"Coding is like learning a sport. You have to practice repeatedly to improve."

Grading Thousands of Assignments

Leslie Hendrix, a Clinical Professor in the Management Science Department at the Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, faced significant challenges in managing and grading assignments for her large statistics course. With three sections each semester, coordinating the course for approximately 1,700 students per academic year was a huge task. She chose CodeGrade to support her course.‍

Finding the Right Tool

‍Leslie was on the hunt to make grading more efficient. "We were having them turn in their R scripts and manually grading, them which was super duper tedious!', she explained. To get assistance, students would get in touch via email or visit the data lab; both of which required significant time. Assignments would take longer to complete, leaving students more frustrated. Leslie needed a solution that would streamline the grading process and provide real-time feedback to students.
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"CodeGrade fell in my lap through another project, and I immediately saw that it was going to solve a huge problem we were having," Leslie mentioned. The auto-grading feature of CodeGrade allowed students to submit their code and receive instant feedback, drastically reducing the volume of grading for instructors.‍‍

Transforming Course Management

‍Implementing CodeGrade significantly improved the management and assessment of Leslie's course. "CodeGrade has really saved a lot of time for the instructors. Our visits to the data lab have decreased because students get real-time feedback and don't need to wait for help," Leslie highlighted. This immediate feedback helped students practice coding more effectively.

Real-time feedback has allowed Leslie to alter the set up of her assignments, making smaller and more modular steps that walk students through concepts more. And, with this reduction of grading time, they can even include more complex projects in future iterations of the course.

Key Features That Made a Difference

Leslie emphasized several features of CodeGrade that stood out. "The ability to customize the feedback students get when they submit certain code structures and the unlimited attempts," she noted. Additionally, Leslie appreciated the ease of writing comments directly on the code, which provided clear guidance for students to correct their mistakes. "I love how easy it is to help them by writing comments directly on the code, and students like that too - no more screenshots!"

Positive Student Feedback

Students responded positively to the changes brought by CodeGrade. Students are accomplishing the same results as before with much less hassle. The feedback loop provided by automatic grading has led to a boost in assignment completion rates, as students keep coming back to maximize their scores. In Leslie’s words, "More students are learning more!"

In a nutshell

When asked to summarise her experience, Leslie said that CodeGrade solves problems for the instructors as well as the students.  The support from the CodeGrade team stood out, “It’s easy to get help when I need it” and there is immense value from autograded assignments -  'It's really saved a lot of time for the instructors - I can't overemphasize that!”