Helping students with their homework

I am trying to activate a site-wide tag, “homework.” New users can use it to self-tag their posts, or other users can (I believe?) modify a post and add the homework tag to it. We can try it out and see if it is helpful.

Site search also includes a tag field that lets you filter by homework:

https://discourse.processing.org/search?q=tags%3Ahomework

This is a test – we may have to deactivate the tag system, but let’s see if people like it. Right now the ability to create new tags is restricted, but ideas for tags are welcome, and if it seems like it is working and useful we could open it up more.

Okay, we have a rough tagging of about 300 past posts with “homework”:

  • in:title “homework” or “assignment”
  • “homework” “school project” “my assignment” “our assignment” “assignment is” “my class” “our class” “my group” “our group” “professor” “teacher” “we are not allowed”
  • Scan for things that are not yet tagged homework with keywords from above, plus -tag:homework

If an answerer asked “is this homework?” and the responded ignored the question, it was tagged homework.

If a questioner asked multiple questions at the same time, and identified the first one as homework, then in general they were tagged homework.

There are still many things on the forum that are homework but not tagged, of course – we can’t possibly know everything that is – and the goal isn’t to get to 100%. It is just to see if this helps.

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Hello,

For consideration…

This was my edit of this; a bit late but I had other priorities.

I wanted to include the community as taking responsibility as well.
I changed the “Our goal is… and… and…” to “may” and points; that is a lot of responsibility to bear as is. I can help with what I can.
I removed the “our regulars” to be more inclusive to the community and added a comment for teachers at the bottom.
Emphasis on integrity for everyone; including me.

Homework questions are welcome here. Teachers* from around the world encourage their students to use this forum.

You are responsible for completing your homework with academic integrity and the community for assisting with integrity.

The community may assist you to help solve problems yourself by:

  • Getting you started.
  • Breaking down problems.
  • Problem-solving.
  • Building your confidence by guiding you and letting you do your own homework.

Important points:

  • Homework questions should be identified as homework.
  • You are responsible for following the academic policies of your school, class, and instructor.
  • Do not ask for complete code solutions.
  • Do not offer complete code solutions.
  • Properly format your code.
  • If you only want general advice (without code) please say so explicitly such as “No code, please.”
  • Posts with answers belong to the community and may not be deleted.
    Deleted posts will be restored at the discretion of the moderators.

For an overview of how to ask great questions that get the best help, see: Guidelines—Asking Questions .

*Teachers and community. There is a Teaching category for discussion and ideas about teaching code.

References:

Academic Integrity

Academic Dishonesty

Teacher

Problem-solving Merriam-Webster

These are living documents and should always evolve.
Feel free to use any part of this.

Somewhere in the FAQ we should state that we are all volunteers here that contribute by volunteering our time, energy and skills to support the Processing community.

Have fun coding and stay well everyone!

:)

2 Likes

@jeremydouglass

Hello,

This what I get when starting a new topic:

image
The link above to the Homework Policy gives an error:

Oops! That page doesn’t exist or is private.

I am seeing an increased number of posts that appear to be homework or academic assignments.

This notice when creating a new topic is a positive first step to directing people to the FAQ and guidelines.
The links may not be viewed if they are not “clickable”.

I leave this in your good hands.

Stay well!

Hi @glv
Thanks for this feedback.

Could you please try cutting and pasting that link again? I just tried, and it worked fine – just as it did when I first created it.

https://discourse.processing.org/t/faq-guidelines/5#homework

Still, if you are having a problem, clearly newcomers may have a problem as well – this is not to discount your feedback.

I’ve found a way to shorten the links to numbers only – that might make them a bit easier to work with:

https://discourse.processing.org/t/5#homework

Right now there is no way to embed “clickable” links into new posts without making them visible – text in the editor is text. If they are clickable once posted they will also show up in the preview window (if it isn’t covered by a warning), but they won’t be in the editor window (e.g. the mobile editor without preview). We hope that newcomers will delete the template, but I’m worried about them spamming the same tip text 1000 times all over the forum. Any suggestions about that?

