Piazza | Digital & Technology Solutions

Overview

Piazza is a Q&A platform integrated with Bruin Learn, encouraging instructor and student engagement. All questions and answers are contained in one community space, thereby eliminating redundant emails from students. Students can post a question in Piazza to the entire class or the instructor only. Students also have the option to post anonymously. Instructors have access to the Piazza Class at a Glance Dashboard that displays a snapshot of any unresolved posts and unanswered questions from students.

Piazza enables instructors and students to collaboratively edit a solution to a problem using a wiki-style format, creating one high-quality answer and avoiding dozens of disconnected comments.

Piazza is an ideal Q&A platform for courses that include many math or programming questions, as it incorporates a LaTeX editor for writing equations and a Markdown editor that supports writing code blocks with syntax highlighting.

Primary Benefits

For Instructors and TAs

Instructors can easily communicate with students and provide announcements and clarification on course material within a centralized space.
Piazza features a Rich Text Editor with a robust LaTeX and Markdown editor.
Instructors and students can use the Rich Text Editor to upload images, add links, and share videos to enhance discussion.
Posts from students are highlighted and easy to find.
Instructors can endorse questions and comments from students.
Instructors can create and post polls to the class. The Piazza polling feature includes the option for anonymous responses.
Instructors can review analytics on student usage. This data can help instructors review the level of participation in Piazza discussions.

For Students

Students receive a notification once their question is answered.
Students have the option to post anonymously to discussions.
Students can edit their questions and answers using a user-friendly wiki-style editor, enabling easy revisions and improvements.
The Class at a Glance dashboard displays a link to unread posts and answers to questions, providing students with a simple way to navigate to any posts needing attention.