner-up
Everything in the course
- All 18 concepts of Algorithms and Data Structures, in 2 modules
- A starting-point check first — the Coach finds where you actually stand before teaching
- Learn, Practice, Prove for every concept — no passive video watching
- A test-out on every concept: prove you know it and move on
- The Voice Coach: talk with the Coach out loud — it speaks, listens, and replies
- A personal Learner Record of your work across the course
- Two capstone exercises: The Structure Audit and The Workload Design
- A printable session summary whenever you pause
- The Lighthouse Coach completion certificate (Signature Series)
- Your progress is saved as you go — stop anytime, resume where you left off
Built for developers who choose structures
Working developers — you write production code daily and feel the cost of structural choices in latency, memory, and incidents; this course makes those choices on counted evidence rather than habit.
Developers moving into senior or lead roles, and career changers with real coding experience — you must review other people's designs, defend a structure in a design discussion, and spot the quadratic loop hiding inside a tidy-looking pull request; the theory here is organized around the workloads you will actually meet.
Technical founders and small-team leads — you choose the data shapes an entire product will live with, and you pay for a wrong early choice for years. The course assumes you can already write and read code; it assumes no mathematics beyond arithmetic and a willingness to count carefully.
Prefer to learn live and in person? The same material anchors Cognosco's one-day programs — browse the in-person catalog.
Start with The Structure Audit
$195 — introductory price. One payment. No subscription, no password to manage.
Here is exactly what happens when you enroll:
- Pay securely with Stripe — you are taken straight into the course
- Create your learner profile and begin the Module 1 starting-point check
- Save the access key you are given — it restores your enrollment on any device
- Learn at your pace; your progress is stored in your browser on your device
For the full voice experience, use Chrome and allow the microphone when asked. Typing your answers works everywhere, all the time. Questions before you enroll? Email hello@cognoscolearning.com.
More Signature Courses are coming
Algorithms and Data Structures is Signature Course No. 204. Leave your email and we'll send you news of future Signature Courses and Lighthouse updates as they are announced — nothing else.