Table of contents
What is Piazza?
Piazza is an ELMS-Canvas integration that facilitates interaction among students and instructors in an efficient and intuitive manner. This tool is effective in cases where collaborative problem-solving is encouraged by the instructor. Math and Science instructors find Piazza especially useful due to its rich coding abilities: however, Liberal Arts courses also benefit from its fluid structure.
Advantages
- A wiki-style form that enables collaboration in a single space.
- Features LaTeX editor highlighted syntax and code blocking.
- Questions and posts needing immediate action are highlighted.
- Instructors endorse answers to keep the class on track.
- Anonymous posting encourages every student to participate.
- Highly customizable online polls.
- Integrates with ELMS-Canvas.
- Mobile app available.
Add Piazza to your ELMS-Canvas course
Piazza is available as an integration in ELMS-Canvas. Piazza is a great alternative to students' sending questions to instructor email. It is recommended to integrate Piazza in ELMS-Canvas for easy student enrollment.
- Click on the Settings link on the course navigation bar.
- Click on the Navigation tab at the top of the Settings page.
- Drag the Piazza link over the Drag items… text to activate it on the Course Navigation.
- Click the Save button at the bottom of this page.
Activate a Piazza assignment in your course
Once the Piazza link is added to the navigation bar, the Piazza assignment can be added to your course.
- Click on the Piazza link on the navigation bar.
- The setup page is visible. Your course information is displayed as illustrated in the image below.
- Type in the estimated enrollment.
- Click on the Create New Piazza Class link.
- When students first click the Piazza link, a confirmation code is sent to their email which will enable them to access the Piazza discussion for the duration of the course.
Support
- Email at itsupport@umd.edu to learn more about best practices for using Piazza.
- Contact 24/7 Piazza Customer Support concerning any technical issues that might arise within using the tool (students or instructors) for same day response, usually within the hour.
- For more information on Piazza setup, see Quick Start Guide PDF and the Getting Started with Piazza video.