"That's one thing I really like about CodeGrade - how seamlessly all the pieces work together."

Overcoming the Challenges of Large Classes

At Stony Brook University, CS Undergraduate Program Director Kevin McDonnell faced significant challenges managing and grading assignments for large enrollment courses. In total, his freshman-level course (101) typically enrolls around 200 students, while the sophomore-level systems programming course (C course) sees over 150 students. In the past, Kevin used manual grading, as well as created scripts for grading. This can take a considerable amount of time, especially for larger assignments, meaning students had to wait to get their feedback.

Discovering the Perfect Solution

CodeGrade introduced a seamless and efficient grading process for Kevin’s courses. Automatic grade publishing to Brightspace's Gradebook ensured that students were always informed of their progress. For the freshman course, CodeGrade’s integration with Pytest made managing weekly assignments straightforward. Kevin explained for his Systems Programming course, that “CodeGrade was very good in letting me configure the image with the exact compiler and tools and libraries and everything that I needed. I was very satisfied.”
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Extra benefits for students

McDonnell emphasized the interactive features of CodeGrade, which he found highly advantageous for his students. He elaborated, "Overall, the feedback has been very positive. They appreciate the immediate feedback and knowing their grades. They can track their progress over time."

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Furthermore, CodeGrade’s Git integration caught his attention as a valuable tool for preparing students for various code-related roles. He commented, "That aspect has been immensely beneficial to me because it exposes students to a real-world code revision system."

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Extra benefits for teachers

When discussing the dozens of hours spent writing Python grading scripts, Kevin was happy with the time-saving benefits, noting that he spends half as much time compared to previous iterations of the courses. On top of that, CodeGrade’s setup helps him improve his coding skills. According to Kevin, “Your platform kind of steers the user, the instructor, into using a certain framework. It's a certain mindset which forces you to write cleaner code.”

Managing courses at scale

Kevin appreciates the flexibility of CodeGrade, especially with the diverse requirements of his various courses. "That's one thing I really like about CodeGrade - how seamlessly all the pieces work together." He added, "If you want a single word, it's been a game-changer for how I manage my courses at scale."