I suppose a post could come with a visible header.

[homework policy](/t/5#homework) * [asking questions](/t/2147) * please format code with </> button
<!-- You may delete this before posting. -->

Which will display in preview (and will be posted, if they don’t delete it) like this:

I suppose a post could come with a visible header.

homework policy * asking questions * please format code with </> button.

However those links now won’t be cut-pasteable from the editor – they will have to see them in preview in order to click them…

Also: sorry I’m late in seeing this. Swamped today, but will look it over and try to incorporate as soon as I can. Many thanks.

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I was getting the same error message a couple days ago, but thought the setup was still in progress so did not post the error message at that time…

Just clicked on the 2 links above and get the “OOPS! That page does not exist.”

But I agree with @glv, regarding this not being anything urgent. Just wanted to let you know the error message is not unique to one instance.
Take care!
:slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes

Hello,

This is what I get:

We all have other priorities in life at this time; focus on those and take care of this when you have the time.

Stay well!

2 Likes

Okay, looks like the link is a secret internal staff link for editing the FAQ created by discourse, and the public link is:

/faq/#homework

…does that work?

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Yes!! It does.
:grinning:

1 Like

Yay! The link works now… :smile:

When you update “new topic” posts is there a way to make it a “clickable” link?

<!-- Tips:
Format your code with </>
Homework policy: https://discourse.processing.org/t/faq-guidelines/5#homework
Asking Questions: https://discourse.processing.org/t/guidelines-asking-questions/2147
-->

We all have other priorities in life at this time; focus on those and take care of this when you have the time.

Stay well!

All 15 templates have been updated.

Could I get feedback from Spanish speakers on the template for the Español channel? Keeping in mind that we don’t have a translation of those policy pages yet… @montoyamoraga

formatee el código con el botón </> * homework policy (política de tareas) * asking questions (haciendo preguntas)

Hello,

This is what I am seeing now:

I have to right click (using Google Chrome) in the preview to open the links.

Not a priority at this time.

awesome @jeremydouglass :slight_smile:
i want to translate the whole FAQ

  • can we have a new FAQ site in Spanish, with no link from the main site,
    i don’t want a FAQ link and then next to it a FAQ in Spanish link, but i would mention it right away on the FAQ, like, “for spanish, click here, for japanese, click here”, i don’t know if that is possible or how to set it up.
    happy to help and translate it :slight_smile:
1 Like

I’ve looked and it is definitely possible. We can create it as a normal post – just post the text to site feedback or lounge as a normal post, and I can turn it into a special page. Then we can edit the FAQ and link it just as you suggest.

Let me know how I can support you – very excited that you are excited about this.

1 Like

We’ve had our Homework FAQ and template for three weeks and the “homework” tag for a couple of weeks. People are responding directly to students about the FAQ – and also flagging direct asks for complete solutions (as we always have).

How do people feel it is working so far? Problems? Improvements?

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I really like the changes! It’s now much easier/faster to direct a student to the homework guidelines.

I also think the homework tag is super effective for a number of reasons.

  • Student questions seem to entail a longer time commitment from forum members as there are often follow up questions. I do not view this as an issue but rather just something good to know in advance.
  • Also, it serves as a nice reminder to students that they are on a forum committed to teaching how to reach a solution rather than providing full code solutions.
  • And, the added layer of searchability in the collected homework posts for future students coming to the forum is certainly a plus.

Students formatting their code as requested continues to be hit or miss… I am at a loss for ideas on this…
:nerd_face:

3 Likes

yeah same here, i feel like everything is clearer, thank you @jeremydouglass

also now i am more used to Discourse and logging in more frequently to help moderate slight_smile:

thank you @jeremydouglass i will do the translation right now, hoping to finish it today and posting it as you suggest, i will tag you and check how it is best to integrate it to the website :slight_smile:

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@montoyamoraga has posted the new FAQ en Español:

:partying_face: :tada:

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hey thank you :slight_smile: i wasn’t 100% ready to go live, i was missing some paragraphs, just finished so now we are good!

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