“CodeGrade is easy to use, the support is amazing and the product is really good."

Dr. Greg Longo is the Program Director for the Master’s in Data Science program and Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematical Sciences. He teaches multiple undergraduate and graduate courses, from Python Programming courses to a Data Analytics with R course, and has been using CodeGrade for these courses. 

The Principles of Python Programming course is taught 6 times a year for graduate students for the Data Science programs, it is a self-paced course that teaches the students the basics of Python through 22 autograded assignments. Many of these students have little programming experience starting the course and advance quickly.

Adopting CodeGrade to prevent headaches

This is the first year that Eastern University offers the Principles of Python Programming classes. Greg wanted to innovate right away: “We had a Python based Introduction to Data Science course before, for which we only had written exams and multiple choice quizzes, about programming. The students were taught a lot of basics, but never actually did any real coding themselves.” The way they evaluated the students did not work out: “We’d ask the students to put in their code in Brightspace, to try to simulate coding, and it was a complete disaster. There were so many different ways to solve the solutions, we had formatting errors, and much more. It was a real headache to grade code without actual coding assignments. This was the point I said: we need a better way to assess their actual coding.”

After he got in touch with the CodeGrade team, he knew that CodeGrade was exactly what he needed: “We got in touch with CodeGrade and it worked tremendously well. We could set up 22 autograded assignments for our new Python course and about 10 for our R course really smoothly. It just worked out super well!”

“CodeGrade was really smooth to start using, it did not take too long to figure out how to use it. We are not using it in the most advanced ways yet, but even that already substantially adds to the learning experience of the students.” The easy user interface and integration with Brightspace made the whole experience very smooth for Greg and his team: “The user interface is great and the Brightspace integration has been seamless. We’ve had no problems at all, it’s been really smooth. It’s great that everything is customizable by the instructor, that made it really easy for us to get our own assignments up and going without any help from anyone else.”

CodeGrade is helping students and instructors at Eastern University

The autograded assignments have already been paying off big time for Greg and his team: “I definitely see that it paid off in grading time saved: we have saved countless hours of grading. The students now submit their code and can right away see if it runs and if there are errors, they can then work on it themselves and do not have to wait for an instructor to give them feedback. With our 22 assignments, and in this term more than 60 students, who all submit about 8 or 9 times, it is thousands of total submissions attempts, no way we could have graded them manually ourselves! CodeGrade has saved a ton of time and effort for us, but has also been better for the students as they now get their feedback instantly.”

Greg also explains how much his students enjoy using CodeGrade: “Anytime students can do actual coding instead of written exams, they like that and want more of that. They want more CodeGrade essentially. They have been really enthusiastic about it, you usually don’t get a whole class, and it was not just one student! I had a live class last Wednesday, to help the students with an assignment in the R Data Analytics course, and the entire class of students told me that they wanted more CodeGrade assignments. I have never had students ask for more assignments before, until I started using CodeGrade!”

Course Design with CodeGrade

The programming courses at Eastern University have changed for the better since CodeGrade: “Next to the autograded assignments, we still have some more traditional written exams. But now we want to transfer anything that is related to code to CodeGrade assignments, and just have the written quizzes for theory that is harder to assess with practicals.” 

This has been working out very well for Greg so far: “We are able to take the concepts and theory they have learned, independent concepts, and put them together in one assignment for which the students have to utilize both. If I give a quiz about loops, the students will generally understand they have to use loops. But if you give them practical assignments, it requires more creativity from the students and decide which Python knowledge they have to use to solve this specific problem. This is great about CodeGrade, we don’t have these siloed quizzes, but assignments that combine them all. I think the students have recognized that having proper assessment works, they want more CodeGrade as part of their grade instead of more exams.”

CodeGrade is more than just a grading tool

When being asked about his experience with the support, Greg says: “I almost don’t want to say this, because it will give you a license to help us a little less [laughs], but we were shocked by how quickly and well the CodeGrade support team got back to us. You were wonderful in assisting us, we have full confidence that if we email you with a question, we will hear back from you really quickly.” He also mentions: “The monthly focus groups, especially the webinar on Python Autograding, have been really good, and the blogs have been really helpful. Everything has been great so far! The personal support alone would keep us coming back to CodeGrade, even if another tool would be more flashy or have more features, even though I would have no idea what that could be.”

Greg concludes with a recommendation to other institutions considering using CodeGrade: “CodeGrade is easy to use, the support is amazing and the product is really good. If you are looking for a way to provide your students more interactive assignments, with immediate feedback and in their own schedule, then CodeGrade is exactly what you need. It is almost like having a mini-teacher that is there for them, even if the real teachers are not available. They get feedback in a meaningful way when they’re using CodeGrade, which they would not get in a traditional way of assessment.”