Platform know-how (2022-10-25)

The Turing College platform breaks the barrier between standard educational learning methods and market demands. Our peer-to-peer learning model is transforming the way that students learn. There’s no more unnecessary information, confusing course structures or long waits for your grade. Study at your own pace, and if you are a fast learner, the platform won’t limit you!

You’ll find all the information you need about the platform on this page:.

• Navigation

• Modules

• Roadmap

• Sprint Parts

• Quiz

• The project

• Corrections

• Scheduling corrections

• Subscribe to calendar

• Canceling a correction or reporting no-show

• Give up project

• Earn points

• Perform correction

• Grades & past projects

• Accessing updated notebooks

Navigation

To make things easier, the orange color in the platform will inform you of the current step that you have to make. On the menu, orange is used to show which Sprint and which Part of it you have to do now.

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In the image above, you can see the "Machine learning" Module,  with its third Sprint in progress. The Sprint consists of 5 Parts, with the last Part being the practical graded project of the Sprint.

Modules

Each learner has 6 Module slots, Part of them are assigned to you, other slots give you the opportunity to select from multiple options. To navigate between Modules, you can use the dropdown shown in the image.

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You will see here a list of Module titles and a "Multiple Modules" option. This means that once you have completed all the previous Modules, you will be able to choose which one you want to do next from a list of options.

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Each Module in the list of selections comes with a pdf document that has already been prepared. In them you will find all the information you need to decide whether you want to choose the Module. To download these documents all you need to do is click on the download icon to the right of the Module title. 

1 Module can be assigned per slot.

Roadmap

The roadmap is a quick summary of your curriculum. It shows how many Modules you have, which Sprints you have already done, and how many are still to go before you complete your curriculum.

The example below shows that you have completed all four Sprints of the first Module.
If you hover over it, the tooltip will provide more information: Module name, the grade you received for the practical projects of that Sprint, the date when you finished it, and how many days it took to complete your Module.

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Sprint Parts

Each Sprint is divided into Parts. There are 2 types of them: the practical graded project and sub-project. The most common structure is 4 sub-project Parts, with the fifth Part being the practical graded project, which is graded. However in some cases, like specialisation Modules or introductory Sprints, this structure might differ.

Non-project Part

Here you will find summarized information and links to everything, that will be needed for your study to complete the Part and check how much you learned by taking a quiz.

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Google Colab - this is the place where all tasks are done. Once you’ve saved your progress in google Colab, you can then transfer the  information to Github by clicking “save a copy in Github”.

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Github - this is where your project will be stored.

To complete a non-project Part, you need to complete a quiz completion is required. The quiz page can be accessed by pressing the “Complete Part” button.

Quiz

The quiz can be performed only 1 time per Part.

So, it’s important that you are prepared for it before you do it.

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Most quizzes consist of 10 questions. 6 questions will be about your current part, 4 from the previous Parts.

Quiz results have no impact on your Sprint grade, but it's still advised that you prepare for them carefully. This will help you to indicate how much you managed to learn and what topics were a struggle for you.

The project Part

This is an essential Part of the Turing College curriculum. Each project involves a practical task which you need to complete to move further through the curriculum. This is the main goal and activity of most of the Sprints.

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The project is the final step needed to complete your Sprint. It’s here that you’ll perform the tasks in Google Colab and get evaluated by others. This is called the Corrections process, and to move forward you will need to get a grade of at least 70 out of 100.

Corrections

Correction sessions are a way for learners to learn how to present their projects, as well as review others' work.

The Corrections system is supported by correction points. Every student has an initial amount of correction points. To arrange a Correction, you need to open up the section of the project page which lists all the available correction timeslots, and then select a suitable time slot.

After the correction has been completed, you will have to pay a correction point, which is then transferred to the corrector automatically. Every time someone needs correction points (in order to have their own project corrected), they need to create correction time slots and wait for the system to assign someone to correct.

Every project must be corrected multiple times (defined per project) and some of them might need to be done by Senior Team Leads (defined per project).

Senior Team Leads (STL) corrections will be the reference point for most learners in respect to how corrections should be performed. And in the event of any grade objections, it will be simpler to analyze the issue with the STL.

You can read more about corrections here.

Scheduling corrections

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Once you have submitted your project, the correction buttons become active and brightly visible, making it easier for you to decide what action must be taken next.

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All you have to do is click on the corrections button and the calendar will open with available time slots. Simply select the time slot most convenient for you and the system will then assign you a student or STL who will be responsible for correcting your work.

