What is Piazza?

1. What is Piazza? Piazza is a free online platform for class Q&A that replaces mailing lists and bulletin boards

2. Why Do Instructors Use Piazza? • Saves time • Fewer redundant questions • Faster workflow than email, newsgroups • Improves collaboration environment • More students’ posts, more students’ answers • Answers better, easier to find • Focuses effort • Instant understanding of what’s confusing • Ability to focus 1:1 on students who need help

3. Other Important Facts • Piazza is free • Piazza complies with FERPA • Anyone with a .edu can sign up at any time • You can enroll students directly by entering their emails or by sending them a special link • iOS and Android apps are now available

4. Key Tips for Success • Stop answering group questions via email • Post useful content on Piazza • Give positive feedback to participants

5. Piazza 101: The Dashboard Question Feed Question Panel Tags

6. Piazza 101: Question Feed Chronological organization makes it easy to keep on top of new content Filters let you focus immediately on unresolved or updated content Numbers in grey indicate how many updates since you last read this tells you whether an instructor has already responded, so you save time tells you when a student has responded, so you can quickly verify the answer Tells you a student’s response has been endorsed by an instructor, so you can rest easy

7. Piazza 101: Question Panel • Question • Asked by student • Instructors can edit, clarify • Students’ Response • Students and instructors edit together • Creates collective understanding • Can be endorsed by instructors • Instructors’ Response • Instructors edit collaboratively • Becomes source of truth when there’s doubt

8. Piazza 101: Follow-Ups Mark as resolved to avoid redundant effort Discussion capabilities for deeper dives into questions Responses come in real-time, like a chat room

9. Why It Works for Students • One answer means less searching • Lower barrier to asking questions • Lower barrier to a “partial” answer • Quick turn-around means high engagement “Piazza is the third tab, beside Facebook and mail, that students have open when they study”

10. Piazza 201: Tags • Let you, students categorize posts • Make finding, filtering topics easier • Anyone can create a tag by prepending a word with #

11. Piazza 201: Tags • Set up numbered tags for recurring themes • Problem sets, labs, exams • Prevent “tag sprawl,” e.g. #hw1 v. #homework1

12. Piazza 201: Privacy Students can post anonymously to their peers, so they feel free to post “dumb” questions Optionally, they can be anonymous to instructors Students may use partial names to maintain privacy

13. Piazza 201: Statistics Watch activity trends to see when students have more questions or when attention flags See which individual students (or instructors) are most active

14. How I Use Piazza • Check in 3-4 times per day for updates, encourage TA’s to do same • Look for questions with no response or only students’ response • Endorse students’ responses when possible • Encourage students to ask questions on Piazza after lecture, answer right away

15. Seminar/Readings Courses • Use students’ response to created shared understanding of class readings • Assign teams for each reading • Edit responses for clarity • Encourage pre- and post-seminar discussions • Use follow-up discussions to focus on readings • Use notes/questions for lecture questions