An online Q&A forum designed specifically for teaching
- get faster responses - get responses from both the instructor and students
- lets students benefit from others' questions - classmates may ask something you never even thought to ask
- removes barriers for students who may be shy or hesitant to actively participate
- provides a single, organized place for all course communication -- they are searchable, filterable, starrable, and persist throughout the semester and after it is over
- ensures all questions get answered satisfactorily -- unanswered and unresolved questions are clearly marked which prevents issues with emails getting lost or forgotten
- allows easy code and math formatting in questions and answers
Yes, Piazza is required. Important announcements will be posted on Piazza and it is your responsibility to monitor Piazza for these announcements. If you have a question/concern, please post on Piazza rather than emailing the professor to ensure you receive the fastest response. To make sure all students benefit equally, questions in emails may be redirected to be posted to Piazza.
- Creating a post: Simply press "New Post" in the upper left, choose "question" if you want a response or "note" if no response needed (like posting a link to a resource you found helpful). Fill in the question title ("Summary") and full question text, and post!
- Answering questions: Select a question and edit or add the "Students" answer.
- Followups: If a question is closely related, or you or another student want further clarification, post a followup below the question which can be answered with replies.
- Email frequency: In your settings, you can change how frequently you receive emails with the exception of some important instructor announcements which will spam out emails regardless of settings.
Yes -- in almost all cases. Even if you don't think another student has the same question, please post publicly unless:
- it is about you specifically (illness, grades, etc)
- it is absolutely necessary to post large chunks of code or solutions in order to ask your question (basically don't give away the answer in a public post).
If you are more comfortable, you always have the opportunity to post your question anonymously to your classmates.
A good question is one that clearly describes the issue (what the problem is or what you don't understand), what you have tried so far, and what you are currently thinking. Without knowing what a student is thinking, it's hard to identify what they are misunderstanding. It's hard to help students learn with questions like "How do I do X?". By describing what you've tried, what your thinking and what your approach is (even if your current approach isn't along the right track) I can identify where the misunderstanding is and tailor my answer.
That depends -- while Piazza is a fantastic resource, it is not always the best venue for helping students debug code and is not a complete substitute for office hours. For instance, simply posting all of your code and asking what is wrong will likely be redirected to office hours to walk through it together in a more back and forth conversation. (Plus if you post all your code, I will remove the post - try to help others, not answer the question(s) for them.)
On the other hand, Piazza can be great for going through and potentially correcting the general approach of a coded solution that you can describe in words. It is also very appropriate if you can isolate the issue down to a few lines of code not behaving as anticipated.