Runestone
Creating and Grading Assignments
New in Aug 2023: There are now ready-made assignments that you can copy in from the base csawesome course! Click on the user icon and select Instructor’s Page (this will only be there if you created a custom course), scroll down to find Copy Assignments (screenshot & help), select csawesome and copy all or some of the assignments. In these assignments, students get 5 interaction points for interacting with at least 75% of the material in a lesson in the reading section (these are all or nothing points), and individual correctness points in the problem section for correctly completing the autograded challenge programming exercise, any AP questions, and sometimes some extra active code exercises if they cover material not in the challenge or are helpful for the challenge. The pretest, midterm test, and posttest are included in the assignments; make sure Show as Timed Assessment is checked so students only get one try on the multiple choice questions. If they get stuck, you can reset them in the Admin tab. There is also an optional Peer Instruction activity as an assignment in each unit.
To use these assignments, select each in the Assignments tab, fill in the due date and description and check the Visible to Students option. You can change any of the points and problems required. Don't forget to save. Students will then see them in User icon/Assignments. You can grade the assignments after the due date in the Grading tab. (see grading).
Here is the Runestone guide for creating assignments: https://guide.runestone.academy/working-with-assignments-chap.html#instructor-interface_create-an-assignment
We recommend setting up an assignment for each lesson or groups of lessons where the lesson(s) are chosen in the Readings section as the assignment to be graded for interaction. In the problems section, we recommend just choosing the Challenge coding problem in the lesson to grade manually.
Most exercises on the lesson pages (active codes, multiple-choice, fill in the blank, matching, and Parsons problems) are auto-graded! Active code problems are mostly graded by looking for expected output or code fragments. The autograder will let students and teachers know if the code is complex enough to meet the learning objectives on these formative assessments. Teachers should also look at the code manually to give the students feedback.
Grading Assignments:
Here is the guide to grading assignments: https://guide.runestone.academy/working-with-assignments-chap.html#instructor-interface_grading
Some tips for grading:
In the Grading tab, after you choose an assignment, uncheck "check work submitted before deadline", click on Autograde, and then scroll down to the bottom to click on Show to students. Students will not be able to see their grades if you don't turn that on in every assignment. You have to hit autograde even for the interaction points.
When students turn in things late, you have to autograde again.
For the manual grading or leaving feedback, you have to choose the assignment, the question, and then each student, and run their code. You can also choose a unit, lesson, question, and student to see what they did, but they won't see your feedback unless it's in an assignment.
In the Grading tab, when you're looking at Active Code, sometimes students try things at the end and overwrite what they did earlier. You can slide the slider to see what they did earlier. This is also a nice look into how they went about solving it!
Checking Student Progress:
In the Student Progress tab, there is a gradebook button all the way to the right that provides a useful way to look at grades. You can also download the gradebook into a spreadsheet.
Example of setting up a Pre-test assignment to see their pre-test scores:
1. Click on the Assignments tab, click on the Add button, and type in an assignment name like pretest and click on Create. Under Problems, choose the Pretest lesson and it will add all the problems from it.
2. Then, switch to the Grading tab, and choose that assignment, and hit autograde.
3. Then, switch to Student Progress tab, and click on the Gradebook button all the way to the right.
Practice Tool
There is a practice tool that will display review problems. See https://guide.runestone.academy/working-with-assignments-chap.html#instructor-interface_the-practice-interface on how to sign up and use it.
Peer Instruction Tool
There is a new peer intruction tool which is a special type of assignment for multiple-choice questions where students can vote on an answer and then discuss it in groups. See https://guide.runestone.academy/peer_instruction.html and https://www.inclusivecsteaching.org/structured-collaboration/peer-instruction
Search for canterburyqb problems at the bottom of the assignments tab problem section for good peer instruction questions.
Design new Problems:
You can also create your own problems in the Assignments tab of the instructor page in the Problems section or choose problems made by other teachers that are not in the ebook. The easy way to create a new problem is to click on one that's close to what you want, click on edit, and change the id and question, run, and save. Put something unique at the start of all your ids so you can search for them later. More info here: https://guide.runestone.academy/chapter-8.html#writing-exercises_adding-an-exercise-to-the-exercise-bank