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The scheduled correction will be shown in your “Availability calendar” and “My schedule” widget.

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15 minutes before the event, when clicking on the event a modal will open. There you will be able to join the zoom waiting room and see who will grade your project.

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Subscribe to calendar

You can synchronize your Turing Calendar with the calendar of your choice e.g. Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and so on. The button can be found on the upper right corner of the platform.

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The instructions will be given in the platform, or you can go directly to this link to learn how to subscribe to the calendar. It’s a very quick process.

Once you subscribed to the calendar, make sure you have notifications settings set in the calendar of your choice so it will notify you 10 minutes before the event starts. This will help you avoid forgetting the event or being late for your meetings.

For notifications in the Google calendar: Go to settings > select your calendar account on the left > Event notifications > Add notification

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For notifications in the Apple calendar: Preferences> Alerts> Events

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If you are using another calendar for which you would like to have a guide on how to set notifications. Please contact us in the Discord channel #product_support

Canceling a correction or reporting a no-show

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If you are unable to attend a correction that you have already scheduled, you can cancel it before the event starts. However, if it’s a correction for your project, the point that you spent scheduling won’t be returned.  Please only use the cancellation feature when strictly necessary, as cancellations can negatively impact your peer’s plans, and you will need to provide a concrete explanation for each cancellation. 

If the event has already started, but the peer is not present, you should reach out to them through discord. If you have waited for 5 minutes and there is still no reply, you can report a “No-show”.

Give up project

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Imagine a situation, where you have submitted your project but made a critical error that needs to be fixed. In such a situation, you have already submitted the project and, therefore, can’t change it. For instance: during the first correction, you realize that you have made a huge mistake. In such situations, it’s better to give up the project, rather than waste your and your peer’s time on a call that won’t be able to provide feedback because the project has already crashed.

Once you have given up the project, the process will be set to retry in the platform. You will then be able to fix your project and submit it once more. Once this is done, you’ll be able to schedule corrections and use your points once again. It’s important to remember, however, that points that have already been spent cannot be refunded. 

Earn points

Every time someone needs correction points, they create correction time slots and wait for the system to assign someone to you.

The amount of correction points you have are always visible on the navigation bar and in your availability calendar. 

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To gain more correction points you need to schedule times when you are available to correct others. By doing so, your peers will be able to register for your corrections.

For missed corrections sessions there will be penalties.

Perform correction

Each correction is scheduled to take up to 45 minutes.

The zoom link will be generated 15 minutes before the event and you will be able to see who you will correct.

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During the correction session, you will get links to the student’s GitHub history, a list of correction questions, and clear guidelines for how to rate each answer.

Grades & past projects

Each project grade consists of the number of correction grades.

All grades will be visible in the project page and in the menu on the left.

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Through the menu on the left you will be able to access your old projects pages, where you will be able to review your quizzes, learning materials, and grades from corrections.

Accessing updated notebooks

Our content team is regularly working on improving the curriculum based on your feedback. For example, if a large number of learners find a Part of a course confusing, some extra explanations, resources and exercises may be added. Sometimes, issues with  content need to be fixed as well - for example, a link might stop working, or we might simply find a typo that we may have missed.

In such cases, we will update our interactive jupyter notebooks. However, if the update is done once you have already received your own copy,  on which you have started working on, we will not be able to update your copy - it will be based on the older version.  In these cases, you still have the ability to see the most up-to-date version. If you encounter an issue in the notebook that you have, we therefore recommend first checking if the newest notebook still has the issue. Here is how to do this:

• Go to the github page of the subproject/project that you are interested in:

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• Click on the “generated from” link under the title:

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• Open the updated notebook:

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At this point you will see the most up-to-date notebook (without any of your changes - these are in the original notebook that you still have access to). If you would like to start working on this updated notebook and save your progress there, you can open it in Google Colab and save a copy of it in your GitHub repository:

• To open the updated notebook in Google Colab, copy the URL of the updated notebook, go to https://Colab.research.google.com/, select “GitHub”, paste the URL that you copied & click search:

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• Save a copy in GitHub (make sure you select your repository) - in Google Colab, select File → Save a copy in GitHub → Select your repository → OK.

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An overview

https://www.loom.com/share/2342660cefca420489000a6363a4eb94?sharedAppSource=team_library

If you have any questions, bug reports or issues with the platform please contact

Community team to answer all your question: wellbeing@turingcollege.com
For platform related issues and bug reports: support@turingcollege.com

If you would like to report content issues, use https://tsociety.typeform.com/to/r3jJeFs9