"It’s easy to scale the class while giving students the feedback they need to be successful."

Sarah Veatch is the Associate Director of Graduate Studies and Professor of Biophysics and Physics at the University of Michigan.

She teaches Introduction to Scientific Computing, an interdepartmental programming course that introduces students to Python. With around 75 students per semester, Sarah's goal is to develop computational literacy in her students, giving them the foundation to succeed in future courses and empowering them to work independently. “It opens up doors for students to do things independently,” she noted, calling it “a really valuable skill.”

The Challenges Before CodeGrade

Before adopting CodeGrade, Sarah’s course faced several hurdles. The class, initially only 20-30 students, was easier to manage. However, as enrollment increased, the process of manual grading became slow and inefficient. “Students didn’t get the immediate feedback they needed, and if they got something wrong, they could fix it—but it was a large amount of work.” The course’s reliance on Jupyter Notebooks and manual grading meant a heavy workload for instructors, and as the class scaled up, this was no longer feasible.

Finding the Right Solution

In search of an efficient tool, Sarah conducted extensive research before selecting CodeGrade. One of her colleagues highlighted the value of CodeGrade being a bespoke solution, emphasizing its personalized effort to help educators succeed.

She also appreciated the cost-effectiveness of the platform: “In the beginning, I was worried it was going to be more expensive than other options, but when we did the math, it worked out about the same or even cheaper.”

Sarah praised the support she received from the CodeGrade team, highlighting the fast responses to her questions, even when dealing with more complicated issues. “The support has been amazing—that was very helpful.”

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Transforming the Course

Since implementing CodeGrade, the course has grown significantly, while the effort required to manage and grade assignments has stayed manageable. “There was some work to get things set up, but once it was set up, the per-student effort scaled well.” Sarah is now exploring options to scale the course further next semester.

One significant change was moving from Jupyter Notebooks to using IDLE and CodeGrade’s online IDE, further streamlining the student experience. Sarah noted the flexibility of having assignments in smaller, manageable pieces, preventing students from becoming overwhelmed.

Another pivotal moment was discovering Pytest to test students' code. “We had been using I/O tests and code structure tests, but Pytest was much better suited to our course.” This addition provided students with more granular feedback and allowed them to improve their code progressively.

Positive Student Outcomes

The students have responded positively to the changes in the course, particularly to the real-time feedback. Qualitative surveys conducted at the end of the semester indicated that students felt they were learning much more than in previous iterations of the course.

She also noticed that students were more engaged with the questions—many taken from CodeGrade’s assignment bank and used as ungraded opportunities—because they received instant feedback and could improve without pressure. Coding can be daunting, so low-risk assignments are a great way to boost student confidence.

Sarah summarized the transformation: “It’s easy to scale the class while giving students the feedback they need to be successful.” With the growing number of students, CodeGrade has allowed Sarah to shift her team’s focus from manual grading to more student-centered support, which she believes is crucial to the course’s ongoing success.

Looking Ahead

With the foundational setup now established, Sarah is optimistic about continuing to expand the course. Thanks to CodeGrade, she can now focus on refining assignments rather than reinventing the wheel each semester. “The really good thing is that now, with limited resources for instructors, we can dedicate all of those people to student support rather than dealing with scoring.”