E-book interactif & Piazza

Initial situation

Based on his experience in the United States, the teacher’s intention for this programming course was to make it as interactive as possible. He offers the course material in the form of an interactive ebook and encourages student participation through interactive exercises, discussion forums and collaborative projects.

Project implementation

The entire detailed course is offered through an interactive ebook. Each of the themes covered in the course are presented in a complete and structured way on this support which can be self-sufficient for students who decide to follow the course without coming to the classroom. This digital book contains a large number of dynamic links. Moreover, the entire content of this book was written by the teaching team, but can be completed and modified at any time by the students if they wish to add notes or comments. By presenting the entire structure of the course in chapters and sub-chapters, this book presents the theory accompanied by illustrations, tables, syntax and videos.

During the face-to-face course, the teacher supports his presentation with a website that he has developed offering, for each chapter, theoretical content articulated with practical exercises. The teacher first gives a theoretical presentation on a particular topic, which is then the subject of the exercises. The self-correcting exercises take the form of MCQs or pieces of scripts to complete. This automatic method allows students to ask for hints, get the solution, test their ideas and/or repeat each exercise.

For some chapters, the teacher accompanies his presentation with a web application that he has developed. For example, in chapter 2, the teacher proposes an application that allows the construction of reports in an automatic way. The application allows the student to select the object to be added (a table, a video, a graph, an image, etc.) and automatically generates the code and the corresponding document.

The teacher also encourages interaction by using the Piazza question and answer platform (chosen for its interactivity as well as its ability to publish well-formatted code). Students are invited to exchange on this platform by asking questions about the exercises they have to solve. Students and teachers can then answer the different questions in the form of a thread. The thread contains a single “student” answer that can be edited by everyone and a single answer from the teacher. Further discussion of a particular question is done using the discussion tracking tool. The teacher dedicates 10% of the course evaluation to a participation grade on Piazza based on the number and relevance of the questions asked and the answers offered. This includes a single “student” response that can be edited by all and a single teacher response. Further discussion of a particular question is done using the discussion tracking tool. The teacher dedicates 10% of the course evaluation to a participation grade on Piazza based on the number and type of questions.

The evaluation of the course is based on 4 elements: participation (10%), a collective project (30%), collective assignments (30%), and an individual final exam (30%). The homework and the project are done in groups of 3 or 4 that the students form themselves. The proposed assignments are the same for all groups. They are done in a collaborative way on the GitHub platform. The project consists in the collective construction of a web application. The subject is left to the students to choose from (best equestrian center, choose a country or a city to party in, music quiz, optimization of a portfolio, application for wine lovers). The only constraint imposed is that they must use certain defined tools. They have to extract information from the web and develop an application. Each member of the group must then propose a personal presentation of the project, explain its interest and promote it (possible in the form of a video). The evaluation focuses on the programming of the application, the complexity of the project and the ability to collaborate on GitHub in a professional manner. The individual final exam, offered in the form of several in-class exercises, was proposed by the teaching team to add an individual component to the overall grade. The exercises consist of a programming task for which the students have free access to the internet and its resources.

Thoughts and advice

The teacher draws attention to the technical difficulties of setting up such a format. Indeed, the technical part, such as the management of a server, can be time consuming. However, the advantage of such an investment lies in the fact that it allows most of the tools created to be reused in subsequent years.

Another advantage of the tools chosen by the teacher for this course is that they fit very well with the target audience and different contents. For example, they are used not only with Bachelor students, but also with doctoral students. Indeed, the teacher uses the same approach on different contents in a course given in the doctoral program. This course integrates more mathematical notions than the Bachelor’s course. The doctoral students have codes and outputs to create the graphics they may need for the publication of an article. All the elements are provided to them on a website so that the course is an interaction between face-to-face and self-training on the website thanks to very complete slides and exercises. The evaluation of the course consists in the production of a small article allowing them to take stock of their knowledge and ask questions about what they did not understand.

Student feedback

“I think the class is even better online, as it is possible to have everything in your computer screen and take screenshots of the codes when needed. I do not think the course lost any quality moving to digital, on the contrary!” “It was a really well-organized course with a completed syllabus and customized textbook for the lectures. I really enjoyed utilizing online platforms such as Piazza and Github which I will definitely consider using for future projects. Also, homework was quite challenging but very practical so I was able to learn how R is used in real-life projects “for future projects. Also, homework was quite challenging but very practical so I was able to learn how R is used in real-life projects.” [Feedback freely translated from French] “Frankly, I am very happy to have chosen this course! Maybe the only one in the Bachelor’s program offering real skills for our future professional life. A continuation of this introductory course could really be interesting!”